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.