What is the ROI on your inbound marketing strategy?

One of the biggest challenges facing inbound marketers is determining Return on Investment. Previously, benefits like brand recognition, reputation, awareness, and goodwill would prove the value of inbound strategies, but that isn’t enough anymore. Since companies are putting more money into inbound marketing strategies, it’s only natural that they need to know they are spending the money wisely.

One way of determining the ROI is by using marketing analytics. A good analytics program will provide you with all the information you need. If you don’t have one, Google Analytics could provide you with the necessary information.

The first thing to look at is Content Marketing. You need to know how your content is performing, how many contacts your content is generating, which blogs are the most popular, which posts are converting the most leads and how fast your database is growing. In addition, you need to find out which of your website content is converting the most leads.

The next factor is Marketing Analytics – understanding key information about your contacts. You need to understand how many contacts each campaign generates and what actions they take while on your website. Using the tools in your reports can show you if you are on target with your contact generation goals.

Monitoring your Marketing Performance is a way to keep your marketing strategies effective – examining your key marketing performance metrics and tracking them monthly will allow you to identify positive performance trends and capitalize on them, as well as correcting any negative trends before they do too much damage. The key information to find out is what marketing channels generate the most contacts, which have the highest conversion rates and how much your marketing efforts are generating each month.

Analyzing these channels will show you where you are getting the best ROI for your efforts and will guide you in your future campaigns, whether they be blogging, social media interaction or email strategies.

The importance on proving your ROI is obvious and there are a couple of tips to keep in mind:

1. Show incremental changes on a monthly or quarterly basis, like the number of new leads each of your inbound channels brought in, or number of conversions each channel generated.
2. Look at profit, not revenue – the costs of your inbound strategy must be factored in.

If you need assistance determining your ROI, contact WSI

WSI is a digital marketing company with extensive knowledge and expertise to help businesses succeed online. Knowing the importance of inbound marketing, WSI has created a downloadable checklist to get you started and can also assist with the analytics to ensure you are onto a winning strategy. Contact WSI to find out more information.