When creating their marketing strategies, advertisers often assess what problems they could solve with successful campaigns, but they may not immediately connect an excellent marketing plan to increased return on investment (ROI). Here are six ways that excellent marketing could boost ROI.
1. Positions a brand as offering convenience
One of the ongoing challenges for marketers is to convince customers that their brands are the best options compared to other possibilities. Although it’s often difficult to determine the various factors that cause a customer to decide that something is the “best” of what’s available, marketing professionals can often succeed by focusing on pain points and giving convenience that relieves them.
In one recent example, Walmart teamed up with Google to offer a way for people using the Google Assistant to shop for groceries with their voices. The technology also learns from a shopper’s history. For example, if someone regularly buys a certain kind of dog food, they can just say “dog food” instead of mentioning the desired brand.
Google gave an estimate in a blog post from early January 2019 revealing an expectation that the Google Assistant would be available on 1 billion devices by the end of that month. That statistic shows how Walmart could increase its market penetration, particularly by emphasizing how it makes things easier for shoppers than other retailers might.
Individual Walmart locations use Facebook to encourage users to try a similar service that allows ordering online and driving to a store while an assistant brings out the groceries. This voice ordering option could be promoted there, too, especially since Walmart’s announcement about the new offering focused on convenience.
Most people wouldn’t put grocery shopping on their list of favorite activities, but this effort from Walmart to partner with Google to increase options for consumers could encourage people to shop at Walmart more often — just for the sake of convenience.
2. Grabs consumer attention in a saturated market
A fantastic marketing strategy can also urge people to pay attention to a particular brand in a crowded market. In Las Vegas, for example, people have dozens of choices when choosing which casinos to try or where to stay. The Palms Casino Resort recently finished a $690 million upgrade and kicked off a celebrity-filled campaign to emphasize that the casino represents a “new” Las Vegas that turns preconceptions upside down.
The brand named the campaign “Unstatus Quo” and intends to position itself as a fresh and fun alternative to the ideas that some people may have about Las Vegas. In cases like these, marketing campaigns help ensure that large-scale enhancements to a property pay off and get noticed by the target audience, thereby driving ROI.
3. Tells customers how products fit their lifestyle
Even when people show interest in something a brand offers, they may struggle to see how it aligns with the ways they live. However, an outstanding marketing campaign can enable individuals to understand how a product is something they need that could make life better or easier.
The facial cleansing brand Clean & Clear raised awareness of its Morning Burst product with a campaign targeting high school and college students on Snapchat. The initiative involved specialty Snapchat filters and video ads that told viewers how Clean and Clear’s cleanser could help tired skin feel revitalized in the morning. The brand also provided skin care tips.
This campaign generated more than 40 million views, plus caused a 7 percent increase in brand favorability. Here, Clean & Clear upped its ROI by convincing people that its product matched their ways of life.
4. Sets the stage for business owners to sell their enterprises
Sometimes, brands generate ROI increases from marketing strategies that are impressive overall outside of a particular campaign. That seems to be what happened for HotelTonight. It specializes in last-minute hotel bookings for people who love deals. And, Airbnb recently acquired the business for an undisclosed amount.
Coverage of the development indicates that HotelTonight’s CEO, Sam Shank, will take over Airbnb’s luxury hotel branch. Airbnb wants to create a name for itself in the hotel booking market. It knows that HotelTonight established itself in the hotel booking industry through savvy marketing and other efforts.
The acquisition should help Airbnb broaden its image beyond the go-to place to find vacation homes and shared apartments. And, HotelTonight benefits financially from the sale of its brand — a circumstance that likely would not have happened if HotelTonight had not created such an attractive brand through marketing.
5. Spurs customers to make purchases after viewing media-rich ads
Brands achieve higher ROIs when customers feel compelled to buy things from them. But, distractions are so prevalent in today’s society that it’s often difficult for marketers to break through the noise and do something that sufficiently resonates with the audience.
However, Subway used an emerging technology called rich communication services (RCS). RCS content constitutes business-to-consumer smartphone messages that go beyond the plain text. When the sandwich brand implemented an RCS marketing strategy for customers containing texts with images, videos and prompts to order food, the brand saw a 146 percent rise in purchase intent compared to people who got standard text messages.
Subway is one of 20 brands currently experimenting with RCS, and it demonstrated how this tech could cause a jump in ROI by getting customers interested enough to take action.
6. Helps brands effectively reach customers
Aside from coming up with a message for an advertising strategy, marketers also must decide the most advantageous distribution channels for it. Understanding how the audience most often interacts with those ads can increase ROI. Cosmetics brand L’Oreal discovered that when it checked statistics about its most effective advertising methods.
The results showed that using features within the Google Display Network (GDN) gave a significant increase in ROI compared to television ads. More specifically, the conclusions determined that shifting 10 percent of a TV budget to the GDN triggered a 4 percent rise in impressions. So, this conclusion emphasizes how marketers must tweak any worthwhile strategy to ensure it goes through the channels most likely to result in the best ROI.
When more customers see an ad campaign, the chances increase that they’ll take the kinds of desirable actions that help brands’ profits.
No foolproof methods
This list of examples highlights how there are no universal magic ingredients that make a marketing campaign help a company’s ROI. But, when enterprises think creatively about the most advantageous ways to reach audiences with intriguing content, they will get positive results.
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