An integral part of your marketing plan is the ability to quantify marketing results.
One of the most costly mistakes you can make in business is to fail to develop a consistent plan and strategy that measures and evaluates your marketing campaigns. Without such a plan and strategy you are simply going about marketing blindly.
In each marketing campaign you must develop a plan and strategy that identify the following:
- Quantitative and qualitative goals
- Campaign budget
- Tracking and testing criteria
Most goals can be measured effectively using one of three methods:
- Cost per sale
- Cost per qualified lead
- Cost per visitor
Once you decide which result you want to measure and you have the costs incurred for the campaign or event your calculation is fairly easy.
- Cost per sale = Amount Spent for Event or Campaign / Number of sales
- Cost per Qualified Lead = Amount Spent for Event or Campaign / Number of Qualified Leads
- Cost per Visitor or Response = Amount Spent for Event or Campaign / Number of visitors or number of responses
These formulas give you the information you need to decide whether your marketing campaign was effective for your business. If it was not, find out exactly why it didn’t work and how you can better it the next time. There are several reasons why a campaign may not yield the desired results, but future successes will come from determining what those reasons are.