Tracking Your Marketing Efforts : A Must for a Successful Business

All businesses need a marketing plan to be successful. Even home-based businesses with small budgets can market successfully with a few tools.

The tool that is critical to your marketing success is a marketing tracking system. Simply put, you need to track your marketing efforts to determine the ROI (return on investment). The return on investment is a simple equation:

Sales (or profit) divided by marketing investment

Every marketing endeavor needs to be analyzed to find out what works and what doesn’t. That way you don’t waste money and time on something that isn’t profitable for you. The minimum return on investment should be 2 to 1. That way you at least cover the costs of the marketing effort.

For example: 3 month ad on a website costs $25 per month, so total investment = $75. That ad generates four sales, which is $196 in retail product and $96 in profit.

Sales ROI: $196 sales divided by $75 investment = 2.6
Profit ROI: $96 profit divided by $75 investment = 1.3

Both calculations are important because you need to determine the sales ROI because it can lead to repeat business, and the profit ROI is important because you need to know if you covered your costs.

So, should you advertise on this website again?

The answer is yes.

Marketing is not a one-time deal to see if you get some sales and then forget about it. You need to do a few things consistently to determine if it’s the right thing to do for your business. It’s recommended that you invest at least 3 months per marketing event, however, a minimum of six months is ideal.
Keep in mind when you place an ad anywhere, sometimes you need to look at the ad itself to see if it’s working.

Advertising and marketing are keys to a successful business and must be done consistently to achieve results. Tracking your efforts can help determine which venues can be continued, and which ones can be dropped. Sometimes it is better to focus on a few activities that generate sales versus spreading out over many activities and not get anything.

So what do you do if you haven’t been tracking your advertising and marketing expenses?

1. Don’t panic! It’s better to start now, then never start at all. The year is winding down, and it’s a great time to put something in place for 2010 to get started.

2. Make it simple! You can create a simple chart in Excel or some other program that will help you keep track of everything.

3. Make a list of all your expenses! Office supplies, demonstration supplies, samples, advertising, phone bills, etc. By making a list, you’ll have a good idea for what you are spending on a quarterly or yearly basis. This should be relatively easy with tax time coming up.

Running a successful business isn’t easy; it takes hard work and dedication. But, by having a few simple tools and tracking methods, you can make your business more successful and profitable than the year before.

Article Source: http://www.wahm-articles.com

Ivette Muller is a proud corporate mom dropout who has enjoyed transitioning her skills as a successful work at home mom. Ivette wants to help others fulfill their dreams of being a WAHM. Visit her website at www.wahmbahm.com for business advice and work at home opportunities and, www.remembergreetingcards.com/ivette, to learn how to start a profitable custom greeting card and gift home-based business.

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