In this day and age, analytics can make or break your business. It is crucial for you to understand what efforts are making your business better and which are wasting your money. While evaluating the effect that your advertising is having on your bottom line may seem daunting, there are still simple ways to measure whether your advertising is doing the job that you had in mind, bringing in revenue and creating awareness. Here are the top three ways to measure your advertising before you find your business’s bottom line falling.
1. Gross Rating Points (GRPs)
Reaching your target audience is the first job that comes from creating an advertising campaign. Few businesses have an idea of how well they are actually doing at reaching the audiences that they want. Fortunately, it is never too late to start. By using GRPs to measure reach and the frequency of viewers, you now have a way to tell what advertising is reaching the largest portions of your target market. GRPs measure the total of all Rating Points during an advertising campaign for online advertising and television. A Rating Point is one percent of the potential audience. For example, if 25 percent of all targeted televisions are tuned to a show that contains your commercial, you have 25 Rating Points. Having this data allows you to know where to put your money as you continue advertising efforts.
2. Consumer Surveys and Reactions
Knowing you’ve reached the right audience, the next job of advertising is to get noticed. Breaking through is the most important job of advertising, but beyond that, advertising must communicate your brand and change how consumers feel about it. How well is your brand doing this? You can tell by simply conducting surveys after your customers purchase your product or service. Finding out how they heard about you will give you a great idea of how to advertise to them and if your current campaign brought them in. In addition to surveys, checking your social media and webpage comments will also show you if what you are doing is grabbing their attention. Every mentioning of your new unique commercial, magazine ad, or billboard is something to get excited about. According to the popular “80/20” rule, twenty percent of your website views are representing the eighty percent of total. Consumer feedback can go a long way!
3. ROI Analysis
When it comes down to it, you need to be seeing monetary benefits from your advertising campaigns. When it comes to measuring the money that you are receiving compared to the money you spent, a simple Return On Investment analysis is crucial. Not only are big box companies requiring to see potential ROIs on future advertising campaigns before allocating a budget, it’s also crucial for small businesses that don’t have a large budget to work with. While estimates can be made based off of past campaigns, surveys, and GRP’s, the most accurate measurement comes after the campaign. By subtracting the revenue that your advertising brought in by the cost of your campaign you can get an accurate idea of how effective it was.
By utilizing these three measurements, you will never have to be stuck guessing whether or not your campaigns are working or not while potentially losing large amounts of money in the process. Through GRP points, customer reactions, and an accurate ROI from past advertising campaigns, you can build your brand and reach the customers that you have dedicated your time to helping. Stay tuned for what to look for in your social media platforms and blogs in our next blog!
