Question

Q1) how do marketers return on marketing investment? why is this figure difficult to assess?

Q2) how can marketers reach the Millennials effectively ?

Answer 1

Answer number 1)

Here is how marketers get returns on marketing investments and also mentioned the challenges to assess the same:

• The return on marketing investment is measured on how much the revenues a marketing campaign can generate.
• It is compared with the cost of the overall campaign.
• Marketers connect their time, resources, energy and advertising investment with results that help to push the growth in the company.
• Marketers use the Return on marketing investment against the following areas - industry, the total cost of the campaign, different time period comparisons and what the leader / CMO expects the results to be.

If the incremental sales have increased and are greater than the overall investment in the campaign then the marketing has been successful.

For marketers the key terms to know the return on marketing investment involve leads which are defined as the new leads generated in the process, incremental sales which is the revenue through the campaign and wins which is the new consumers generated through a particular marketing campaign.

Here are the challenges while assessing the same:

• The number of campaigns poses a major challenge as marketers today run diverse campaigns in parallel. It becomes challenging to assess each campaign and its return in that case.
• Due to the digitisation and marketing campaign having a life of their own it becomes difficult to monitor & measure the accuracy of messages by various marketing campaigns.
• The synergy to assess the marketing campaign and achievement of goals is very challenging. Various marketing channels are used and it becomes difficult to asse3ss the ROI.
• The presence of various data sets and assessing traffic takes time & analysis.

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Answer Number 2)

Here is how marketing can reach millennials effectively:

Campaign planning should be done after understanding the generation:

• Opportunity to champion a Generation’s growth & development
• Understand a target market: multi-dimensionally
• Develop deep and meaningful connections with the Millenials and communities associated with them
• Have Millenial voices as ambassadors of your brand
• Sharing of insights & resources about the target audience

It is believed that this generation has inherited many global problems around sustainability and other issues. Here is the recommendation for the marketing campaign for the selected group as I believe these issues fall in the interest category of Millenials.

Engagement Themes: Human Habitat, Environment, Global Citizenship, Healthcare and Technology.

Here are further sub-themes for the marketing campaign.

• Human Habitat | Mobility, Energy, Biodiversity, Forestry, Water, Waste, Air-quality, Food & Farming, Tradition, Culture
• Environment | Forestry, Conservation, Food, Water systems, Climate Anomalies
• Global Citizenship | Peace, Conflict, Diplomacy, Human Rights, Animal Rights, Trade, Heritage, Culture
• Healthcare | Food, Farming, Forestry, Fitness, Family
• Technology | Digital Media, IoT, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning

It has been observed that Millennial prefer authenticity and genuine commitments. Some common trends that have been observed in the US about Millenials involve the following things or characteristics:

• Even though they have huge buying power millennial prefer savings as a habit showing long long-term return can appeal to the millennials.
• Millennial prefers to read articles and blogs before making a choice of products and hence the marketing channel should be used wisely.
• The network of recommendation and promoters work positive for buying behaviour of millennials and should be taken into consideration.
• Relevant issues and value of experiences over products are other choices of millennials and hence the focus of the marketing campaign should be adapted accordingly.

It is important to make the campaign Instagram worthy, make the audience the star players in the campaign, optimise the content, word of mouth and recommendations, give them instant feedback and response and by keeping the campaign adaptable & having high appeal to their values makes it successful.

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