Bay Area Marketing & Advertising Blog 

There is no shortage of evidence that proves the criticality of brand awareness. It increases engagement, search traffic, interaction during the research and consideration phases of the customer journey, and ultimately, new business growth. However, many marketers find it very difficult to link the investment to business revenue, particularly to shareholders eager to see verifiable ROI. The good news is that there are some ways to demonstrate the ROI of brand awareness, and we'll discuss them here.

With the introduction and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re all faced with new challenges as we explore new ways to succeed with our businesses. Among these changes are an increased dependence on radio and digital media, which will continue well into 2021. As a business, you'll do well to pivot your marketing and capitalize on these changes. Consider looking at it from the perspective of the legendary hockey great Wayne Gretzky: anticipate where the puck is headed, not where it is or was.

All business owners at some point, wonder if their advertising is working. While every company is different, there are indicators you can use to evaluate most campaigns. Determining the degree of success of your campaign involves more than just asking customers how they learned about your company, brand, or services.

One of the main goals for any marketer is to generate a positive return on investment (ROI) for their marketing efforts. While there are plenty of key performance indicators (KPI) to help determine the overall ROI, some are more important than others. You must figure out which KPIs are ideal to help calculate ROI, or you will waste time looking at vanity metrics that don't matter.

Marketers live in a data-driven world. It's easy to get lost in the maze of data produced by different analytics tools, whether they're measuring website traffic volume, bounce rate, click-through rate (CTR), or any number of other metrics. However, when used properly, marketing analytics turn into a powerful tool that can help optimize your advertising strategy.

Digital marketing efforts can bring positive ROI, but the key to a successful campaign is to know how to measure it. Unfortunately, many marketers have trouble connecting digital metrics to ROI through measurement. One of the reasons it can be challenging to measure ROI is that companies don't often take the time to establish clear goals at the start of their campaigns. Another source of confusion comes from misunderstanding digital marketing ROI as a concept.

Building a marketing budget can prove deceptively tough. It's not as simple as simply assigning a dollar amount to your marketing efforts based on your current profits or keeping the budget you've always held. Unfortunately, many marketing plans sell themselves short at this early stage. Many times, the marketing budget is divided among pre-existing categories like "paid search ads" and "radio spots" without considering the goals behind those marketing efforts and how to best accomplish them.

When you spend money as a business, you need to know what you're getting for your dollar. Otherwise, you can struggle to succeed — throwing money at an unsuccessful endeavor can be costly and unproductive. That's why it's critical to identify metrics you can examine to make sure your money is being spent wisely.

Most businesses have never experienced anything like the current pandemic, especially the shutdowns and economic distress that go along with it. Marketing and innovating can feel scary at a time like this. Some people’s instinct is to lay low and hope the trouble blows over. But staying top-of-mind during this time is actually more critical than ever.