What's Your Marketing Return on Investment?

Your marketing ROI?
What should be your return on investment with a successful marketing plan?

Now, let's start by saying it's tough to project your return on investment. You can run different scenarios.

Step 1 Determine the revenue that 1 customer brings you.

A restaurant's average customer may bring $ 15 per person. But if 1 person comes back 5 - 6 times per year then 1 customer may return almost $ 100.

A hardware store's average customer may bring $32 per person. By the way, when I worked for Home Depot a couple of years ago Home Depot reported their average ticket price at $ 57 per customer.

A chiropractor's average patient may return about $ 1,000 per year.

Step 2 Determine how many customers currently refer business.

This expands the value of each customer. For every 100 customers you have, how many of them will refer a new customer?

It also reduces the cost of acquiring a new customer.

Step 3 Determine how much you're going to spend on your total marketing budget.

Some costs, such as web development, may not be budgeted 100% for the acquisition of new customers.

Let's say with web development, search engine optimization, display print ads and more, your total budget in a year costs $ 20,000.

So now, if you want a 1:1 return you know how many new customers you need to have. A restaurant may need 200 new customers for a 1:1 return on the same budget whereas the chiropractor may only need 20 new patients for the same ratio.

Step 4 Now Evaluate the Tools You Really Need

So now, determine the marketing tools and strategies you really need. A restaurant may benefit from a simple web site of only a few pages but a much stronger local internet search marketing effort. The chiropractor may choose to spend more on a complex web site and add features like a newsletter that can be forwarded on.

Determining the marketing return on investment for your business will really depend on the number and type of clients you need.

Does Business Networking Work?

Business networking -- does it really help to win new business? Or is it just a time intensive way of handing out business cards with the hope that someone will call you?

Let me give you an example of a networking event that produced two new web projects for a client of mine and may result in additional ones in the months ahead.

In December of '07, I attended an early morning seminar on doing business in the Hispanic market at a local television studio in Van Nuys. KFWB-AM and Washington Mutual were sponsoring the seminar.

I grabbed my coffee, a bagel and walked through the crowd chatting and shaking hands.

I caught the attention of one person who gave me his card, I briefly explained what my client did in web development. He mentioned he was on the board of directors of a non-profit and they needed their web site revised.

We went on. I stayed in touch with him through January and in February I was in touch with a woman who was heading up the project. I connected her with my client with whom I worked on putting together a proposal.

By March, they had the project. The non-profit was for a corporate organization that helps people advance in their careers.

That proposal led to a second proposal with an engineering firm that needed their web site overhauled. That project was awarded in July.

Both projects totalled about $ 20,000. Not bad for an initial 1-minute conversation.

A third project may come in the next month or two.

Follow-up was required in order to make both projects happen.

Marketing author Dan Kennedy says "everyone can show up once." I heard him speak a few months back in Anaheim. He said the secret to doing business in a slow economy is to consistently follow-up.

Do you do a good job of showing up at business networking events? If so, great.

But how is your follow-up? Do you have a consistent way to follow-up new leads not just one or two times . . . but five, six and seven times? Or more?

If not, find ways to make follow-up happen.

I'll be exploring this in the weeks ahead and will post on effective ways to follow-up with new business leads to make business networking more effective.

Your Marketing Program: Part 1

Develop a customized marketing program for your business by evaluating your marketing tools and efforts using the following categories:

Marketing Plan, Approach, Budget - Your Baseline

A first step in the plan is to ask how many more customers do you want or need?

Many business owners aren't easily able to answer this question. One in the personal care industry recently told me she already had a good customer base of 100 or more customers and she just wanted to add to the number.

A business owner should at least know basic numbers: 12-month sales records, web site visits and where most of the current customers originate. Then a plan can be developed on this knowledge.

Once those numbers and facts are in place, they provide the measurement for future activities.

How do you want marketing to leverage your time and present benefits to your clients?

Another business owner, in the health care profession, has several partners and he wasn't sure about the number of patient visits per year but it was in the 10,000 visits per year.

This particular owner told me he wants to automate his marketing efforts.

So I'm going to propose a plan that will address his need.

But to propose a plan, his marketing tools need to be evaluated. And this includes the corporate web site.

I'm a firm believer that the corporate web site should act as the communication hub.

More on evaluating marketing tools in my next post.

Critical Element of the Marketing Message

Great offers, well-produced marketing tools, and a dose of healthy relationships are important.

But one thing is even more important in marketing success.

It' easy to overlook when immersed in the details of creating a budget, tools and figuring out how to distribute your message. But without this, your potential customers are going to slip away.

And that is -- are you clearly asking them to do business with you?

Alright, I'm going to go review my own website Right Touch Marketing & Media to see if I'm following my own advice.

I don't think I'm giving my visitors a clear idea of what I want them to do. I present an overview of my business on the home page, I break down the services but really there is no compelling message to make them stay and do business with me.

Oops. Gotta change that.

But that's okay. There are important principles to follow and develop in marketing. But if you're not perfect that's no problem. You can always go back to evaluate and revise your marketing message.

Marketing Strategies You Must Know

The right message, in the right media, aimed at the right audience will produce new relationships and new sales.

That is the premise of Right Touch Marketing & Media and other successful marketers. So how do you know if you're on track with all three conditions?

The Right Message
You can build your message with a series of assessment questions you can ask yourself. You want to show the customer how you benefit them.

What do you provide in your business? Why do people buy from you? Why don't they buy from you? Who is your best customer or client?


The Right Media
From brochures, web sites or one-page web sites, to online articles and advertising in community papers, there are many media options to select. Choosing a mix depends on your goals and your business cycle.

For some companies, like exterminators in Southern California, business usually drops off in the winters months. To keep their technicians, they may run specials in local media to keep customers using them, or they may deliver a well-written one page fact sheet to show how to take preventive measures during an off-season.


The Right Audience
Do you have a core profile of the people who do business with you or in your store? If you know where they come from and how they reach you then you can continue tapping in to them as a source.
This is your "perfect client" or "perfect customer."


Warning: experimenting is still required to make sure the ingredients are being properly used. But rather than just go "market" your business, this approach will help bring an objective view and help develop a marketing budget and expectations for success.

Marketing Tips: Use Holidays to Differentiate

Canadian Thanksgiving is just around the corner! Congratulations to our neighbors to the north. When is the last time you used Canadian Thanksgiving as a reason to tell others about your business.

Let me guess . . .

Never!

And probably for good reason. How in the world can you draw a connection between your business and Canadian Thanksgiving?

Here are some ideas.

Gift baskets - send a gift basket to your best customer(s)with a brief note explaining how Canadian Thanksgiving is celebrated and how Canada, just like our own country, was founded with perseverance and today is a place of freedom.

Then mention how you appreciate the opportunity to do business together and you always welcome referrals.

I attended a marketing session last night with a local chapter of the Glazer-Kennedy Insider's Circle.

A doctor uses holiday promotions in his business and he wrote up a letter on National Pistachio Nut Day -- which is February 26 -- and National Siblings Day which, of course, is April 10.

His use of what he calls "Bizarre Holiday Promotions" achieved a 300% increase in referrals within a calendar quarter.

He uses gift baskets in conjunction with the holiday fact. He can do this cost effectively since his customer base is all within a 3-mile radius.

However, send out postcards for those farther away with an unusual holiday greeting.

Do people really care about odd holidays? That doesn't matter.

Think of it as a reason to stay in touch with your constituents -- both loyal customers/clients and prospective customers/clients.

You can find a listing of little known holidays and celebrations through the Chase's Calendar of Events in your reference section at the library or online. Or, type in "holidays around the world" in Google and some excellent reference sites will pop up.

You're also differentiating yourself from competitors through finding an unusual way to build or maintain positive relationships. And finding creative ways to stay in touch with your target clientele is what makes marketing effective.