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How can I get a better return on investment from my marketing?

Sales & Growth questions

Marketing your business and its offerings can be expensive, so you’ll want to make sure you’re getting the best return on your investment. Today, there are many different forms of marketing to choose from, ranging from traditional out of home options like billboards to targeted social media ads – so finding the right one for you takes time. A carefully thought through plan is crucial to first testing the waters and then optimising spend where your message works best.

Ways to help you deal with it:

Action plan

How to set marketing goals and analyse results

Our five-step action plan explains how to start tracking your marketing activity and make sure it has an impact.

ACTION PLANS are a structured list of steps designed to help you approach tackling a particular business challenge.

We explain why each step is important
Customise by setting your own completion dates and assign tasks
Helpful tools are provided for certain steps
A downloadable PDF version of each action plan is available

Action plan

Marketing to a new customer persona

Effort : Medium

Targeting a new group of customers? Our five-step action plan explains how to adapt your marketing strategy.

Action plan

Defining your unique selling point (USP)

Effort : Medium

It’s harder than ever for businesses to stand out. Defining your USP allows you to quickly communicate what makes you different.

Action plan

Creating effective targets for your employees

Effort : Medium

Goals provide clarity and help to galvanise your team around the company’s objectives. Our five-point plan explains how to set effective targets.

Action plan

Making a USP part of your company culture

Effort : Medium

Impact : Medium

If you’ve developed a unique selling point (USP) and want to ingrain it in your culture, our five-step action plan will help.

Guide

An introduction to getting a better return on investment from your marketing

Marketing your business is a crucial endeavour to ensure its success. But it’s essential to closely monitor your marketing activity and measure its effectiveness.

GUIDES break a challenge down, providing important context and real-world experiences.

Based on SME experiences, not corporate jargon
Filled with real-world stories
Achievable steps every business can take

Other support that's available

Effectively marketing your small business

Effectively marketing your small business

Social media marketing is a must for small businesses – find out how to get started with Quick Sprout’s in-depth guide.

Calculating the ROI of a marketing campaign

Calculating the ROI of a marketing campaign

Want to make sure you’re getting the most from your investment in marketing? Find the formula you need with Investopedia.

How other businesses have tackled something similar

James Sharpe, Fabulosa

Real business story

Understanding what customers think you do can improve your messaging

Finding out what customers think they do best has been the key to making cleaning product manufacturer Fabulosa’s marketing work.

Barnaby Lashbrooke, Time etc

Real business story

Keeping loyal customers is the key to long-term success

A focus on retaining customers has improved customer retention at Birmingham-based Time etc and London-based Disciple Media.

Neil Currie, Netherton Foundry

Real business story

Use new product innovation as a marketing tool to engage customers

Handcrafted cookware company Netherton Foundry gets ideas from customers and turns experiments into marketing opportunities.

The questions lots of businesses are trying to answer

What issue is keeping you awake at night? A bit of targeted support is often all you need to overcome those challenges.

Select a topic

Digital

How can I improve the digital presence my business has? How can I streamline and automate some of our business processes? How do I work out the best digital sales channels to use? How should I use the data I have to improve decision making? How do I effectively seek external digital support? How do I know if my technology is robust enough for growth? How should I best budget and plan for new technology investments? How do I assess and choose the right technology to improve business operations? How can I understand what digital tools or support my business needs? How should I go about collecting data to improve my business?

Leadership & Strategy

How do I learn to become a better leader? How do I improve the communication in my business? How do I get staff interested in our vision and values? How can I reflect on my own strengths and weaknesses as a leader? How do I give my team autonomy and get better at delegating? As a leader, how do I learn to trust others within my organisation? How do I apply learnings from other businesses to my own company? How should my role as a business leader evolve with the company’s growth? How can I balance short-term needs with long-term targets? How do I get better at noticing and reacting to warning signs?

People & Team

How can I develop the skillsets of my workforce? How can I reduce employee turnover? How can I run a better appraisals process? How can I keep my best members of staff? How do I manage an effective remote workforce? How can I develop career paths for my staff? How can I increase staff engagement and motivation? How do I deal with a challenging member of staff? How can I improve my hiring and onboarding practices? How should I performance manage my staff?

Planning

How can I work out what required skillsets are missing in the business? How can I get staff interested in the financial situation? How can I define and communicate my vision for success? How do I ensure my business can navigate a dip in trading? How do I know when to scale up my business? How can I make my business more resilient to change? How do I better inform my business plans? How do I know when to invest in my business? How can I get better at looking internally at my business? How can I balance ambition with setting realistic goals?

Sales & Growth

How can we better serve our most loyal customers? How can I identify new customers to target? How do I create targets and KPIs for my staff? How can I get a better return on investment from my marketing? How do I make sure my team and processes are ready for growth? How do I develop a clear unique selling point? How do I financially plan for new opportunities? How do I build a network to support my business? How do I benchmark my business against competitors? How can we develop new products and services?