Planning and Evaluating Marketing Programs

Measuring and understanding your Website's success is a critical process that is sometimes overlooked. Many times, marketing efforts stop at getting traffic to the site. The next step is to evaluate results.

By "connecting the dots" between your marketing programs and end results, you can improve performance. Ultimately, site success depends on how well your site performs with respect to your goals. Measuring actual results against those goals tells you how well your site is succeeding.

Improving results means not only measuring the results themselves but also measuring, understanding, and adjusting the events that lead to those results. Further, having a marketing plan that identifies general strategies and specific programs for meeting your site goals will give you a higher baseline performance to work with when improving upon your site's success.

Have a Plan

Whatever your Website goals, a marketing plan helps you meet them. By including two or three general strategies to meet each goal as well as specific programs under each strategy, you are better able to evaluate and improve performance.

For example, let's say you make high quality, custom-made scarves and wish to sell them regionally:

-- A Website goal could be to begin selling scarves online and achieve "x" amount of sales in the first six months online.

-- One general strategy for meeting that goal could be to get the site known locally by fashion conscious ladies in your community.

-- A specific program to support this strategy could be to hold a contest on your site, with the prize being a free, customized scarf. To promote the contest, you could issue a press release, which you send to fashion editors, etc.

By taking this funneled approach - planning down from the broad goal to the specific marketing program - you are better able to evaluate how well each program supports (or fails to support) your goals.

From the start - when you are developing your plan and deciding site structure - think about how to measure performance. Measures will differ, depending upon the situation, but should be both quantitative and meaningful with respect to helping you improve site performance. Choose a set of measurements that will tell you not only how your marketing programs are working, but also how well they support Website goals.

Evaluate Marketing Programs

To evaluate a marketing program's success, decide your objectives first. You can then "connect the dots" between those objectives and your site goals. Later, when analyzing program results, evaluate not only whether the program succeeded in meeting objectives, but also how well it moved your business toward its Website goals.

It is possible to meet an objective for the marketing program while failing to support site goals. Many traffic generation programs serve as an example. Businesses will often participate in "hit" programs with disappointing results. They reach "hit" objectives, but move no closer to site goals.

Consider Return on Investment (ROI)

One way to evaluate marketing program results is through Return on Investment (ROI) analysis. ROI is a computation that tells you how much you received compared to what you put into a project. You can express ROI in terms of a dollar amount or as a ratio. Either way, the formula itself is simple.

The dollar amount formula tells how much you increased profit in total dollars as a result of the project:

(Cost savings and earnings as a result of the project) minus (Dollars invested)

The ratio formula tells how much you got back, in dollars, for each dollar you invested in a project:

(Cost savings and earnings as a result of the project) divided by (Dollars Invested)

IMHO, things get sticky when you try to define "cost savings and earnings as a result of a project." This is because returns from marketing investments are broader and often more abstract than returns from some other types of investments. Marketing investments have not only direct monetary benefits, but indirect benefits as well. These indirect benefits are often intangible and difficult (if not impossible) to measure directly.

If you are part of a typical small business with limited resources it may feel like you are in a no win situation. Accurately computing ROI requires a detailed analysis for which the internal resources and expertise are often lacking. Outside consultants can spend hours unearthing data and computing an accurate ROI, but this can be expensive on a small budget.

This does not mean, however, that you cannot use ROI as one of several inputs into program evaluation. When figuring ROI and evaluating marketing program success, keep in mind that each project will realize different types of benefits. Aside from direct dollars cost and direct dollars returned, consider other potential project benefits, including how well it supports your site goals. Other aspects to consider:

Improved customer relationships. Happier customers can represent a return on investment. This can be gauged through repeat order patterns, by a change in the number of complaints/compliments, or through customer surveys comparing pre- and post-project satisfaction.

Influence on offline sales. Online activities often have an influence on offline transactions. You may experience sales leads originating from your Internet programs, for example. Customers may also be driven to your offline store as a result of online information.

Brand building. Online activities can mean better long term growth for your brand. Market share changes, online interactions, and brand awareness surveys are some ways you can judge brand building effects.

Company growth potential. Factor in long term growth prospects when evaluating your project. For many businesses, the Internet provides access to new markets and customers. If you have a local business, for example, your Website could extend your business far beyond the city limits.

Take into account these broader implications, pay attention to how well a marketing program supports your site goals, and measure program results. By taking this three pronged approach, you can better choose marketing programs with positive results.

About the Author

Bobette Kyle draws upon 12+ years of Marketing/Executive experience, Marketing MBA, and online marketing research in her writing. Bobette is proprietor of the Web Site Marketing Plan Network, http://www.WebSiteMarketingPlan.com, and author of the marketing plan and Web promotion book "How Much For Just the Spider? Strategic Website Marketing For Small Budget Business." ( HowMuchForSpider.com/TOC.htm )

---

Why You MUST Have A My Yahoo! Page

Yahoo! allows you to set up your own front page... Read More

Instantly Increase Your Sales and Conversions by Adding New Hover Ad Technology to Your Websites

First Generation - The Popup Popups, if you're somehow, strangely,... Read More

How To Get Free Advertising By Giving Away Online Content

Giving away content is a powerful way to get free... Read More

Cant Write Articles For Links? Write code!

If you've subscribed to an seo newsletter for longer than... Read More

Promote Your Website: Search Tools

Many companies after spending a substantial amount of money on... Read More

Free Website Promotion Guide - Website Promotion Mistakes

When webmasters have created their final master piece, their next... Read More

Methods of Website Promotion

Promoting a Website is not an easy task. New Website... Read More

How to Promote Websites Popularity?

Once your site is launched, half your battle is won.... Read More

How to Market Your Web Site Like Nobodys Business

Fresh Web Content Yields Better Search Engine ResultsAll too often,... Read More

How Do I Promote My Website?

If you are a small business owner with a website,... Read More

Has Your Business Hit a Wall? What to Do When Business Slows Down!

I doubt that anyone reading this article hasn't at one... Read More

If You Build It, They Will Come?

Many of you will remember the line from the movie... Read More

Tips to Maintain your Website to Keep Visitors Coming Back

When you design a website you should create it so... Read More

Drive People to Your Site to Buy Your Products

Bring those visitors back for more, applauding you and saying... Read More

One Way Link Building Campaigns

This article explains in detail the various issues related to... Read More

Complimenting Your Site With Others

Consider for a minute my son's website for grass mowing,... Read More

How to Increase Traffic When Your Promotion Budget is Tiny

Writing articles for your site and for the use of... Read More

Streamline Your Training Costs with Streaming Media

Streaming Media?now a well accepted Internet technology. Yet streaming is... Read More

Planning and Evaluating Marketing Programs

Measuring and understanding your Website's success is a critical process... Read More

Internet Marketing and Getting Your Site Noticed

You may have created and established the best Web site... Read More

Free Online Advertising: 10 Dynamic Secrets To Make Your Ad Stand Out And Ignite Sales

No matter what you're marketing or promoting, if your Ad... Read More

Ten High Powered Ways To Increase Your Traffic

Once you have finshed designing your website, you want to... Read More

Getting Inbound Links is as Easy as 1-2-3

Your success on the internet is directly related to how... Read More

Are You SURE Your Link Partners Still Link to You?

It's a fact. While most link partners are scrupulously honest... Read More

4 Simple Tips for Targeted Traffic

Here are 4 of the most easiest and... Read More

How to use Free Website Submission Services

After you have built your website the next natural step... Read More

Web Site Promotion: 10 High Powered, Magical Ways To Make Your Web Site Profitable

Are you interested in empowering your website so it will... Read More

Profitable Target Marketing: 6 Lessons from Major League Baseball

Does your business struggle with profitable online marketing? If so,... Read More

Does Your Site Have Link Value?

Link Value is the perceived value another site will derive... Read More

Increase Traffic With a Good Title

There's such a thing as taking search engine optimization too... Read More

Accessibility: Is your website causing you to loose potential clients?

Accessibility: Is your website causing you to loose potential clients?With... Read More

Do Not Build A Website Until You Have Researched Your Keywords

Imagine that you have a $25,000 marketing budget for your... Read More

Top 10 Reasons Why I Reject Article Submissions

Each week I receive dozens of article submissions to my... Read More