Good news for all in the the business of marketing – the latest IPA/BDO Bellweather report and survey (published Jan 18) shows growing optimism and budgets amongst marketers.

The report shows that whilst overall UK marketing spend fell in the final 3 months of 2009, of 300 marketeers polled, most expect their 2010 marketing budgets to increase on last year.

The same survey shows spend on internet advertising rising for the second quarter running and direct marketing budgets including email marketing, increasing for the first time since early 2007.

Track your return – grow your budget

With direct and digital marketing leading the recovery, now is the time for all us digital marketeers to make doubly sure we are effectively tracking the return on our digital marketing activities.

Once you can prove in a compelling way exactly whats working and put a value on that success then you have the ammunition you need to get more budget.

Here’s my advise on the 5 basic review steps to follow now, to ensure you’re getting the most from your digital marketing ROI tracking:

• Define which metrics are true indicators of success for your business
• Ensure you have the best way to accurately measure each of these key metrics
• Bench mark your metrics against previous years and where possible against those of your competitors, other divisions, and/or the market you are in
• Plot and understand your customers’ journey so you can calculate the value of each action resulting from your digital  marketing activity
• Once you know the direct contribution of your email campaigns to your sales revenue , calculate the value of a permissioned email address to your business. This will help you drive investment in growing that database.

Thanks to my pals in the team of internet marketing consultants at our sister company, dotAgency, for their inspiration for this blog.

When times get tough, it’s easy for Finance Directors to cut marketing budgets and hard for marketers to stop them.

You don’t need me to tell you how daft that is – the money you are spending is generating new business.

The problem is that marketing is often seen as a cost centre, not a revenue generator like sales. Historically, marketers have often been guilty of treating advertising as an art not a science. If you can’t set up metrics that show that your acquisition costs are much less that the profits generated, how can you expect to explain it to the bean counters?

Admittedly, that can be harder to achieve with traditional media. But email marketing allows you to track each customer from opening the email to clicking on your links to making a purchase. Combine campaign ROI metrics and data about customer lifetime value and it becomes crystal clear what your return is for every pound you spend.

Once you know that, you’ll be in a position to ask your Finance Director to take away your budget completely.

Because, if you can prove that your ads make money, a marketing budget is just a way to restrict how much money you can make. And your Finance Director won’t like the thought of that one little bit.

*This blog was inspired by the inestimable Seth Godin. If you haven’t signed up for his words of wisdom yet, do it here. www.sethgodin.com

Posted by: Peter Simmonds