Gathering metrics which tell the return on investment (ROI) for a particular campaign, strategy or business event is pivotal to the success of business operations. Doing so makes you aware whether your firm is getting the intended outcomes, and can enable a fast course change when the numbers start shifting the wrong way.
Measurement and evaluation are crucial for any marketing campaign. Measurement makes some individuals quite nervous because it brings responsibility into the marketing activity. However, this process could be a marketer’s best friend because if you do not measure the impact of your marketing efforts, you will have no insight whether what you are doing is effective or not.
On the contrary, when you measure the impact, it will help you understand what is working, and how and where to enhance your efforts. By its nature, marketing is a very dynamic field, as people change and markets change. What works pleasingly this year might be a total flop next year, and vice versa.
Importance of measuring your marketing ROI
Did you know that businesses calculate their ROI on many various department projects? In marketing, ROI is considered a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) which measures the level of success of a particular initiative over time as well as performance based on a pre-determined goal.
You see, ROI is a gauge to assess the real impact of all your marketing investments – whether on your bottom or top line or any other goal you set for your company. In short, measuring your company’s ROI enables you to locate which marketing campaigns work and which don’t. Therefore, you will be able to align your efforts and budget better.
Measuring your marketing impact
If you construct a marketing plan, you develop objectives, tactics, and strategies. Without it being your KPI only, the ROI will allow you to know whether or not your marketing strategies reach your goals. Understanding the ROI of every marketing strategy helps you make smart decisions, including stopping or continuing a campaign, altering your overall strategy, or adjusting some initiatives which are producing lacklustre outcomes. In short, your ROI is pivotal in measuring your overall marketing impact.
The majority of companies monitor the ROI of all their departments rigorously – and marketing is no exception. Take note that your marketing plays a crucial role in boosting the brand value, client loyalty, customer acquisition, notoriety, revenues, and the economic growth of your organisation. As you can see, marketing ROI could be measured on different fronts.
ROI of online campaigns
When we talk about online marketing, measuring ROI is not only about money or time. For instance, an online marketing campaign is frequently made to increase awareness on the web or social media. The number of individuals reached or followers could be KPIs you wish to track.
If you wish to enhance your customer service on social media, you might consider offering your staff a target average response period of X minutes by the end of the following quarter. For your web staff, you might prefer to measure the evolution of the conversion rates of your website over time. Output measures such as clip counts, Advertising Value Equivalents (AVEs) etc. have been used traditionally.
This should not only be the measure of success as some of these traditional “vanity” measurements have been widely discredited. Communication measurement and evaluation should link business and communication objectives to an eventual business impact. We, therefore, prefer using the AMEC Integrated Evaluation Framework.
Introducing AMEC Integrated Evaluation Framework
The framework created by AMEC (the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication) is a practical tool that assists organisations to plan and connect communication activities to organisational goals – making communication part of the strategic process. But not just that – it is also a guide to the best practices and theoretical frameworks.
It is also a convenient device with which to work through the evaluation and measurement process. The Integrated Evaluation Framework is an instructive benchmark for the quality which the methods must include. Today the excellence to which the communication industry aspires to is apparent, because it is constructed into the tool we employ to perform the work.
Here’s how AMEC Integrated Evaluation Framework works:
The AMEC Integrated Evaluation Framework was launched in 2016 and is already available in 21 different languages including Chinese and Arabic to Russia, German, Spanish, French, and English. This free online resource has seen an enormous adoption across the world as it clarifies best evaluation and measurement practices.
AMEC is one of the globe’s leading authorities on directing communications professionals in the latest research and thinking about the measurement of communications and public relations. PR measurement is understood to be demanding in as much as there are numerous elements, often insubstantial ones, which must be factored. The new framework offers a significant tool for constructing the process.
This November 2018, AMEC is hosting its fifth annual Measurement Month. The initiative sees many events across the world which strive to educate public relations and communication practitioners regarding the current best-practices in measuring the effectiveness of their PR campaigns and communication. Ornico has been an active participant in South Africa and the rest of the continent since this initiative was launched in 2014.
Measuring ROI of your campaigns offers your organisation valuable insight into the success of past and existing drives and what might work in the future. There is always more to learn, to absorb, to test and more to achieve.
Founding OrnicoGroup in 1984, Oresti Patricios now fronts an organisation of more than 180 dedicated individuals that services the top 300 local advertisers – either directly or through their agencies – and various other private and governmental clients. Ornico partners with brands to provide insights and intelligence to help them grow their market share, in South Africa and across the African continent.
