By the way, don’t confuse these plans with an overall marketing plan, which includes fun stuff like a situation analysis, marketing strategy, financials, etc. If you need to write a full-blown marketing plan, head here. For industry specific marketing plan samples, go straight here. If you’re a MarketingProfs Premium or Premium Plus member, we have developed a marketing plan SmartTool just for you.

During the past year and a half I’ve written a bunch of posts on how to write solid campaign plans that are measurable and can lead to ROI… Here’s a recap:

Writing a Plan: The Basic Elements

• A goal (One. If you find yourself writing “and” in your goal, you’ll probably need two plans)
• Objectives (as many as needed)
• Strategies (every objective gets its own strategies)
• Tactics (every strategy gets its own tactics)
• A way to measure (Hint: It’s partly in the way you write your objectives)

Mapping Out a Basic Campaign Plan

• Goal
• Objective 1.1
• Strategy 1.1
• Tactic 1.1
• Strategy 1.2
• Tactic 1.2
• Objective 2.1
• Strategy 2.1
• Tactic 2.1
• Strategy 2.2
• Tactic 2.2

Objective Writing: Four MUST-HAVE Simple Steps To Measurement

1. A specific desire communication or behavioral effect;
2. A designated market(s) or public(s) among whom the effect is to be achieved;
3. The expected level of attainment; and
4. The timeframe in which those attainments are to occur.

Examples:

• Objective 1: Generate 30% more website contact us leads from target Market X within 60 days.
• Objective 2: Grow the Facebook Fan page by 20% in 30-days solely targeting female teens ages 12-16.
• Objective 3: To reduce negative sentiment of Brand A within target Market X by 15% within six months.

The MAJOR item here is the market… You need to know that or your efforts will be in vain. What do I mean by that? Well, it’s great to say increase website leads by 30%, but what if they are the wrong leads? What if they are people who will never buy your product or service?

Another key to success with objectives and measurement is it to first benchmark your previous marketing efforts. If you know that your web traffic for 2009 has been typically X each month, and then you’ll have a sense that increasing it by 30% should be about Y.

Planning That Leads to ROI
If your CFO gives you or your department $10 million dollars, they are going to want to know how you spend it and what the return was…it’s their job. Just like if you give your money to an investor, you want to know what they made for you, right? The CFO is investing in marketing, so let’s help him/her out!

Remember the above tactics? That’s where your expenditures come in to play. Simply, tactics cost money. Even if you think social media is free (the tools that is), your time, your agencies’ time, etc. isn’t free.
Let’s take a look at a simple campaign:

• Goal: To increase sales in 60 days
• Objective 1: Generate 30% more website contact us leads from target Market X within 60 days.
• Strategy 1: Drive traffic to our website via online banner ads, direct mail, Facebook ads and sharing links on Twitter.
• Tactic 1a: Banner ads on XYZ Site
• Tactic 1b: Direct Mail to ABC List
• Tactic 1c: Facebook Ads
• Tactic 1d: Twitter

Calculating expenditures:

• Banner ads – $5,500 (2 months = $11,000)
• Direct Mail (agency time, printing, postage, employee time) – $50,000
• Facebook Ads – $2,500/month (2 months = $5,000)
• Employee’s Facebook Time – $40/hour ($50/hr * 10 hrs/wk * 8 weeks = $4,000)
• Twitter Tool – Free
• Employee’s Twitter Time – $40/hour ($50/hr * 10 hrs/wk * 8 weeks = $4,000)

TOTAL Costs: $74,000.00
Total Contact Us Leads: 100 (Cost: $740.00 per lead)
Total Sales: 10 totaling $100,000 (Assumption: Product is $10,000 per sale)
ROI: 35%

Simple ROI Calculation: Gain from Investment minus Cost of Investment divided by Cost of Investment (Note: always expressed as a percentage)

$100,000 minus $74,000 divided by $74,000 (35%)

Detailed Management ROI Calculation: Net Profit divided by Sales times Sales divided by Investment
(Note: Two different equations based on rate of profit on sales and rate of capital turnover. Hey, if you can’t trust a Marketing textbook, what can you trust?!)

BIG Assumptions:
First this is basic and simple … marketers know it gets way more complicated than this! Also, to be able to track sales based on this particular campaign, a CRM system is needed. It’s also a good idea to have a system in place to track that the specific tactics in this campaign lead to sales…one way to do that is to use codes, Adrefs, etc. And finally, there’s the issue of weighting which tactics (if any) actually lead to a particular sale, that’s the tricky part. We know as marketers there are a TON of variable that go into why someone decised to buy…this isn’t the post for determining that level of detail.

Planning is easy, right?! The point here? Just get started. Take small steps and learn along the way. It’s better than not having a plan at all. And more importantly, a plan that’s measurable gets you one step closed to proving marketing’s value.

What do you think? What would you add/change? How have you written plans or proved ROI?

*************
If you have time on your hands or want specifics, here’s a collection of all my posts, slides and/or seminar:

Want to Figure Out Your Social Media ROI? Consider a Plan. (November 24, 2008)
Why Writing Plans Can Be SMART (December 22, 2008)
Logistics of Integrating Twitter into your Existing Marketing & PR (June 15, 2009)
*Includes planning, objectives and ROI
Implementing & Measuring Public Relationships–You can do it! (May 15, 2009)
*Major kudos to Katie Paine here, she’s the go-to-source for this topic.
Outputs, Outtakes, Outcomes–Oh, my! (June 29, 2009)
*How to get over everything you feared about writing objectives.
Getting Buy-in with Social Media Measurement: Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff (August 20, 2009)
*This is a MarketingProfs seminar that gets into the nitty gritty. (FREE for Premium Plus Members)
Social Media Planning & Measurement (August 21, 2009)
Ten Basic Steps To an Easy AND Effective Crisis Plan (August 27, 2009)
*Throwing this one in for good measure… ’cause you never know when a crisis might hit!

My husband decided to take a road trip with our 17-year-old this summer. With gas at a national average of $4.10 a gallon, our SUV with a V8 engine would prove to be far from economical to drive. Our pickup truck would be equally fuel efficient and even less comfortable. Our ‘67 Camaro Pro Street Racecar with 750 horsepower wasn’t a practical option (although they would have gotten there fast!). Finally, our daughter’s car, while very fuel efficient, was probably not reliable enough for a hot, 14-hour journey.
So! We decided to rent a car with better fuel economy. Based on our calculations, even with the cost of the rental we’d save $150 in gas – a respectable amount. Since my hubby loves a road trip–he reserved a mid-sized sedan with 35-40 MPG and cruise control from Enterprise Rental Car several weeks in advance.
When my husband went to pick it up Thursday morning, the smiling attendant apologetically told him they were out of the car he’d reserved and handed him the keys to another car in the same “rental class.” Evidently, this was one tiny car– complete with 13-inch tires, no CD player and no cruise control. While it was fuel efficient, my husband stands over six feet and more than 250 lbs– so he was not happy with the tiny, gutless, box on wheels…especially for a 14-hour journey. He handed them back the keys and asked them what they could do for him.
The Enterprise people were very kind, offering him a complimentary “upgrade”– to a lovely SUV. He explained that he already owned an SUV — and had rented the sedan for the fuel economy. The representatives were perplexed. Evidently no one had turned down an “upgrade” before. After looking around a bit, they found a suitable sedan at another location …. only without cruise control – and offered to drive him out to pick it up.
It wasn’t a big deal. He and our daughter were on the road within a few short hours– However, as they left in the dark blue sedan, this incident got me thinking…
As a road warrior, in the past, I always wanted the upgrade–to the convertible, the SUV– anything but the car I’d reserved, usually! Today, however, I might think a bit more practically when offered the “upgrade”– especially if the expenditure isn’t a tax writeoff…
As for tomorrow? It is likely that we’ll be looking at an entirely different ballgame. Pundits predict the price of gas will escalate to $6 – $7 per gallon as early as this fall– a number that makes even me queasy and I don’t have a work commute…
This isn’t just about rental cars… it’s about everything. Fuel prices and food shortages are going to impact the price of everything else– and as this hits our wallets, we’re going to see more changes in every day consumer spending…. and in our perceptions of “value.”
Just last night, we went to get ice cream and saw an apologetic, hand-written note about price increases on the drive-through sign. This is happening everywhere — in nickels, dimes, and dollars — but it all adds up. While it may take longer to hit the thicker wallet, signs say it will impact most of us at some point.
As a result of these economic changes, the everyday consumer’s perceptions of value are likely to shift and change. What we have justified as “need” at yesterday’s price, just may become a luxury tomorrow.
An $6 per day Starbucks habit may dissolve against costs like $500 per month for gas, $400 per month for heating and $4 per pound for chicken breast. Unfortunately, as far as Starbucks goes, developing an active customer listening website or an extensive program to retrain baristas my not help the company with this reality, as evidenced by the recent closure of 600 stores.
And Starbucks, which I love, is just an example of one company getting hit by a changing economy.
The point is this: As business owners and marketers we can stick our heads in the sand– or we can think practically about how we’re going to address consumers in this new economy. We need to consider new dimensions of “value” that will shape customer behavior. We need to develop plans that address: