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Understanding the ROI of Marketing

If you are a marketing professional you are going to find this pretty rudimentary, but I just read an article on understanding your marketing ROI in terms of owned and earned efforts.  To a novice like me it was a fascinating analysis.

Working our way through a challenging economy, mid-size companies like ours have to learn lessons about marketing that we never had to before.  The costs of keeping an outside sales rep alive requires constant new business in addition to existing business in addition to steady follow-ups with warm leads provided by marketing and customer service.  Your best contact at Happy Customer might be working in another industry by next year.  And Marketing now means many different things other than buying advertising!

What I found especially interesting was the distinction between Owned, Paid and Earned marketing.  It was like reading something that defines something that you have intuitively grown to understand (without the vocabulary).  The things that your company develops to market – brand message, website, blogs are the aspects of marketing that you own.  The good will and buzz about your company that your presence generates is earned marketing.  There are some interesting aspects of each kind of marketing.   I think that you will enjoy it!

Cathie Cushing Duff

One of the third generation membership owners at Cushing, Cathie has been active in the organization since 1975. A graduate of the University of Toronto (St. Michael’s College) she attended the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and has been a guest lecturer at the University of Illinois School of Business. A Past President of the North Central Reprographic Association and International Reprographic Association, she has served on the ReproMAX Association and Chicago Family Business Council Boards. When not exploring print and digital communications, her passions are family, knitting and crocheting. Visit Cathie’s Google + profile.

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