Why are you spending your hard earned revenue on advertising?
It's an important question. And if you don't really have a good answer you may be completely wasting a lot of your budget on things that don't really matter.
Some would simply say, "well, we have to so we can get our name out there." Others may give a more nuanced response like "to increase brand awareness to stay top of mind."
But in the end, the true purpose for advertising should always be:
To make more money, as a result of advertising, than the cost of producing and running it.
There really is no other reason.
If it doesn't make you more money, don’t do it. And if you don't know whether you are making money because of your advertising, you shouldn't buy another single ad until you have a way.
The problem is a lot of advertising is hard to tie back to sales. TV for instance. BMW spends millions of dollars on television advertising. But the large majority of that can't be tracked to a single purchase. A person may have seen their ads over their entire life which formed a perception and provided a value to their brand. So when they finally could afford it, they pulled the trigger to buy, not because they saw a single ad, but because they saw hundreds of ads and movies with them and saw their boss driving one or their neighbor and thousands of little interactions that shaped their perception.
It's true you can't really measure everything. But if you want to ensure your advertising dollars is being used to ultimately drive a sale, you need a framework to do that.
Mapping your Customer Journey is one way to identify how your advertising is contributing to the sale and provides a methodology for allocating resources to each stage.
There are a lot of different frameworks and stages depending on the kind of company you have. But here's a fairly straight forward one most businesses should be able to use.
Awareness
People have heard of your company, product or service
Interest
They're interested in the kinds of things you sell
Consideration
They choosing between a few companies to meet their needs
Purchase
They've bought your product
Experience
They're actively using your product
Start by using the worksheet at the link below.
Customer Journey Worksheet
For each stage, write down each advertising tactic you do and what you spend annually.
The percentage you should be spending at each stage will depend on your business and overall strategy. But if you're spending all your money in Awareness and nothing to move people from Consideration to Purchase, you know you have an issue.
If you need assistance in mapping your Customer Journey and determining if your marketing efforts are really helping to drive sales, Aidia can help. Contact us for a complimentary initial consultation.