We have talked before about the importance of marketing including making sure you have a marketing strategy and a budget. But in the current economic climate businesses are looking to make savings wherever they can and you might be questioning the value of marketing.

​This month we thought we’d take a look at how you can measure whether your marketing is giving you a good ROI (Return On Investment) by comparing how much you are spending on marketing with the revenue created.

How to measure marketing ROI
There is a simple formula you can use to measure marketing ROI but first you need to gather certain metrics:

• Number of leads: How many people converted to a lead?
• Lead-to-customer rate: From those leads what percentage converted into customers? Eg if 10 leads out of 100 converted into customers that gives you a lead to customer rate of 10%
• What is the average price of your product?
• How much did your marketing campaign cost? Include costs of the ads including staff costs of those who worked on the campaign.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
CLV is another useful measure of ROI – a simple formula for calculating your CLV is:
CLV = (Average value of a transaction) x (Average number of transactions) x (Customer lifespan)

CLV is a great marketing analytic because it tells you how much a customer is likely to spend with you and gives you insights that will help you plan your marketing strategies.

But ROI isn’t just about financial measurements, you can also get a good indication of ROI from other sources:

• Increased brand awareness – A big marketing push is common among startups to increase brand awareness and carve a space in the market.
• New social media followers – While increased numbers alone doesn’t necessarily mean positive ROI, if the new followers are your target audience and are engaging with your content then they are more likely to become customers.
• Email newsletter signups – Email marketing is a valuable way of reaching both new and existing customers. Use email marketing to send personalised offers, deals and new products and services. Tracking sales attributed to email subscribers can help you decide whether to invest more or less time in your email marketing.

How you can Improve your ROI

• Set Clear SMART Goals: Be specific about what you want to achieve and set a deadline (and stick to it)
• Track your metrics: Google Analytics is great for keeping you up to date with important metrics such as sales, website traffic etc.
• Analyse the right metrics: There’s no point focussing on metrics that don’t help you achieve your goal. Wanting to increase revenue? Focus on conversion rates and CLV. Looking to increase brand awareness? Direct traffic and social media mentions will give you good insights.

Is your business marketing in need of a boost? Creative Remedy can help improve your ROI with a bespoke prescription for your business. Get in touch to find out more.

What is a Customer Avatar?
If you haven’t already guessed, a customer avatar is your ideal customer - not your average customer - but the perfect customer who will want to purchase from you again and again.

Once you have discovered your customer avatar you can build a strong marketing strategy and improve your user experience.

Why you need a Customer Avatar

• Tailor your marketing - email marketing will be so much easier once you know ‘who’ you are writing to. No more generic, soulless chit chat - you will be able to adjust your tone and voice to engage with your customer and create campaigns that they can’t resist!
• Improve user experience - Whether that means a slick app for shopping at your store or choosing different social media platforms.
• Product development - Once you know what makes your Custom Avatar tick, you can develop products and services that they need.
• Write relevant content - Coming up with interesting content is always a challenge if you are blindly targeting the masses but once you’ve established your target customer you should be able to come up with plenty of insightful, helpful and engaging content.
• Paid Advertisements - Your customer avatar will help you decide where you should run paid adverts. You will also know which demographics you need to be targeting which will tell you what wording you need in order to get the best return of investment.

How to Create Your Customer Avatar

Do your research - If you are an established business then you have a great starting point as you can ask your customers for feedback:

• Set up polls
• Send out surveys or questionnaires
• Interviews
• Analyse data from third party analytics

Build Your Customer Avatar - Give your fictional customer a name and try to get a picture of them in your mind. Think about their demographics ie age, gender, income etc.

• Try to envision where they get their information - Online search? Word of mouth? Instore? Books?
• What are their goals? What are they trying to achieve?
• What are their values?
• What are their pain points?
• What challenges are they trying to overcome?
• Why do they buy from you?
• What might stop them from making a purchase?

It’s likely your business will have more than one ideal customer, depending on the services and products you offer. If this is the case you will need to repeat the steps and create an avatar for each one.

Short Term Pain for Long Term Gain!
If you are willing to put in the hard work now and create your customer avatar(s) you will have much higher success with your marketing and sales. You will be able to focus your marketing spend to the right areas, improve engagement and build a strong, loyal customer base.

Need help building your avatar? Contact Creative Remedy for more information.

​Building the right strategy now will help your business through the year. It’s particularly important to plan and allocate budgets to the right place – creating a marketing plan can help you to do this.

​The main points to consider when creating a marketing strategy are:

• SWOT – identify your business’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

• Decide what you want to achieve – your marketing plan should be linked to your business goals, both short and long term. Have your business objectives in mind when writing your marketing plan.

• Know your customers – to gain an insight into your business and where it stands try asking your customers their opinions.
• Research the competition – find out who your competitors are, look at their strengths and weaknesses. It’s always worth knowing what your competitors offer that you don’t.
• Strategies – determine how you can best reach your target customers covering all marketing channels to achieve your plan.

• Budget – it’s important to have a budget set aside for your marketing and you need to stick to it.

There are a number of marketing channels you can cover in your strategy including:

• Email Marketing – newsletters/e-bulletins
• Website Content – Home page design, landing pages, products & services
• Blogs – Case studies and blogs
• Social Media – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn etc
• Print Collateral – Stationery, folded leaflets, flyers
• Vehicle livery and exhibitions stands
  
  

If you’re pressed for time, a 12 month plan seems like too much to tackle, then you can try a 3 month plan. Here you would focus on short term goals and then branch out from this once you’ve completed it.

You could also consider hiring a marketing team- they will be able to advise you on the right strategy for your business and come up with creative solutions for your business marketing. Read our blog ‘Digital Marketing - Why you need a Marketing Team’ to find out more.

If you need any help or advice Creative Remedy are here to support you, so please get in touch if you have any questions.

Creating a brand identity takes a lot of hard work and perseverance. Designing a great logo and website are important first steps but how do you establish your brand to make it recognisable, trusted and credible?

There are a number of steps you need to take when building your brand from researching your competitors to communicating your story, message and values to your target audience and then applying these to your marketing strategy.

Be Seen - Grow Your Sales - Build Your Brand
Business directories make your business easier to find online with a direct link to your unique search engine optimised business profile. Your business profile featured on online directories allows you to target your audience and build brand awareness. It is an affordable alternative to improve your online presence and digital footprint. Quite often Google Ads campaign or other paid for ads are unattainable to small businesses. Just think your brand is being promoted on all social platforms, on a regular basis and it is something you don’t have to directly manage yourself.

Local Online Business Directories
Our heart is with two local online business directories that have a support local ethos. If you understand back links and the impact of linking to credible websites to your own website, then you will appreciate the value of driving traffic to your website to again more enquiries, more leads and in turn more sales.

A great way to find prospective customers is to sign up to a local online directory, such as The Local View and Peterborough Business Directory. Our online directories give you access to potential new suppliers, advertise your business across a number of social media channels and allow you to promote your products, services, courses and events to a wider audience through, online articles, banner advertising, our own email marketing and paid for ads.

Here are just some of the benefits;

• Search engine optimised business profile.
• Business description, opening times, contact form, photos of your products, services, courses or events.
• Your profile is shared on all of our socials.
• Links to your website, email and social media platforms.
• One minute video* created for you, posted bi-monthly on all our social media channels.
• Get quarterly stats on our online performance and social awareness/reach.
• Support for you and your growing business.
• Digital and print services as and when you need them.
• Opportunities to promote your products, services, workshops or events through all our marketing channels.
• Publish your news, articles, achievements, events and press releases on our directory for FREE.
  
  

Design, Print & Distribution
So you have got a website, what else can you do to promote your business and get your brand out there? Did you know The Local View provides design and printing services? We can design and print marketing materials such as brochures, compliment slips, banners (great for local expos), business cards and more. We also offer a leaflet design, print and distribution service- perfect for your next marketing campaign!

Articles & Spotlight Articles
If you have some exciting news or developments to share, a spotlight article includes Search Engine Optimisation, chosen key phrases, an advert and video to promote your product, service, course or event.

Articles are a great way to spread the word about what’s happening in your business, create a buzz and engage with your audience.

Do you have a story to tell?

• A local community project or initiative
• A local business event or conference
• Innovation of a new product or service
• Maybe you have recently had some PR and want to maximise your online exposure
• Are you a winner of a business award?

Please request a copy of our article submission guide. Contact us >

Being part of a local online business directory is more than advertising, it’s also about supporting local and your local business community. The Local View and Peterborough Business Directory fully support the shop local ethos with a focus on small independent businesses and focused business owners like you. We understand the challenges SME’s face out there but within our local directories you become more visible, supported and learn about what is happening locally in terms of grants, funding, business support courses, local news and events, share knowledge and network with other like minded businesses. All of this will help strengthen your brand and improve your online presence.

If you’re a small business owner you will already be well aware of the need for a strong digital marketing strategy. You might be handling your own digital marketing, carrying out day to day tasks such as social media management. But are you truly getting the best out of our digital marketing while trying to run your business? It isn’t easy to split your time between marketing and the day-to-day running of your business.

This is where hiring a team to handle your digital marketing could actually save you time and money, as well as ensuring your marketing is top notch, on brand and working hard for your business.
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Reasons for Outsourcing your Marketing;

Delegate
You might have been managing perfectly well when you first started out but as your business grows it becomes much more difficult to keep juggling all those plates. The money you think you’re saving by handling your own digital marketing is actually not a saving at all, YOUR time IS money and your time needs to be spent where it's most needed- on running your business. Allowing a professional team to manage your digital marketing will not only free up your time but the team will also be much quicker and more efficient too - they already understand all the software, apps and technology required to make your business digital marketing successful.

Objectivity
It’s not easy to think objectively when it’s your own business that you’ve nurtured from scratch but a digital marketing team will be able to look at it from an outsiders point of view, allowing them to find effective communication strategies.

Expertise
When you hire a professional marketing team you have access to all their combined knowledge and expertise. They will be able to advise you on all aspects of your marketing strategy, help you establish your target audience and create the perfect plan. You only have one chance to do a launch- make sure you do it the right way!

Creative Unique Ideas and Thinking Outside the Box
A digital marketing team can look at your business with fresh eyes, spot potential avenues for targeting your audience and they’ll have the expertise to try out new ideas. Your expertise is in your products or services, their expertise is in digital marketing. As with everything, the marketing sector is constantly evolving but luckily for you it’s in their job description to make sure they’re up-to-date with all the latest advancements. They’ll be able to help identify and track key performance indicators (KPIs) and see ways to improve them.

Strategy and Communication
A digital marketing team will be able to help devise an effective digital marketing strategy - they might do a SWOT analysis (strength, weakness, opportunities, threats) or set SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound) and make sure these align with your overall business goals.

Most importantly, your marketing team will know what needs doing and when- less reactive and more proactive thinking.

Hiring a digital marketing team could be the best decision you make for your business. From creating the perfect strategy, trying out new tech or finding exciting and innovative ways to engage your audience.

Do you need support with your digital marketing? Get in touch and book your FREE consultation.