Does it deliver an ROI?

Wary possible client: How do I know which marketing activities deliver an ROI?

Us: We don’t.

Wary Possible Client: What?

Us: Here’s an example:

A client of ours works in financial services. His potential clients are accountants; protected by zealous gatekeepers, sceptical, and overmarketed.

But they have an attractive life-time value. Once they become clients, on average, they stick for over eight years. Their cumulative spend will be in the $’00,000s.

Two years ago, he hosted a series of educational breakfasts. We promoted them via direct mail to local accountants. None of them had any pre-existing contact with the business.

Two future clients, John and David, attended an event.

They went onto the mailing list, received regular newsletters and invitations to live webinars. They opened the occasional newsletter, and David attended a webinar.

Four months ago, John responded to a Facebook ad. Which led to an extended conversation. Two months later, John became a client.

This week David, a friend of John’s, also became a client.

So, which of those activities do you think achieved the outcome?

Possible Client: The Facebook ad.

Us: How can you tell?

What if all the other activity had not happened?

What if there was no level of brand awareness... Built up over time through repeated exposure and thought-provoking articles.

Would John, a jaded business owner, have responded to a tactical social media campaign in his Facebook feed?

Possible Client: Now that you put it like that, I’m not sure.

Us: We get the desire for certainty; it’s seductive. But attribution of results is always fraught. Yet, without that how can you determine ROI?

Guthy Renker is a US direct marketing company with an annualised turnover of over US$1 Billion. They measure everything.

They have fifteen PhD-level Ivy League trained analysts. With powerful data crunching capabilities and models. The moment activities go multi-channel, through time, the best they can produce is vague probabilities.

Measuring is great. It is important, and provides focus, but there are so many variables you can’t measure or control.

At the core of this, we are dealing with people. And people are less predictable than we think, or than business owners want.

People rarely behave in a cause-effect manner.

They are slow to change. And for bigger decisions they can take many months, or years, to make a move.

So why do you expect it of your marketing?

The only valid question is – does the totality of marketing activity deliver a return?

Ours does.

If you’d like to bring in more enquiries to your business, give us a call. It all starts with a conversation.

Contact Alex on 02 4023 5958 or email alex@deliveringresults.com.au.