Making Marketing Decisions: Easy? No! Difficult? Yes!
Recently, we had a tradeshow for the Trailer Division, the Draggins Car Show. The hours were horrible for those working the booth: Good Friday from 10 am to 10 pm and Saturday 10 am to 10 pm, with move out 10 pm to 1 am that night. Goodbye weekend! For the most part, during those two 12 hour days, the show was busy. I personally worked about half of the hours and post show I began to reflect upon whether this show was worth our while to do again next year.
I will admit, shows can have an off-year, so I shouldn’t just base a decision on one year. But that being said, what should I base my decision on? There is the obvious metric that all managers ask when you are back in the office Monday morning – “Did you make any sales?” But besides this “in your face”, black and white measurement, what else should be taken into account? And to be fair, depending on the industry, is it realistic to expect sales at a tradeshow? For instance, with trailers, there is still the lingering misperception from management to “sell it at the show so you will not have to drag it back to the dealership!” Sure, but let’s stop and think things through…first the customer has to register and get plates, and second we like to conduct a professional PDI..and a show is not an environment for either of these conditions to occur. As a result, sales happen after the show for the Trailer Division. But I digress….
What else matters besides sales?
- How about the amount of leads generated? This is a good metric because leads can convert into sales, plus other mediums generate leads, so it is an objective metric that can be compared against other marketing mediums.
- How about Brand Impressions? How many eyeballs saw the Flaman Trailer Booth at the show? Brand impressions is used in many other forms of advertising( billboards, TV, Print) so why not for tradeshows?
- How about this soft measurement – building relationships with customers by being accessible at a tradeshow to interact with.
Great, now we have several metrics, but how do we rate them? If we want to get cold and analytical it really comes down to calculating ROI and measuring one medium versus another.
- Cost per lead =Entire Tradeshow Costs/# of leads i.e. $5000/20= $250.00 CPL
- Cost for Sale = Entire cost of show/# of sales i.e. $5000/10 = $500.00 CPS
- ROI% = (GMC – Entire cost of show )/Entire cost of show i.e. ($20,000 – $5000)/$5000 = (3 )* 100 or 300 % ROI
A point to be aware of is that we aim to at least break even on all our marketing initiatives as a minimum requirement so that equals 0% ROI. Otherwise you are spending more than you are making and that
does not work in private industry!
Another point to consider: if you calculate all your ROI for different marketing methods/mediums (Web, Print, Radio, TV, Mobile, In store POS, Highway signage, tradeshows) and you know which are the most cost effective, should you trim the least effective out? Or is that medium perhaps the only way in which certain customers are reached? For instance, even today, not everyone goes on the web, not everyone reads certain print publications, perhaps the only way to reach a large portion of your customer base is through a tradeshow that they attend once a year.
The last point about metrics is they are also a measurement to gauge your effectiveness in the medium. If you are not generating the required ROI in a medium does that mean the medium is wrong or does it mean your marketing is lacking? Measuring marketing is not easy..and my advice is not to lament about how hard it is, just get better at it for your business.
Steve Whittington is President of Roadmap Agency Inc. He has also served for over a decade as a member of the Executive Team of Flaman Group of Companies an award-winning organization and has over 25 years of executive experience. Steve’s current board work includes serving as; President of Glenora Child Care Society; and Co-Chair of the Marketing Program Advisory Committee for NAIT’s JR Shaw School of Business. Previous notable board work included, Chair of the board for Flaman Fitness Canada, a national retailer, a Director for a meal prep internet Startup Mealife and Chair of Lethbridge Housing authority, the third-largest Social housing NGO in Alberta.
Academically, Steve was an instructor of Project Management at Lethbridge College for seven years. Steve holds a Bachelor of Commerce Honours degree; he is a Certified Sales Professional (CSP), Project Management Professional (PMP), Certified Marketing Specialist (CMS) and (CCXP) Certified Customer Experience Professional.
Steve’s first book Thriving in the Customer Age – 8 Key Metrics to Transform your Business Results teaches about the customer journey and provides a guiding framework spanning all stages of the customer experience. The book explains how every metric impacts an organization and how leaders can best utilize each metric to provide a stellar customer experience. Everyone knows the customer is the most important part of a business. This book provides the tools to improve an organization’s customer experience and drastically transform business results.
Recently Steve’s Blog has been profiled as one of the Top 75 Customer Experience blogs