We’ve talked about the importance of knowing the ROI (return on investment) of your marketing and advertising campaigns. Without this knowledge, you’re essentially taking shots in the dark. You’re throwing money and time into campaigns that may or may not be profitable for you. Unfortunately, as most business owners know, calculating the ROI of your various marketing efforts is not a simple task. That reality left businesses with an unpleasant choice—continue marketing in the dark, without access to vital information… or spend hours with a calculator trying to make sense of the data. Well, now there is a third option—with my cutting edge tracking and measurement systems, we can get the work done for you.

When it comes to calculating the ROI of your marketing campaigns, our system is simply the best and most efficient out there. The process is remarkably simple, yet powerful. We start by providing you with separate toll-free numbers for each marketing campaign you’d like to track. We then track each call and collect vital information about each caller. This system allows us to provide you with critical statistics such as cost per lead and return on investment, as well as providing a side by side comparison of your various media campaigns. Now, did you hear “take out your calculator” in there anywhere? No? That’s because you can forget about the math. We do it for you—allowing you to know exactly how effective each and every dollar that you spend on marketing really is.

Trying to market your company without knowing your ROI is like trying to hit a three-point basket blindfolded. You may hit a shot every once in a blue moon, but you’re going to waste a whole lot of time and effort. But trying to calculate your ROI is a tedious and difficult chore—something most business owners don’t have the time to do. My system will enable you to remove the blindfold and see exactly what you’re getting for your money—without spending hours playing with formulas on Excel. If you’re running or planning a marketing campaign, you need my ROI tracking services. Put the calculator away, stop taking shots in the dark… and start making money!

As you know, the bottom line success or failure of a business boils down to the numbers. Profit, revenue, labor cost, profit margin—each of these calculations (and others) are powerful indicators of the health of your business. But there is another number that is even more important to your business—your marketing ROI (Return On Investment). But unfortunately, because determining your ROI can be a complicated procedure (it doesn’t have to be, but more on that in a minute), many business owners never determine their ROI.

First of all, why is your marketing ROI so important? Simple: Knowing the ROI for each of your marketing investments tells exactly how successful each initiative is per dollar spent. And that enables you to stop spending money on campaigns that don’t produce results. It enables you to focus all of your marketing dollars on the initiatives that are the most profitable. Once you identify tactics with a strong positive ROI, you can invest money confidently—knowing that you’ll recoup your investment and more. In this economy, how many businesses aren’t looking for business? Knowing your marketing ROI allows you to pick up more business efficiently. And that, in turn, allows you improve all of your other financial numbers dramatically.

So what was your ROI in 2010? Do you know? Are you guessing? Are you “playing it by ear?” This is a common mistake, as many business owners think that it’s easy to determine their ROI just by paying attention. “I got ten leads through an email campaign and only four through a direct mail campaign,” the thinking goes, “so obviously the email campaign is a better investment.” But there is much more that needs to be taken into account. Perhaps your email campaign generated more leads and cost less—but what was the value of each lead? What if each of the leads generated by direct mail was converted into a valuable long term customer, while only 50% of the email leads were converted—and only into one time clients? As you can see, without an accurate ROI, you’re simply not able to properly measure the success of your marketing campaigns.

Fortunately, calculating your ROI doesn’t have to be a long and agonizing process anymore. That’s because I’ve developed an automated system to do the work for you. It’s called the ROI Matrix, and it utilizes unique call tracking numbers assigned to each form of advertising and marketing that you initiate. Analyzing the income from each lead generated allows you to accurately compare the results of each advertising and marketing campaign accurately. In addition, you’ll get a monthly conference call to discuss the results, live reports of your closing statistics, notification every time you missed a lead, a full monthly report of your conversion percentage compared to your industry’s benchmarks, and much more. There’s simply no reason to keep taking shots in the dark with your marketing initiatives. Don’t keep guessing at your ROI—let the ROI Matrix do the work for you.

Hi, Richard Seppala, your ROI Guy here – this month, I’m launching my incredible new marketing tracking system, “The ROI Matrix.” It’s been a long time in the works and I couldn’t be happier with the result. And I think my clients should be pretty pleased as well.

Why? Well, as I write in my new article, “Show Me the Money – For Real!”, The ROI Matrix, by utilizing the latest technology, goes beyond just measuring the number of responses a marketing campaign generates. Now, at last, we can measure “The True ROI” of a campaign. By weighing the cost of the marketing vs. the actual revenues it brings in, my clients can instantly see what marketing campaigns and placements actually make them the most money.

Why is this so important? Because just looking at the number of responses that a marketing piece brings in can be deceptive. In my article, I noted an ad can bring in 20 responses as opposed to another one that might bring in 3. But the second ad might have been for an expensive procedure that actually brought in a lot more revenue that the first ad. You can’t know that unless you actually measure the actual profit, in dollars and cents, of both ads.

Ultimately that information allows you to make more money from less marketing – because you know precisely which campaigns are the most profitable to focus on. And that allows you to raise your marketing and advertising ROI through the roof.

The ROI Matrix has a lot of other side benefits to it as well. Since it tracks your leads all through your particular buying process – as well as captures and uploads their contact info into your CRM software – you’re able to easily trigger automated follow-up marketing to make sure you maximize your conversion chances. Incoming lead phone calls are transcribed and recorded too, so you can review them with your staff to make sure they’re doing the best job possible of helping those conversions along.

There’s a lot more to talk about – so I invite you to find out more about this breakthrough system at www.TheROIMatrix.com. By the way, don’t be scared when you visit that web page – it’s just me behind those Neo shades!

Increase Your Marketing ROI – By Knowing the Numbers That Count!

Hi, Richard Seppala, the ROI Guy here. The object of all marketing tracking systems (including mine) is to answer the client’s eternal cry, “Show Me the Money!”

No, they don’t actually expect me to show them a wad of cash – at least I hope they don’t – but they do expect me to show them which of their marketing is making them the most money. That’s the point of tracking it, right?

In the past, the best we could do with the available technology was track the number of responses a marketing campaign would generate. While this was an important number to know, it still left clients in the dark as to how many of these leads were actually buying – and how much they were spending.

That left open the possibility that maybe an ad would generate 20 responses and be considered a success – while another ad would generate 3 responses and be judged not worth the cost and effort. Since that’s what the numbers suggested, that’s a reasonable conclusion, right?

Not necessarily. Suppose that first ad was for an incredible offer – a free examination at the dentist, for example. Now, suppose all 20 of those people came in to take advantage of the free exam – and didn’t really end up spending a whole lot if anything at all. When you add up the cost of the marketing ad and the cost of the hours put into the free office exams, vs. the miniscule dollars spent by those 20 leads, it could turn out that that ad was a huge money loser.

Now – take the second ad, the one that only generated 3 responses. Maybe that ad was for an expensive cosmetic dentistry procedure – and those 3 people ended up spending between two to four thousand apiece. Suddenly…that ad just became a big profit maker!

That’s why we spent so much time and money developing The ROI Matrix – an automated system that goes beyond raw response numbers to actually calculating how much money a marketing campaign generates, and compares that number to the cost of the marketing. This system requires minimal effort on the part of the business (answering a few basic questions prompted by automated emails) and, in return, delivers the kind of data that can instantly clarify which of the above two ads we talked about really was a success.

So now, when a client says, “Show Me the Money,” I can – for real! That means they finally have the essential numbers to determine the actual profitability of their marketing and advertising – allowing them to easily improve their marketing ROI.

Visit www.TheROIMatrix.com for more information on “The ROI Matrix” and how to make the most of your marketing. We’d love to “Show You the Money!”

Hi, Richard Seppala, your ROI Guy here, hoping you’ve had a chance to take a look at my new article, “Tracking Your Marketing: How Much is Enough?” The article is about if using a unique phone number on your marketing to track the response rate is really enough to measure “The True ROI” of a campaign.

While it’s a good start to see how many leads are generated by your marketing, most business owners would agree that the more important and relevant number is how profitable that marketing was. If the leads you’re generating aren’t quality leads that are ready to buy, it doesn’t matter how many of them call…you’re not making any money! And actually, you’re losing money, because you’re out the cost of the marketing. A negative marketing ROI? Not good!

Because the dollars and cents are so important to know, I invested a lot into the research and development of “The ROI Matrix” with a top-notch tech team. The results were worth it: for the first time, my clients can easily and automatically track a lead generated by marketing campaign from initial contact through a purchase (if one is made). This information gets tabulated instantly on their customized web portal, available 24/7, where it can be analyzed in various charts and reports.

I’ve also put a lot of side benefits into The ROI Matrix – incoming sales calls are automatically recorded and transcribed, and contact information is automatically uploaded into my clients’ CRM.

There are also powerful “add-ons” to The ROI Matrix – such as “The Magic Pill,” an automated sequence of “done-for-you” marketing that will follow-up on generated leads who have dropped out of the buying process, as well as a powerful web-based referral system.

“The ROI Matrix” finally finishes the job I’ve always wanted to accomplish – to track generated leads all the way to the finish line when they “buy or die.” The launch of my biggest and best service yet is close at hand – keep checking www.yourROIguy for the latest on The Matrix (and we promise – no disappointing sequels)!

To Increase Your Marketing ROI, First You Have to Know What It Really Is!

Hi, Richard Seppala, the ROI Guy.  In scores of crime TV shows and movies where they’re trying to bust a crooked operation, an investigator always ends up saying, “Follow the money.”

Well, that’s not a bad expression to live by when it comes to your marketing.

In the past, most marketing tracking systems simply used a unique phone number on every campaign to track their success.  How many people called a certain number would indicate how many leads responded to the campaign that number was linked to.  Whichever campaign generated the most calls would be deemed the biggest success.

One major, major problem:  those marketing tracking systems didn’t follow the money. In other words, knowing the number of leads generated was only part of the story – but how many of them actually ended up as paying customers because of that marketing?

In the past, that was just too complex a question to be able to answer.  It would require technology that could follow a lead past the initial contact and through every point in the buying process.

The service I initially offered my clients was a simple call tracking system that would tell them automatically how many leads a campaign generated.  I knew it wasn’t enough, and we went a step further, developing “The ROI Bridge,” a system that captured contact information from incoming leads, recorded and transcribed their phone calls, and uploaded their info into our clients’ CRM software for easier follow-up marketing.

Although I didn’t think about it at the time, this was actually a step closer to “The Holy Grail of Marketing” – determining the True ROI of a campaign.  By enabling my clients to automatically put leads into their system, the foundation was built to continue to follow those leads to see how far into the buying process they traveled.

It all came together for me when one of my clients discussed the need for a tracking system to see how much money a marketing campaign generated as opposed to their costs.   He and I both knew that knowing the simple number of leads wasn’t enough – we needed to “follow the money.”  Because that’s what counted the most in any business.

Working with my tech team, we were able to put the pieces together to finalize “The ROI Matrix,” my new service that actually does determine the “True ROI” of a campaign down to the penny.  All that’s required on my clients’ side is a few keystrokes to tell the system what’s happening with a lead (they are prompted to do this with automated emails sent to their staff through our system).

Knowing how much money a campaign makes versus how many leads it generated can make all the difference in the world.  And it’s really the only way to determine the actual effectiveness of marketing and advertising – and how to improve their ROI.

Visit www.YourROIGuy.com for more information on “The ROI Matrix” and how to make the most of your marketing.   We’d love to help you “follow the money!”

Hello, Richard Seppala, your ROI Guy here. If you haven’t seen my new article, “What’s Driving Your New Business,” I hope you’ll give it a look. It’s all about the importance of knowing which of your marketing and advertising is bringing in the bulk of your new customers – because when you have that information, you know just where to focus your marketing resources.

But most don’t know how to get that critical data. As I discussed in that article, if you’re just relying on your receptionist asking someone new how they heard about you, it’s going to be tough to get accurate answers.

For most small businesses and entrepreneurs, their marketing budget is an expense they really feel. They know they need to do marketing – yet they often don’t feel the need to actually see if that marketing is working, which always confuses me. Do they also spend money on equipment that they don’t know works? Or on hiring employees that they’re not sure can do the job?

Probably not. But, for most people, marketing is like hitting a Vegas casino. They just have to gamble and hope they don’t lose.

But your marketing and advertising doesn’t have to be a gamble.

My marketing tracking systems are automatic, foolproof and give you instant answers on which ad placements are generating the most responses. And my forthcoming ROI Matrix system will even tell you, to the penny, how much revenue they generated as well.

If you could have a definite answer on what marketing created the most new sales for you, wouldn’t you want it? Well, I can provide it – in an affordable, easy-to-use, automated system that’s guaranteed to increase your marketing and advertising ROI as well as boost your bottom line.

Find out about all of my services that can help you power up your profits at www.yourroiguy.com. You see, I don’t believe in gambling. Unless, of course, I’m in Vegas…(and my wife isn’t around!)

Hello, Richard Seppala, your ROI Guy here. In my new article, “The Trick to Tracking Marketing,” I talk about the different technologies used to track and increase the ROI of the marketing and advertising used by small and medium-sized businesses.

And I also mention that a lot of my clients say the same thing to me – “Richard, show me the money!” (I also mention that they need to stop watching “Jerry Maguire.” I mean, Cuba Gooding Jr. got tired of people saying that to him too!).

Well, I’m getting set to show everyone the money – and a whole lot more.

My innovative hi-tech marketing tracking systems have always done a great job (modest, aren’t I?) of showing my clients the number of responses each advertising and marketing placement generated – and also helped in compiling the contact information of those prospects for future marketing.

But I still couldn’t answer the critical question, “How much money does an individual piece of marketing make? Is it worth the expense?”

Now, I will be able to. My ROI Matrix system, which I’ll be rolling out soon, will track to the penny how much your marketing makes for you. And it will do more than that. It will also tell you just the main category of responses that an advertising placement generates.

Are you just getting random questions from people who aren’t serious buyers? Are you just getting sales calls? Or are you getting quality leads who could become lifetime customers? Knowing who your marketing attracts helps you to adjust your message accordingly, as well as your placements.

The ROI Matrix will also enable my clients to automatically follow up with prospects with direct mail, emails, letters, and phone calls in a pre-programmed sequence that will make sure no potential prospect is lost. If there’s a chance of a sale, you’ll be virtually guaranteed of making it.

I’m really excited about the potential for this “ultimate” ROI system – and once you take a look at it, I’m sure you’ll be excited about it too. Keep checking in at my website at www.yourroiguy.com for the latest news.

And in the meantime, enjoy “Jerry Maguire!” I hope I had you at “Hello…”

Use the Right Tools to Increase Your Marketing ROI

Hi, Richard Seppala, the ROI Guy here to talk about my specialty, tracking marketing. I can’t tell you how many expert marketers run into the same problem as my clients – is what they’re spending on their marketing and advertising actually making them any money?

Small to medium-sized businesses and medical practices don’t have the incredible resources that corporations do. They don’t have the budget to run marketing awareness research or the resources to do the kind of micro-planning the big companies do.

But they, like most businesses, realize that, in today’s crowded marketplace, marketing is essential to growing their profits. They just don’t know if what they’re doing is working – so they say to me, “Richard, show me the money!” Apparently most of them have recently watched Tom Cruise in “Jerry Maguire”…

That’s why, for smaller businesses, the best and most affordable option is tracking your marketing. By putting a different toll-free number on every advertising placement or campaign, you can instantly keep track of how many responses that placement or campaign is generating. My clients can access that information quickly and easily through their own online ROI Guy page, which automatically gathers that data.

Those toll-free numbers can also work online through the technology of Dynamic Tracking. That means that, whether a prospect clicks through on a Google Ad or a banner ad, the phone number will actually change on your home page to correspond to whatever internet ad placement you have out there.

Finally, with a system like my ROI Bridge, the generated calls are answered by an automated system that transcribes the calls and also automatically gathers the contact information of the caller. That information is uploaded into the marketing software of the business to be used for future marketing campaigns.

Now, you might say, “Well, Richard, you still haven’t shown me the money. I know how many people responded to the marketing in question – but I don’t know how many actually became a paying customer or how much money the ad actually generated.”

First of all, I’d like you all to please stop watching “Jerry Maguire.” You should know how it all comes out by now. Secondly, my forthcoming ROI Matrix system will address that very question. For the first time, we’ll be able to track exactly who is responding to which ads. Are they just people asking questions? Are they other businesses trying to sell you something? Or are they, in fact, warm leads that are easily converted into clients or customers?

Properly tracking your marketing can’t help but increase your marketing and advertising ROI. By knowing what works and what doesn’t, you focus on what makes your profits pop – and save money by eliminating all your spending on marketing that doesn’t do the job. And both things mean a boost to your bottom line.

Visit www.YourROIGuy.com for more information on how to make the most of your marketing!