ROI? Why?
Yes, ROI matters. There’s nothing I can say that will disprove that ROI is a huge aspect of marketing, business, and sales. The reality comes down to: Does ROI matter to YOU?
Find what is important to you and track that.
What matters are your KPIs. Key Performance Indicators. In an older Argyle Social article there were four KPIs addressed. The KPIs that I choose will not be the same that you choose for many, many reasons. Here’s an example: my KPIs have nothing to do with conversions, or leads, or sales. My KPIs should be indicators of: what are people reading on my blog? How long are they reading these articles? Do they opt to learn more about me?
These indicators tell me whether or not my content is applicable to my readers and if what I am doing is providing value to them. Values that you choose can be tangible, monetary value or value can be knowledge. Either way, a value must be given to your readers or visitors.
Stop thinking about ROI and think about the people.
A Harvard Business Review article brought up a good point from a study that was done about 50 years ago by Ernest Dichter. Essentially, what it all comes down to is Word of Mouth. Now, we’re all going to pretend that we’re smart and that we knew this already (which we did, obviously). I may just be naïve, but I believe that we’re trying to track and put a monetary number on something that just doesn’t matter.
Word of mouth is a part of any product, service, business, blah blah blah (insert whatever it is you’re marketing here). I don’t deny that it is an extremely valuable aspect of marketing to track. But! Do we really need to add a dollar value to it? Thik abot the conversations around what you do.
Sentiment, maybe? Are there concerns? Are people trying to understand more about you?
Stop measuring start talking.
The bean-counters want their numbers. Give them the numbers. The key to marketing, PR, and advertising today online, isn’t about whether or not you have an effective campaign. Marketing today is about being a part of the customer’s interaction online. The consumer wants you to answer their questions. Consumers want companies to give feedback, give help, or even just give them a pat on the back sometimes.
The only thing I ask you to do when you become “a part of the conversation”: Don’t sound like a damn robot!
Be yourself. Build relationships. And give back to your customers, leads, and even random people talking about you online. Be a person, it doesn’t hurt.
Image by – Socialspice.de
Back To The Roots
In case you haven’t noticed, the trend today in marketing is going one way. Back to the roots. Now if you’re like me you question things, and you ask yourself: “What the hell are the roots?” In my perspective there’s one root to any form of marketing. It doesn’t matter if you’re using social media for marketing, if you’re using print, TV ads, whatever.
When I look at marketing I tend to try to ask myself one question:
What is the value of what I’m giving these people?
This seems like a fairly straight forward question. But the reality is so many marketers aren’t answering this question. It doesn’t matter if you choose Facebook, Twitter, a Blog, etc. You absolutely must provide some sort of value to your consumer.
As an online marketing dude, specifically my blog – I know that the value I attempt to provide is knowledge value. The ability to give my readers the opportunity to think about what they’re doing in their online marketing strategies.
So I ask you if you’re reading this, to leave a comment and tell me: What value are you giving your blog readers, your consumers?
Image Credit – James Cridland