An effective marketing campaign creates results. But how good are those results? What outcomes did they lead to? Every credit union marketing campaign needs to be analyzed to determine effectiveness. No matter how creative, interesting, or responsive it is, you have to ask what came of that campaign. Did it reach the goals you desired? Was it worth the investment?

By analyzing the results of any campaign, you can then make decisions on how to further improve it to achieve an even better ROI. Analyzing campaign success leads to even better results next time. It also allows you to be more selective in your marketing.

Growth Over Time

Sometimes it can be hard to see the success of a marketing campaign outright. When you are just looking at a few metrics on their own they may look good. What’s more important is to look at the growth over some time, and to consider whether the metrics you're seeing are really tied to your goals.

How have your marketing data points changed over time? Have you seen a trend or pattern in their change? Sometimes it’s important to plot these changes in metrics on a graph so you can see if there’s an improving trajectory or if the growth remains pretty flat.

When you look at the changes in marketing data, you may be able to determine if those changes are moving you closer to your goals. Are you achieving more of what you need – better connections, new accounts, new loans, or better leads?

Compare To Competitors

The next step is to compare your marketing efforts and results to your competitors. That’s not just about reading their marketing or following their social media. Are your efforts in line with what your competitors are doing? Various tools can help. One option is SEMRush. It provides you with insight into what type of campaign your competitors are running so you can easily compare it to your own. You can also compare benchmark data to get even more insight.

Here’s what to ask about any campaign you look at and compare.

What are your competitors doing best?

In your competitive analysis, you want to consider what is helping your competitors to stand out. You can look at things like their ads to determine who they are targeting and how they are doing it. What types of strategies are they using that allow that business to stand out over your own? Are they getting more hits on their website? Perhaps their website ranks at the top of the Google Search Results Listings.

What sort of advertising strategies are they currently using?

Next, take a look at the types of strategies they are using that seem to be successful. This may be a fact-driven campaign. They may be implementing an emotional appeal strategy. Some are working through promotional advertising. What mechanisms are your competitors using within their campaigns?

What are the keywords they are working to rank towards organically?

Keywords are a critical component of any type of advertising. Specifically, look at their organic keyword selection. You can look at their website and blog to get some idea here but the tools we’ve mentioned, like SEMRush, can help you to learn about keyword usage faster.

Are you using the same keywords? Are they using keywords that are significantly different than what you’re targeting? With credit union marketing, there’s a significant push towards local keywords. Are your competitors using these types of keywords?

What are their major PPC keywords?

A well-designed PPC keyword campaign can comprehensively change the outcome of any marketing strategy. You can research the PPC keywords your competitors are using to get insight into the type of target market they are after. This can also give you some insight into the types of campaign goals they have.

What sort of engagement are they receiving on social media?

Look at their social media. Do they interact with people who respond to them? What type of engagement opportunities are they creating with their posts? Are they driving people back to their blog or website?

What is their advertising budget?

Finally, use those same tools to learn more about their advertising budget. There are times when you may need to push your budget higher to be more in line with your competitors. That may open the door for new opportunities for you to capture their PPC keywords or to drive more frequent ad placement.

Determining If Your ROI Is Good

Take a closer look at your ROI. What are you getting back from your advertising efforts?

You’ll want to track your ROI to understand the full lifecycle of your leads. What’s important here is understanding how much goes into each marketing channel as well as advertising campaigns that yield leads.

Look at the revenue to marketing cost ratio. This represents how much money is generated for every dollar you spend on marketing.

Here’s an example. You may earn $5 in sales for every $1 spent in marketing. That yields a rate of 5:1 of revenue to cost. Generally speaking, achieving a 5:1 ratio is good. If you work towards and build to 10:1, you’re reaching an exceptional ROI. Calculate the ROI revenue to marketing cost ratio for your business next.

Your CMO, CFO, or CEO can also help calculate your target ratio. These individuals can factor in the company’s gross margin targets. They can add in overhead expenses and other costs. They also can determine what it takes for marketing to impact the bottom line, which is the ultimate goal in every scenario.

Where Do You Stand?

Credit union marketing can be very successful if done well. Analyzing where you are in any campaign is a critical step and a part of the process of building a strong ROI.

Work through this process – growth over time, your competitors, and your ROI. Then, determine if you are getting enough out of your campaigns and how you can further fine-tune them to achieve the results you need.

Need some help? We would be happy to offer insight into interpreting your credit union marketing campaigns today.