Saturday, October 18, 2008
Blue Frog Awarded by the AMI
Over the past 8 years since we started Blue Frog we've achieved some notable successes for clients. We've also won 6 AMI awards along the way for marketing excellence. Recently, we were a Victorian finalist for Melbourne Brick Company in the 2008 awards and on Wednesday night we'll attend the national awards to see if we can pick up a national award for Bluescope Steel. All the team are proud to have a national finalist and the competition will be intense so fingers crossed.
Return on investment
The concept of return on investment has been around for a long time. Here is the simplest possible way of determining return on investment for a single marketing campaign. We've used this approach for a number of years at Blue Frog Marketing and whilst it isn't 'high science' and no where near as good as a full metrics dashboard, we find it useful in small business cases.
1. Start by collecting some baseline numbers for what you want to measure such as sales, volume, new customers.
2. Set the budget for your campaign
3. Set up front a measurement period. When you will start and stop measuring results. It is important to do this up front so you are well aware of your baseline or starting numbers and objectives before you start.
4. Run the campaign
5. Collect the new data for the measure you wanted - say new business, sales or new accounts
6. A simple return in investment measure is an ROI index which is simply money made divided by money invested. So if you were measuring sales for example you need to get this figure - let's say it was $100,000 for example.
7. Now gather direct costs of the campaign - this will be advertising, printing, mailing, etc. Let's say this cost was $10,000
8. Don't forget indirect costs such as labour - make sure you collect how many hours of your time or staff time it took to implement the campaign. So if you spent 100 hours on it and you value your time at $100 per hour then this totals another $10,000
9. Add up your indirect and direct costs which in this example is $20,000
10. Divide your sales $100,000 by your costs $20,000 and your ROI ratio is 5:1.
11. Let's say you made 50% profit on your sales - this means your final ROI ratio is 2.5:1 which means you made $2.50 profit for every $1 you invested in your campaign.
This is a very rough calculation and there are many other factors such as incremental sales to be determined - what would you have grown if you had done nothing and so forth - but for the purposes of simplicity it will help you at least determine if the campaign had an effect.
1. Start by collecting some baseline numbers for what you want to measure such as sales, volume, new customers.
2. Set the budget for your campaign
3. Set up front a measurement period. When you will start and stop measuring results. It is important to do this up front so you are well aware of your baseline or starting numbers and objectives before you start.
4. Run the campaign
5. Collect the new data for the measure you wanted - say new business, sales or new accounts
6. A simple return in investment measure is an ROI index which is simply money made divided by money invested. So if you were measuring sales for example you need to get this figure - let's say it was $100,000 for example.
7. Now gather direct costs of the campaign - this will be advertising, printing, mailing, etc. Let's say this cost was $10,000
8. Don't forget indirect costs such as labour - make sure you collect how many hours of your time or staff time it took to implement the campaign. So if you spent 100 hours on it and you value your time at $100 per hour then this totals another $10,000
9. Add up your indirect and direct costs which in this example is $20,000
10. Divide your sales $100,000 by your costs $20,000 and your ROI ratio is 5:1.
11. Let's say you made 50% profit on your sales - this means your final ROI ratio is 2.5:1 which means you made $2.50 profit for every $1 you invested in your campaign.
This is a very rough calculation and there are many other factors such as incremental sales to be determined - what would you have grown if you had done nothing and so forth - but for the purposes of simplicity it will help you at least determine if the campaign had an effect.
Ethics of Marketing
I'm interested in anyone's comments on ethics in marketing. This is a very broad subject which can include claims in advertising and marketing, sustainable marketing, marketing to children, predatory marketing, ethical standards and so forth.
Personally, I have strong views on ethics in marketing. A friend runs a business in team development with the tagline facta non verba - and I think many marketers would do well to follow this in their approach - translated it means deeds not words. I believe perhaps 80% of all marketing is ethical in it's approach. But there is a significant minority of marketing which certainly needs to be rethought from an ethical viewpoint.
First, let's define what I mean by ethics so there is no confusion as to the subject matter of this article - I am defining ethics as the moral choices made by an individual in relationship to others - in the broader sense of the word 'individual' this could also mean an individual company - since at some point in a company some individual has to take responsibility for the marketing which is done by that company.
Let's take green marketing for example: Most marketers and many people in the community will have heard the term 'greenwashing' by now - coined to describe companies who use green messages innapropriately to try and convince consumers they are green or greener than the competition. When I say innapropriately, you can substitute the word unethically or untruthfully if you like.
In my opinion, being green will not be a differentiating point for companies or products for very long - it will become a 'ticket to the game' so companies might be better served by just doing not talking - and get properly green before talking about it.
More on the ethics of marketing soon. Stay tuned...
Personally, I have strong views on ethics in marketing. A friend runs a business in team development with the tagline facta non verba - and I think many marketers would do well to follow this in their approach - translated it means deeds not words. I believe perhaps 80% of all marketing is ethical in it's approach. But there is a significant minority of marketing which certainly needs to be rethought from an ethical viewpoint.
First, let's define what I mean by ethics so there is no confusion as to the subject matter of this article - I am defining ethics as the moral choices made by an individual in relationship to others - in the broader sense of the word 'individual' this could also mean an individual company - since at some point in a company some individual has to take responsibility for the marketing which is done by that company.
Let's take green marketing for example: Most marketers and many people in the community will have heard the term 'greenwashing' by now - coined to describe companies who use green messages innapropriately to try and convince consumers they are green or greener than the competition. When I say innapropriately, you can substitute the word unethically or untruthfully if you like.
In my opinion, being green will not be a differentiating point for companies or products for very long - it will become a 'ticket to the game' so companies might be better served by just doing not talking - and get properly green before talking about it.
More on the ethics of marketing soon. Stay tuned...
Humour in Marketing
Everyone likes to laugh and the concept of humour in marketing has always interested me. There are some very creative and very funny people in the marketing and advertising industry in Australia. Whilst everyone is an individual, with their own sense of humour, sometimes a marketing or advertising campaign comes along that has a broad cross section of the community in stitches. I'd be interest in anyone posting a recent marketing, branding or advertising campaign that they found funny and why. Also, any campaign that was trying to be funny that you found irritating, rude or just plain sick.
One recent billboard campaign from Hard Yakka made me chuckle - featuring Kenny the headline for this workwear brand reads "Anything else is number two" a delightful twist on the tried and true market leader strategy whilst taking a not so subtle poke at the quality of the opposition. Well done to Hard Yakka for this creative wordsmithing.
One recent billboard campaign from Hard Yakka made me chuckle - featuring Kenny the headline for this workwear brand reads "Anything else is number two" a delightful twist on the tried and true market leader strategy whilst taking a not so subtle poke at the quality of the opposition. Well done to Hard Yakka for this creative wordsmithing.
The value of marketing
Welcome to my blog. I intend to use this blog to explore the future and value of marketing in Australia. As a professional marketing consultant, CPM and State President of the Australian Marketing Institute, I see the profession of marketing from a number of unique angles and the future indeed looks bright for people in this profession. The AMI metrics project is due for imminent launch giving marketers in Australia a world first toolbox for the measurement of the impact and value of their marketing activities. In challenging financial times, marketers have the potential to come to the fore in helping their organisations - large and small - make headway at a time when many people are wanting to pull back on their reach into their markets because of tight budgets.
On the flip side, there are some major issues that marketing needs to address in my opinion. One of these challenges is ethics. In order to attract consumers or to position their brand more favourably some marketers or companies can fall into the trap of over reaching what they can or are delivering. Greenwashing is a perfect example where some very high pollution companies are trying to pull the green wool over our eyes with respect to their green credentials. Ring tone marketing is another areas where ethics don't ever get in the way of a good story. Parents of children who have rung up phone bills of $1000's of dollars on free phone games will no doubt agree.
But back to the positive - Marketing has an exciting future in the next decade -A decade where we finally might put to rest the idea that marketing is just a pony tail in a suit; a drain on corporate resources, the crazy people who spend our money. Marketing will come of age and start to show the true value it adds to an organisation - in black and white.
On the flip side, there are some major issues that marketing needs to address in my opinion. One of these challenges is ethics. In order to attract consumers or to position their brand more favourably some marketers or companies can fall into the trap of over reaching what they can or are delivering. Greenwashing is a perfect example where some very high pollution companies are trying to pull the green wool over our eyes with respect to their green credentials. Ring tone marketing is another areas where ethics don't ever get in the way of a good story. Parents of children who have rung up phone bills of $1000's of dollars on free phone games will no doubt agree.
But back to the positive - Marketing has an exciting future in the next decade -A decade where we finally might put to rest the idea that marketing is just a pony tail in a suit; a drain on corporate resources, the crazy people who spend our money. Marketing will come of age and start to show the true value it adds to an organisation - in black and white.
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