Hello and welcome to this week’s debullshifying session!
I don’t know how to say this, but I hope you are not reading this as I publish it…
I hope you are not reading my next several posts as I publish them because you’re just out there living life and loving every moment of it.
If you do, however, I’ve tried to make them as nice to read as possible, so if that ends up being your reach read, you actually enjoy it.
MEME of the week
Author’s Note: Here is what you’ll be humming over the next week… Good luck getting rid of it… 😉
In the first edition of Debullshified, we focused on ROI (Return On Investment) because it was essential to clarify what it is: a business metric a marketing manager shouldn’t be responsible for.
This is why today we’ll cover ROMI—Return On Marketing Investment, a metric that actually falls within the responsibility of marketing people.
Here’s the formula for it:
As with most metrics, ROMI is what it says on the tin—the return you’ve made from your marketing investments. Nevertheless, you need to know a few key things about calculating it.
Calculate it per activity
Return On Marketing Investment is best used when calculated per activity. For instance, this can be calculated for your blog section. If you have enabled a way to track leads that come through the posts on your blog, you can measure the profits of that blog section in time.
Example: 5 leads converted after signing up using a form on an article from your blog section, bringing in £5000. It costs you £250 to produce this blog article. So the math is:
((£5000 – £250) / 250) * 100% = 1900% ROMI from that article
Calculate it over time
There’s a reason we have different metrics for advertising (ROAS) and marketing activities. While advertising is often effective, it only works for as long as you continue paying. In contrast, most marketing activities tend to increase their value over time.
An organic landing page might attract 5 customers in the first month, but it will attract 60 over a one-year period.
Example: If you pay £3000 to create a fantastic organic landing page, it will take time for search engines to index it and for people to start finding it. So, in the first couple of months, it might give you 1 or 2 customers and a total profit of £2000.
Your math then will look like this:
((£2000 – £3000) / £3000) * 100% = -33.33% ROMI
At this stage, you’re clearly at a loss
JUST GIVE IT TIME
But what if after 12 months it has brought you 20 customers and a total of £20000? This is what your math will look like then:
((£20000 – £3000) / £3000) * 100% = 566.66%
If this is an evergreen piece, you can only imagine the result after 3-4 years.
Note to marketers
With everything being digitalised, modern marketers are morally obliged (to themselves, really) to at least try and find a viable way to measure activities. I hate to say it, but it seems that only quantifiable metrics matter these days, so please, marketers, MEASURE & TRACK YOUR WORK.
Whatever angle you look at it from, life is about finding the balance in everything.
Let me explain.
In life, we all go through one type of trauma or another. It’s inevitable – that’s by design. As a result, there are 3 types of people (in my humble opinion):
- Destructor: Those who can’t acknowledge the trauma and become self-destructive in their attempts to hide from the memory that bothers them. Typical signs I’ve seen are a lack of focus, constant chasing of quick pleasures, alcohol and drug use.
- Processor: Those who recognise the trauma, put their life on pause and start processing it through. The typical signs I’ve seen are lack of dreams, constantly saying “I need time to work on this”, waiting for inner work to be done, so they can start their life, reliance on others to solve day-to-day issues for them.
- Unflappable: Those who see the trauma, shrug their shoulders (they can’t change the past), and just get on with their lives. Typical signs I’ve seen are people who constantly have something to do, make progress in life, rarely talk about past events and even when they do, it’s like listing facts, not loaded with emotion.
Naturally, you’ll meet people who offer a fine combination of two or all three of those personality types, but there’s always one that’s overwhelming.
And now we move to the important part – the most important one.
How you process trauma IS a choice.
If you can choose to dress like someone else, put make-up on as someone else, talk like someone else, workout like someone else, complain like someone else, then you can also choose to become a Unflappable.
I’m not suggesting it’s going to be easy. Nor am I suggesting that it’s a quick fix, or a speedy solution to life’s problems. As a matter of fact, deciding to become unflappable comes with its own set of problems, namely, never-ending tasks.
But it also comes with a lot of joy, achievements, growth, experiences, memorable moments, relaxing evenings, laughter, and a genuine appreciation for life.
If you’ll be anything in life,
be UNFLAPPABLE.
If you’re a destructor, employ your will to stop using whatever it is you’re addicted to (drugs, TV, social media, alcohol). Sit with your thoughts and let them overwhelm you. Cry if you need to, talk to friends if you need to, write, record audio, record video, talk to a professional – whatever it takes.
If you’re a processor, shut down the processing. If you know what your trauma is, you definitely need to heal it, but healing doesn’t happen when you’ve put your life on pause. Force yourself to do things. Start small and just keep going.
And if you’re already unflappable, cut yourself some slack. It’s OK to acknowledge at times that however well you’ve packed your trauma, it is still in your life’s baggage, and much like with backpacks, that life’s luggage becomes harder and harder to carry as time goes on. So give yourself a break every now and then 😉
The lost story of exquisite advertising.
No one can convince me that the below painting is not entertaining! It is, perhaps, one of the most enchanting works of art ever because you just can’t stop staring.
And you probably don’t know that this was an ad for Absolute Vodka. The artist (Guy Buffet) was commissioned back in 1990 and this was the result.
