When it comes to proving the value of a digital marketing strategy, ROI is the keyword all executives want to hear. It may seem a simple enough request, but calculating ROI for marketing endeavors can get pretty tricky.
While ROI is definitely important, there’s a different way to think about ROI that’s critical for marketers; the foundation that a strong initial marketing strategy can provide for all future marketing endeavors.
While it may seem minimal compared to the numerical value that marketing strategy can provide a company, it’s important to remember that the work done in an initial marketing strategy can make or break any future marketing efforts.
Why Strategy Lays Important Groundwork
It’s easy to espouse demographic information about a brand. For example, the majority of Oreos purchasers are women between the ages of 35 to 50 who have children. But what does that information mean? This explains a core distinction between digital marketing strategy v. traditional marketing efforts.
For traditional marketing, this information is simple enough for Nabisco to decide to put out a commercial, during daytime hours for stay-at-home moms that heavily features children enjoying Oreos.
For digital marketing, the approach is more complex. From this demographic information, what do we know about these moms? Where do they spend their time online? What does their buyer’s journey look like? What is a deciding factor in their purchase?
As Oreo is an established brand with years of name recognition under its belt; it’s unlikely that they would have to seriously consider these factors in order to find marketing success. For other companies entering the world of digital marketing, this information is “make or break.”
Knowing the important factors of your digital marketing strategy are important not only in your first campaign but campaigns developed down the road. When this information is not addressed upfront, it could lead to catastrophe, forcing marketers to return to step one.
Noticing Different Sorts of Marketing Numbers
While it can be different to assign a dollar value to marketing ROI or ROMI (Return on Marginal Investment), without having a direct finance background, there are still numbers that are important to the marketer more focused on marketing and results than the value of the marketing.
For example, 82% of marketers who blog daily acquire a customer via their blog versus the 57% of marketers who only blog monthly. Or nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads. These statistics are developed from the analysis of a widespread amount of marketing data and are incredibly important as marketers decide what tactics work well for their strategy. For example, knowing that blogging daily can have a large effect on the chances of customer acquisition is helpful. It may even lead to a heavier blog focus in a group’s digital marketing strategy. But if persona research suggests that the key personas won’t read a blog, it might be wiser for the strategy to put less an emphasis on blogging.
While marketing statistics aren’t a guarantee that a tactic will work for all marketers, they do allow us to see important trends. Though innovation is important in marketing, it’s also vital that you’re not constantly seeking to reinvent the wheel. By utilizing trusted statistics, marketers can make educated decisions about the tactics to funnel their efforts to.
Assigning value to marketing efforts doesn’t have to be solely numerical. Instead, it’s important for marketers to understand that marketing strategy offers an important starting point to all future endeavors. A digital marketing strategy also offers ROI that is not necessarily easily measured but impactful all the same.
