Why ROI Should Matter When Hiring a Marketing Agency: Hiring a marketing agency is an investment that should yield measurable results, and return on investment (ROI) is a primary metric that encapsulates this concept. Businesses often rely on agencies blindly, but the question arises: How does one track and understand ROI for the marketing they’re doing?
The process between agency and a client begins by identifying the key performance indicators (KPIs) that matter most to your business. These can range from website traffic and social media engagement to customer reviews and acquisition costs. Tools such as Google Analytics can help monitor the traffic and conversions from different listing platforms, thereby assessing their individual effectiveness. Direct feedback from customers about how they found your business, alongside tracking changes in your review scores over time, can also contribute to a comprehensive understanding of your ROI.
Setting realistic ROI expectations is also crucial. In the first month of engagement with an agency, the focus should be on establishing a foundation for successful marketing by optimizing online listings and review management. In our research from taking on new clients, only 21% of clients are effectively managing their foundational marketing strategies. Ultimately leaving potential customers to the top performing competitors in the local area.
FIND A MARKETING AGENCY THAT STARTS WITH A FOUNDATION
"the foundation needs to be built first in order
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A tangible increase in visibility and positive reviews is expected around the six-month mark, gradually leading to an increase in sales or customer inquiries. A year of dedicated efforts should yield substantial increases in traffic, positive reviews, and sales, all attributable to your enhanced online presence. In the long term, a robust online reputation and a steady influx of customers from your online channels should affirm the effectiveness of the agency’s work.
Why ROI Should Matter When Hiring a Marketing Agency: How to track ROI for your local marketing?
Define the Metrics to Track: To track ROI, you first need to identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) that are most relevant to your business. These could include website traffic, number of customer reviews, engagement rates on social media, customer acquisition costs, or conversion rates. Based on the context given, potential metrics can include the number of new customers acquired through the listings, improvements in online ratings, or increased foot traffic to your location.
Use Analytics Tools: Use Google Analytics, Bing Analytics, or marketing hub to monitor the traffic and conversions coming from each platform you are listed on. This will help you understand which platforms are bringing you the most traffic and customers, and you can allocate resources accordingly.
Customer Surveys and Direct Feedback: When you get a new customer, it’s important for ROI to ask them where they found out about your business. If they mention a specific platform where you are listed, you can attribute that acquisition to that platform. You can use these insights to calculate the ROI for each platform.
Monitor Review Improvement: From the eyes of your potential customers, reviews might be the most important metric they are looking at when deciding on which business to shop at. Overall review score, number of reviews, and what the reviewers are saying as well as what if/what the business replies. Google along with other sites look at these metrics and place businesses higher in the search rank when updated regularly.
Monitor Sales Data: You can compare your sales data before and after improving your listings and reviews to monitor the progress and increased customers and sales. Improved listings and reviews is the foundation that is needed for all of your online marketing strategies.
Listing Accuracy: Track how accurate your listings are across different platforms. Accurate listings help with trust authority to the search engines and your potential customers. It leads to a better customer experience and increased customers and sales.
Track Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): Calculate the lifetime value of customers acquired through the platforms where you manage your listings and reviews. This could be an important metric to determine the ROI of your efforts.
In the case of listings and review management, the return is not immediate, as these efforts build trust and credibility over time with search engines, directories, data aggregators, and your potential customers.
Why ROI Should Matter When Hiring a Marketing Agency: When can I start seeing results?
The exact ROI for your listings and review management will depend on various factors such as the size and type of your business, your industry, and the level of competition. It will also depend on the current state of your listings and reviews. However, I can provide a guideline for what you might expect:
1 Month:
At this stage, your focus should be on setting up and optimizing your listings and review management processes. You might not see a significant ROI in terms of increased sales or customers within the first month, but the work you do now will lay the foundation for future gains.
- Metrics to track: Number of listings claimed/corrected, increase in number of reviews, improvement in average review rating, responding to reviews.
6 Months:
By this point, you should start to see some tangible results from your efforts. This could come in the form of increased visibility, more positive reviews, and an increase in customer inquiries or sales.
- ROI: A range of 5%-20% increase in organic website traffic from listing sites, increase in positive review rate, and increase in customer visits.
1 Year:
After a year, you should see more significant results. This would include a consistent increase in traffic from your listings, a larger number of positive reviews, and a clear increase in sales or customers attributable to your more increase in online presence and higher ranks through search engines, directories, and data aggregators.
- ROI: A range of 15%-40% increase in organic website traffic from listing sites increase in positive review rate, and increase in customer acquisitions.
Longer Term (2-3 Years):
Over the longer term, your efforts to manage your listings and reviews should translate into a solid online reputation and a steady stream of customers coming from your online channels. You will be dominating all or most of your competitors in many different factors of online searches done by customers.
- ROI: 25%-60% increase in organic website traffic from listing sites, increase in positive review rate, and increase in customer acquisitions.
These foundational marketing efforts compound over time – the work you do in the first few months might not bring immediate results, but it will set the stage for greater gains down the line and will allow for other marketing strategies to be successful from the start (SEO, Social, Paid Ads, etc.).
How much does it cost for Foundation Marketing
The marketing budget for a small business can vary widely depending on various factors such as the business’s industry, size, growth stage, revenue, and overall business strategy. However, here are some general guidelines to consider:
The U.S. Small Business Administration suggests spending 7-8% of your gross revenue for marketing and advertising if you’re doing between 100k to 1 million a year in sales and your net profit margin—after all expenses—is in the 10-12% range.
In a relatively short time (6 months+), a strong marketing plan and continued work on keeping your marketing consistent and relevant will turn your monthly investment into much more than what it cost you.
| Yearly Gross | Monthly Investment at 7% |
| 100,000 | $583 |
| 200,000 | $1,167 |
| 300,000 | $1,750 |
| 400,000 | $2,333 |
| 500,000 | $2,917 |
| 600,000 | $3,500 |
| 700,000 | $4,083 |
| 800,000 | $4,667 |
| 900,000 | $5,250 |
| 1,000,000 | $5,833 |
| 1,100,000 | $6,417 |
| 1,200,000 | $7,000 |
When considering online listings and review management specifically as part of your overall marketing budget:
Listings Management: Many online business directories are free to use, but some charge a fee for premium features. On average, you can expect to spend anywhere from $0 (for free listings) to $50 per month per listing for premium listings.
Review Management: The cost of review management will depend on whether you do it in-house or use a service. If you’re doing it in-house, the cost will be the time it takes to monitor reviews, respond, and manage your online reputation. If you use a service, costs can range from $100 to $400 per month, depending on the level of service.
Our most popular small/mid sized business plan costs less than $600 month (see below) and does all the work for you to build a strong local marketing plan for your business.
Listings & Reputation Premium+ Package
What do I get with this package?
- Listing Sync: Quickly establish accurate business information on Google Business Profile, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for no additional charge. Own your business listings and keep your customers up-to-date.
- Listing Distribution: We submit your business information to the main data aggregators: Neustar/Localeze, Foursquare, and Data Axle. These aggregators share your information with a network of directories that power search engines, navigation systems, voice search, mobile apps, and more.
- Listing Sync Pro: A single dashboard to control how your business appears across the internet. With the click of a button, you can instantly create and update listings across an established network of sites. Better yet, it keeps your information protected from third-party changes
- Google Business Profile Insights: Understand how your business is performing on Google Search and Maps. Google Insights in Listing Builder provides a valuable glimpse into your customer’s activities.
- Task Manager: View real-time progress reporting on projects, see what’s next, and even communicate with fulfillment teams about the project.
- Reputation Management | Pro: for businesses with a presence on industry-specific review sites, who are looking for a complete solution to help manage their online reputation.
- Review Responses Unlimited: Our expert team will promptly and professionally respond to your online reviews, enhancing your reputation and freeing up your time to focus on your business.
- Review Requests: Submit your customer lists up to four times a month, and we will utilize our Customer Voice platform to request business reviews on your behalf. This strategic collaboration aids in boosting your online presence and enhancing your customer relationships.
- Customer Voice | Pro: Boost your online reputation and grow your business with our Customer Voice service. It empowers you to gather customer feedback, enhancing your online star rating and attracting more customers. By winning the trust of potential clients and valuing their input, your business becomes more visible where your customers are looking.
- United States – SMS 100: 100 monthly SMS credits for use with Customer Voice Pro. Can be upgraded as needed.
Remember, every marketing agency is different, so it’s crucial to choose one that understands ROI for your business. An experienced agency will be able to tailor their services to your needs but also have a deep understanding for the FOUNDATION marketing strategies like mentioned in this post.
Why ROI Should Matter When Hiring a Marketing Agency? The answer might be as simple as, you want your money to actually work for you and drive more organic, online customers to your business.
