The one question that undoubtedly comes up with every new marketing client – “What ROI have others seen?”
And every time, it is a struggle to answer.
Why?
Because measuring true ROI isn’t straightforward. Every pharmacy’s marketing strategy, budget, and campaign is different. Additionally, each marketing medium poses different measuring metrics.
But we get it. You’re a business owner and we want to provide you measurable metrics to determine the success of a campaign.
Our metrics are just going to look different.
The ROI Analogy
One analogy we heard, and really like, is comparing a pharmacy’s ROI and an NFL’s Defensive End.
Both are businesses.
But you’re not going to ask a Defensive End how many touchdowns he expects to score this season. Rather, you will measure his success by metrics that match his position, such as number of blocks, interceptions, tackles, etc.
The same goes for marketers.
Expecting marketers to say, “Well, if you spend $$ on the Google Ads over the next 12 months, we expect to see $$$ in sales" is unrealistic.
Marketers are not salespeople.
Marketing Metrics - Explained
As a marketer, we want to build as much awareness for your pharmacy as possible. But how do we measure the effectiveness of our marketing efforts?
Marketing Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are the quantifiable metrics and results that determine your progress toward a marketing campaign objective.
We are going to break down our top five digital marketing KPI metrics to keep track of to determine if your marketing efforts are working or falling short.
Brand Awareness
Brand awareness refers to how familiar consumers are with your brand. It can say lot about where you stand among competitors in your area. Do people know you exist? Do they know what you offer?
A large part of marketing aims to increase awareness and positive association around your brand, including your logo, name and products and services. Brand awareness can be measured by customer surveys, social media mentions (online reviews, mentions, tags, etc.), branded search volume, and referral traffic.
Impression and Clicks
Impressions are the number of times your content/ad is shown. It’s measured by calculating the total number of times your content/ad was displayed across a platform (Facebook, Google, Geofencing, etc.) On the other hand, clicks are the number of times a user clicked on the content/ad, leading them to a final destination (i.e. website, online scheduler, etc.). This is where you want a strong and clear call-to-action to encourage users to act.
Click-through-rate
Click-Through Rate (CTR) is the number of clicks that your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown (clicks divided by impressions). CTR varies between industries and delivery method. For instance, geofencing campaigns tend to have a lower CTR compared to Google Ads.
The average for geofencing campaigns and Facebook ads hover around 0.10%. Whereas the average for Google Ads ranges from 3-5%.
Cost-per-click
Cost-per-click (CPC) is the amount advertisers pay for each click. The more clicks, the higher the cost. But this isn’t something to fear. Rather, paying more per click can help you rank higher in the bidding process, driving more and more customers to your ads/website.
You can calculate the average CPC in one of two ways. First, dividing your ad spend by the total number of clicks. Alternatively, you can set the CPC yourself, selecting the max you are willing to spend per click based on your ad budget and goals.
Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is the percentage of users who complete a specific action. Depending on the goal of your campaign, you can measure this by the number of purchases, forms filled out, downloads, or calls. Conversion rates can also help you measure the progress of your efforts over time, comparing results and seeing what type of actions receive higher engagement.
Before starting your next marketing campaign, set goals with these metrics in mind.
After the campaign ends, analyze and calculate KPIs to set benchmarks. This will provide a better understanding of your business performance and potential for the next campaign.
Want more information on ROI? Check out https://www.grxmarketing.com/post/the-how-and-why-of-pharmacy-roi