Keeping Score With Marketing ROI

Today, an increasing number of marketers andmetric. Fortunately, advancement of technology has
company executives see the need to determinepaved way to the creation of various business
marketing ROI for their marketing investments.intelligence tools that make such a task more
Marketing Return of Investment (ROI) or Return onconvenient. Moreover, the cost of these tools is no
Marketing Investment is a metric that would optimizelonger as high as it once was. Affordable business
marketing spending both short and long-term. It isintelligent tools, in fact, are already widely available for
widely acknowledged that higher ROMI or ROI wouldsmall-scale business organizations to use. These tools
mean effectiveness of marketing strategy, increase inhelp company executives gain a more in-depth insight
revenue and improved market and profit share. Thereabout how the target market and the customers
are two types of ROMI that can be used, short-termrespond to the marketing activities launched.
ROMI and long-term ROMI. The first type is used asOne of the primary reasons for the increasing use of
an index to measure revenue in terms of dollars,ROMI or marketing ROI is the need of company
contribution margin, and market share against everyexecutives to know just where they need to allocate
dollar spent for marketing activities.their marketing and sales investments. For these
The determination of this type of ROMI is simple but itpeople, this metric helps them identify the boundaries
can be very useful in supporting decisions regardingof both marketing and sales. Moreover, this
the marketing mix. The long-term ROMI, on the othersophisticated measure also helps company executives
hand, can be used to assess certain intangiblemake decisions that would help them deal with tighter
concerns of marketing effectiveness like increasedcompetition and slower industry growth as well as high
purchase intent and increased brand awareness. ROMIcustomer creation or acquisition costs.
is now used an important tool by some of the biggestWith these new ROI business tools, it becomes easier
corporations worldwide in balancing businessfor company executives to provide marketing support
operations and marketing investments. For thesewhere it is necessary. These tools function as
organizations, the ROMI metric is treated as a scientificscorecards that will quantify sales success through
basis of allocating budget and in making businessmarketing activities and investments. Aside from
priorities. The short-term ROMI, in particular, is used totracking sales, marketing ROI tools can also be used to
identify and distinguish which investments aregenerate more excitement from the customer base
productive and which are unnecessary. Long-termas well as managers. One of the companies that have
ROMI, meanwhile, are commonly used by managers togained much benefit from using the marketing ROI or
support strategic plans and future marketingROMI metric is Microsoft Corporation. With the use of
investments.certain ROI tools, company executives were able to
Measuring ROI in marketing spending is not as easy asassess the efficiency of their marketing arm, the
it seems. For one, managers should be able to identifyMcCann Worldgroup.
which data or information is needed to compute this