Sending out promotional products is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies to raise awareness of your brand and grow your business. However, before implementing the strategy, one of the most common questions that may come in mind is “How do I measure the ROI of this campaign?”
Although it may seem like measuring ROI value can be as simple as doing the calculations with the following formula which we all know:
A (revenue) – B (investment cost) x 100 = ROI percentage
It may not be as simple as that. Essentially, ROI or return in investment is one of the biggest factors that business owners take into consideration to make decisions. It explains why the business is taking certain actions. However, it is important to be aware that in the marketing world, ROI does not only have one meaning. Before getting started with the calculation on how to measure ROI on promotional products and important factors to consider, let’s clarify the term ROI.
The term ROI that is used frequently among businesses is “Return on Investment”, it is the value of profit or loss generated from the investment that you have made, generally used to analyse the profitability and determine the effectiveness of your investment. In another context, ROI can also refer to “Return on Impression” which measures the awareness you receive from the generated campaign. Although it is a soft metric, Return on Impressions is definitely crucial and plays a big role when it comes to promotional product campaigns where it incorporates measuring engagement and awareness of your audiences. Understanding these two contexts of ROI will make it easier for you to see the picture on what you are getting in return from the campaign.
Measuring Return on Investment
As mentioned above, Return on Investment is all about finding out the value of your profit generated from the campaign, expressed in percentage. However, before performing the calculations, it is crucial to identify a few important factors.
Goal and Metrics
Identifying the objective of the campaign will give you a better understanding of the campaign and explain the reason you are doing it for. Whether you are looking forward to building the awareness of your business, increasing revenue of your products or raising social media presence, a clear objective helps you to determine a specific metric you need in calculating your ROI. For example, if your goal is to raise social media presence, the suitable metrics would be the number of followers, likes or engagement you have on your social media account. If your goal is to increase revenue or generate profit, your metrics may be the total number of sales.
Measure
Once we identify the goals and metrics of the campaign, it is time to take action. Since it is difficult to track our promotional products once they are out, it is important to control your distribution method. Almost every promotional product has a definite call-to-action in order to track conversion and calculate the effectiveness of your campaign itself accurately. This may include email address, phone number, hashtag, or QR code.
Calculate
After tracking and measuring your performance, it is time for the calculation. First, take the revenue you gained from the campaign and subtract by your total spending cost. This includes all the costs relevant to your promotional items such as your promotional products cost or items distribution cost. Then divide that amount again with the cost of the campaign, this will result in a decimal point, which can be turned into percentage by multiplying with 100.
For example, if you generate your total revenue from the campaign at $300, while your total investment cost is $250. Follow the formula below:
(Total revenue – Total cost) / Total cost x100 = ROI percentage
($300 – $250) / $250 = 0.2 x 100 = 20%
In this case, 20% is your ROI of promotional products campaign.
Measuring Return on Impression
As some said “Return on Impression is the new ROI of marketing”, but instead of focusing on the generated profit, it is all about spreading the awareness of your brand. This makes measuring the Return on Impression slightly different from measuring the return on investment. As instead of measuring the amount of revenue, we will focus on the engagement and impressions audiences received from the campaign. Therefore, you no longer need to do the math associated with the revenue and the cost. Instead, you only need to keep an eye on the engagement and how much people react to your brand via social media or other platforms. The more engagement you have with your audience, the more powerful your brand will be.
Return on Impression is one of the big advantages you can gain from promotional products campaigns. Because of its long lasting impression. Typically, the average length of time people use the promotional items is up to 4-8 months. Therefore, while your campaign might be over but your items can still be seen around spreading awareness to other people.
Quality promotional products campaigns can give more powerful results than you could imagine. If you are looking for custom made promotional products or branded promotional gifts for conferences, contact Promote It for our professional service. Here at Promote It, we are a leading promotional marketing provider in New Zealand. We can assist you in forming promotional marketing campaigns to achieve your target results. Contact our helpful team today on 09 9171333 for more information or to order your promotional items!
