There are three possible answers as to whether you got a return on the time and/or money you have spent on your marketing activities:
(a) Yes
(b) No
(c) Don’t know
If you answered (c) then you may never know what is working and producing results for your brand.
In a recent blog/entrepreneur.com article Carol Tice looked at the return she was getting for her business for her online and offline networking activities. She worked out for the time involved and the business she received her offline activities provided a higher return.
In other situation a rebranding campaign of Grasshopper tracked certain objectives, but not sales or revenue. They may never know what parts of the campaign produced the greatest return on their investment.
Even if sales, such as in business to business take a while to come through, by not putting tracking and measuring in place, you can be left wondering if the campaign investment was worth it.
Although small businesses do not have the funds to mount a $68,000 campaign like Grasshopper you can still set up a simple tracking and measuring form. You could track it over any time period you like as some marketing activities take time to produce results, for an example 6 months. At least you will not be left wondering about your ROI.
There is one question you might like to ask yourself if you are still debating whether it is worth it:
What have you got to lose by tracking and measuring your results?
What are your thoughts?
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