If you are running a business, it is always wise to measure your return on investments or the ROI of your marketing campaigns. This is essential especially when you are just starting in the industry and have a limited budget to work with. By measuring your ROI you can evaluate if it’s worth spending any penny on your marketing efforts. In addition, if you can evaluate your ROI you can see which strategies are working and which ones are not. By having effective strategies in place, you are in a better position to make informed decisions. We will provide you with a helpful guide on how to measure the ROI of your business by using printed marketing materials.
What is ROI in Business?
Return on Investments pertains to the measurement of how profitable a business is. According to MailChimp, Return on Investment is the monetary calculation of the investments versus the cost of running the business. Simply put, it’s the money earned versus the money spent for a particular investment. Investopedia defines ROI as the metric on how well a particular investment has performed. ROI is commonly expressed in percentage form. This is a means of assessing the overall impact of your marketing strategy over revenue and profit. To calculate the ROI of your business, you can use the following formula.
ROI = Net Profit/Cost of Investment x 100
If you are using printed materials for your marketing efforts, calculating the ROI determines how much is the generated revenue from using printed materials.
Why Compute for ROI?
You might be asking, why is it important to compute for the ROI? Some of the reasons why it is important to compute ROI are budget allocation, performance evaluation, strategic planning, comparison of investments, and better decision-making.
- Budget Allocation – If you have a better understanding of your ROI, you can evaluate if using printed materials for your marketing campaign is worth spending some budget on. If the return is high, you can allocate more budget as you deem necessary. On the other hand, if you see that it’s not working well, you can reallocate the budget to other marketing efforts. With ROI, you can see which marketing efforts are yielding better results and thus you can be more strategic with your investments.
- Performance Evaluation – This is one way of further improving your marketing efforts. With ROI assessment, you can have a better overview of which marketing efforts are giving you a return and which ones are not. Through this assessment, you can optimize the marketing effort which is providing better results than the others. In addition, you can also see if it’s worth continuing to use printed materials or if is it better to use other platforms for your marketing campaigns.
- Strategic Planning – With ROI measurement you have more concrete data thus better decisions are made. In addition, you are more equipped to set realistic goals and set a better plan for future marketing efforts. Through strategic planning, you are in a good position to plan and organize your current marketing campaigns.
- Comparison of investments. If you can compute your ROI, you can easily compare the investments and see which ones are giving you high returns or no returns at all. It saves you from further losing money and wasting time. You can focus your time, energy, and money on the investments that are generating a positive impact on your business.
- Better decision-making – Make time to compute your ROI. This is crucial for you to make informed decisions that will impact the overall operation of your business. For example, if you see that using customized printed banners is generating a positive impact on your product sales, you should continue investing in this marketing platform.
How to Measure the ROI of Printed Materials
There are plenty of ways to measure the return on investment of using printed materials. Some of these include the tracking of direct responses, asking for feedback, initiating surveys, using customer relationship management software, sales data analysis software, and other contact information forms.
Direct Response – You can make use of QR codes and URLs to check the direct impact of using printed materials on your sales. You can then check how much traffic is generated towards the landing page of these URLs or QR codes. This is one way of tracking the effectiveness of your printed material. In addition, you can also make use of discount codes and see if the sales were generated out of a printed marketing tool such as advertising flags or custom tents.
Ask for Feedback – Gather information by directly asking your target market for feedback. Ask them if they were encouraged to purchase your custom table cover or perhaps through a barricade cover that they saw. This will help you assess if it’s worth spending a dime on those marketing materials.
Initiate Surveys – Ask your audience what made them visit your shop. What were the things they saw that encouraged them to purchase your product or avail of your service? Did they see buntings hanging around and take the time to check out your products? With surveys, you can get as much information as you can to understand your audience better. It will also help you streamline your marketing efforts.
Use Customer Relationship Software – With this in place, you are better equipped to track your audience’s behavior and interaction with your brand. With the use of CRM, you can better assess if your printed materials impact the sales of your business. You’ll also have a better overview of how these printed materials are contributing to your sales.
How to Calculate the ROI of Your Printed Materials
To properly calculate the return on investments, it is important to identify first the cost of your investments. You have to consider the costing of the following: design and production costs, printing costs, distribution and shipping costs, and other expenses. Next trace how much the total sales generated. Subtract the total cost of investment from the total generated revenue to identify the profit.
How to Maximize Your ROI
If you want to reach the full return on your investments, consider these helpful tips below.
- Identify your audience for a targeted campaign – If you are marketing to the right audience, it increases the possibility of making sales or at least better brand engagement.
- Invest in high-quality design and content – With premium designs and content, it’s more likely that your target audience will interact with your brand. It promotes a stronger chance of brand loyalty too.
- Use a clear call to action – It means that you are clear on what you want your market to do. It’s likely for them to take action if they are clear on what is expected from them.
- Integrate digital campaigns – You can continue using traditional marketing but it’s more helpful to have it integrated with digital platforms such as the use of QR codes.
- Monitor, test, reiterate – Improve your marketing efforts by monitoring and tracking the campaigns that are working well and the ones that need to be stopped.
These are helpful tips that will help you measure your ROI for using printed marketing materials. These printed materials could be in the form of flyers, brochures, advertising flags, banners, and other marketing mediums. It is important to compute ROI to check the health of your business. Failure to check for ROI could put you at financial risk. In addition, ROI will help you assess whether using printed materials for marketing provides value for your business and contributes to the success of your operation.
