How To Determine Your Advertising ROI: Return On Investment Graphic Design, Web Design, Marketing and Advertising

ROI (Return On Investment) can be a very confusing topic when it comes to your advertising content. Small to medium size business often have to make their dollars count and so it can be tough to make the investment. Ultimately, business is afraid to lose money and so this naturally deters business owners from making a jump on marketing efforts. It’s a difficult metric to come by in the advertising world.

Advertising ROI: Changing Perspective

I am going to flip your perspective when it comes to advertising and your ROI. You choose how much return you make from it.

I want you to consider that unless you have a goal driven outcome then you will not see the rewards. Business owners passively make the mistake of doing what they think they need to do versus knowing. We get advice from our best friends, loved ones, and peers. This is often times a terrible thing to do, unless your cousin is a marketing consultant. One bad experience or one bad result shouldn’t deter you from various advertising methods. Maybe the fliers didn’t work…but did you stop to consider if you got the flyers in the right hands combined with the right message? Advertising isn’t something you do passively and expect it to work.

For instance, your goal may be to increase call count because you know that 50% of calls leads to more business. Naturally, you start to think about what you can do to raise your calls. So your best friend says, “Hey, you should send out some flyers to your local neighborhood.” So the next day you throw together a flyer, go to a mailing services, send it out and call count doesn’t increase. Does this sound even remotely similar to an experience you’ve had?

You get frustrated. You tell yourself it was a waste of money and walk away chalking it up to bad advice. You blame everything but yourself…

Advertising ROI: Determine Your Goal

Remember, I said you choose how much return on investment you make. There are so many factors that go in between the steps that impact how much money you can make from advertising. However, I want you to consider that proper advertising is like building a system. The more you invest (time and money) the more you will get out of it.

Do your homework. Think about your target market, think about where they live, where they go, what they do, what pains them and what really makes them tick. In any advertising service you literally have the power to choose how it engages the audience.

Sure, that first mailing list didn’t work out. So fix it. Don’t write it off. Ask yourself where did it go wrong? The answer could be as simple as changing your mailing area. This thought process applies to any medium.

Advertising ROI: In Summary

Choose a goal. Look into advertising methods. Know your market. Implement it and keep pushing until you make it work for you.