ROI Beyond the Dollars

by Rianna Neal | Rianna@PancakeDigitalSolutions.com

People are always talking about ROI, especially in the digital marketing industry. Many articles, speeches, project proposals and company missions statements are all about ROI. But what exactly is ROI, how is it a part of your business, and what is ROI Beyond the Dollars?

What is ROI

ROI stands for Return on Investment. Broken down into a sentence, this means how much return will you get on the investment. For example, if you spent $10 on flyers that bring in customers that spent $100 on products, you have $90 in ROI. This can be difficult to measure especially for paper or radio advertising. However, on social media has transformed the ability to get data on ROI.

Immediate ROI

You can receive immediate Return on Investment by leads gathered turning into sales. From the example above, say you spent $10 printing out flyers for a new type of ice cream at your shop. 10 people come in with those flyers and spent a combined total of $100. That is your immediate ROI.

Long-Term ROI

Long-term ROI is not often talked about but is extremely valuable. Client retention is the key to long-term business success. For example, let’s say one of the customers who came into your shop and bought some ice cream and loved it! This person returns to the store and spends $10 or so once a week. The long-term investment on the flyer has turned into hundreds of return from one customer who becomes a loyal fan. This is essentially how ROI, marketing, and sales work together in business.

Non-Financial ROI

There is another type of ROI that is not typically thought of. Many argue that ROI is only about financials, but that depends on how you define and investment. Time, effort, and knowledge are all types of investments. Let say, for example, that you spent $10 on flyers for your ice cream. Then, nothing happens. When you return to the locations of your flyers, you see they have been plastered over with other flyers. This local target market is saturated with flyers. You have spent $10 to know this now.

On a larger scale with social media, this is even more important. There is a lot of data that comes from social media, especially with Facebook advertising. Perhaps you invest $10 in two Facebook ads. One has a picture of ice cream the other is a coupon. The picture of the ice cream gets three times as much engagement than the coupon. This information tells you the audience is more interested in the product and less so about coupons. This could save you a lot of time and energy in the future, and ROI Beyond the Dollars alone.

On The Table…

ROI is all about return on financial investment usually, but there is ROI Beyond the Dollars. Eventually in business is doing all boil down to the financials, but think of all the other elements in-between such as time saved, target audience learned, and things learned.

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