Put Reality into the Gut Feel of How Marketing Dollars are Spent
Sometimes marketing dollars can be spent in somewhat of a gamble if the thinking is, "Well, I have to advertise, although I am not quite sure what the return is on the dollars I'm spending."
It doesn't have to be that way if you track the source of the leads that come into your company. With CRM, technology, you can do just that. Know what is effective and what is not.
I was working with a high tech company in tradeshow marketing. The enormous shows attracted the glitz, the glamour, the "big bucks" in the enormous McCormick Place in Chicago. Thousands and thousands would comb the aisles each day of the show. Show cards were swiped and attendee names poured in at our booth. Some came just for the free little Snickers candy bar. The sales manager went home from this very high-end show with thousands of leads. And having spent tens of thousands of marketing dollars.
Another trade show – same market but with narrower focus (it had appeal ONLY to the completely technical thinkers) and sans the razmatazz – was set up in a hotel conference center, each exhibitor with an 8-foot table. The space costs and technical setup of the booth was less than $1,000 plus the overhead of the personnel in attendance.
Lessons learned – the large show reaped thousands of unqualified leads, with a small percentage of new customers with token purchases; the small show reaped thousands of dollars in new business and substantial purhchases. With CRM, we track our return on investment to know where, when and with whom our marketing is providing the greatest return.