If you're reading this, then it's likely that you market a product that isn't a quick decision to purchase. Therefore, you have a strong content plan over time, which eventually leads to serving up that killer ask, something along the lines of 'buy it now'.
But how do you know if you are tracking successfully along that journey without each step being linked to a direct sale?
Everyone is used to Return-on-investment (ROI) being the gold standard for proving the success of marketing activities, but the calculation for some campaigns for example are blurred by cross-channel integration, competitor activity and uncontrollable economic and environmental factors.
There is an alternative... Return-on-objective (ROO) enables you to prove campaign impact when it's not possible or feasible to tie it directly to sales. Common marketing objectives include increasing factors like awareness, brand favourability and purchase intent. By starting with these objectives in mind, campaigns can be designed and analysed to measure these factors.
Is your social media campaign effective?
If you are experienced with social media marketing, you'll know that you can automatically attribute individual posts (paid or organic) to specific conversion objectives that you may have set. This could be within the platform itself for lead generation, or through to a purchase on your website tracked through a pixel for example.
However, the impact of social media is also fuelling new objectives, including increasing the volume of positive online discussion. By increasing the volume of discussion, engagement increases, which can lead to sales and high levels of customer loyalty - potentially the birth of influencer marketing?
Return-on-objective - remember it!
Emphasising ROO measurement is integral in achieving long-term marketing success, so make sure to set these objectives upfront before you design your content. Also, ensure to set these expectations with your wider stakeholders, otherwise they may have a different picture of what success looks like and be disappointed when they see the results on the irrelevant metrics. This could lead to all sorts of problems, but let's not go there right now.