Measuring Success

By Chloe Banholzer

How confident are you that your current marketing plan is delivering a good return on investment? If your answer is anything other than “very confident,” it is very possible that you could be getting more from your marketing dollars. Revisiting – and revamping – your marketing budget can be a process, but it doesn’t have to be a complicated or confusing one. Take the guesswork out of determining – and improving – your marketing return on investment (ROI) with the following four-step toolkit:

Goal Planner

The first step toward getting the most from your marketing spend is to decide what you want to accomplish.

Are you looking for more:

• Phone calls?
• Online sales?
• In-store traffic?

Choose your goals and stick to them. The more specific, the better. General goals are much harder to track and measure than specific goals. For more help with determining specific goals, check out our guide to “SMART” goals below.

After deciding on your specific goals, it’s time to determine roles. Which team members are responsible for which aspects of each goal? Work as a team to find out what strengths each person has and assign roles based on what that person does best.

Next, it’s time to define a timeline. In this step, it’s critical to involve your team, manage expectations, and set realistic deadlines. It’s great to be ambitious, but aiming for impractical goals can set your team up for failure and hurt morale.

Download your own copy of the Goal Planner at www.arinet.com/goalplanner

Tactical Planner

The Tactical Planner keeps your short-term goals relevant to your long-term goals. It’s organized to provide an opportunity to reflect on everything that goes into each plan and campaign.

To connect your goals and keep in line with your dealership’s vision, use a SMART goal questionnaire. Ask yourself, “Is my goal SMART?”

Specific: What specifically will I achieve?

Measurable: How will I measure it?

Achievable: Can I achieve it now?

Relevant: Is it relevant to my larger goals?

Time-framed: By what date will I achieve it?

After determining whether your goals are SMART, it’s time to set a budget for your campaigns/goals. Make sure you’re not over expending and that your campaigns are benefiting your business. Remember, your ultimate goal is to improve your marketing ROI. By choosing to spend your time and money on campaigns that deliver as expected (or, even better, exceed expectations), your business’s bottom line will see the rewards of smart planning and execution.

Download your own copy of the Tactical Planner at www.arinet.com/tacticalplanner

Campaign Planner

The Campaign Planner helps to keep your customers’ needs at the center of all your plans. By focusing on your customer groups, you can design campaigns that are tailored to meet their needs.

To design and execute successful marketing campaigns, it’s critical that you keep your messaging consistent. Using similar themes, wording, and pricing across all channels ensures that your staff and your customers are always on the same page. Saying one thing about a campaign in an e-mail and another completely separate thing on social media will confuse your audience and your team.

Speaking of your team, make sure you always keep your team “in the know.”Whether you have one store or 30, companywide awareness of the campaign is crucial. If the business owner, the sales team and marketing team don’t connect, your business could lose out on leads.

Finally, double check that your campaign plans always keep your customers’ needs in mind. Consider your customers’ needs, what they buy, and why they should choose you. Create a unique selling point (USP) for each campaign and promote it.

Download your own copy of the Campaign Planner at www.arinet.com/campaignplanner

ROI Tracker

The ROI Tracker ensures that your campaigns are benefiting your business. If your marketing spend is more than your return, it might be time to adjust the way you’re marketing.

The first step in determining what your marketing ROI is for each campaign is to decide what a lead is for each campaign. In other words, decide what qualifies as a lead, and how much value that lead could bring to your business if they should become a customer.

Next, it’s time to assign specific communication channels. A specific communication channel could be a dedicated website page (often referred to as a landing page), e-mail, or phone number that is only used for a specific campaign. By assigning specific communication channels, you can accurately evaluate how much income is attributed to the campaign.

The last step is to analyze your results. This step will help you to decide if the campaign was successful or not. It’s important to talk to your team about potential flaws and definite successes. Using this feedback, you can adjust future campaigns to create campaigns that generate the highest ROI possible.

Download your own copy of the ROI Tracker at www.arinet.com/roitracker

In just four simple stages, your marketing toolkit makes measuring – and promoting – success as easy as 1, 2, 3…4!

Chloe Banholzer serves as marketing coordinator at ARI Network Services. She’s helped thousands of dealers across the country with their digital marketing through her HelpForce webinars which cover a broad range of topics including search engine optimization (SEO), online advertising, e-mail marketing, and online presence optimization. She’s dedicated to the mission of helping dealers improve their operations through the implementation of ever-evolving best practices paired with ARI’s suite of award-winning data-driven software tools and marketing services that help dealers “Sell More Stuff!” online and in-store. ARI removes the complexity of selling and servicing new and used inventory, parts, garments and accessories for customers in the outdoor power equipment, powersports, marine, RV, automotive tire and wheel, and white goods industries. More than 26,000 dealers, 195 distributors and 140 manufacturers worldwide leverage ARI’s website (www.arinet.com) and eCatalog platforms to “Sell More Stuff!”