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Throughout my 20 years as a marketer, the hardest question to answer has always been “Can you prove that this [insert latest marketing program or technology] is going to make us money?” Even with all of our current capabilities to collect data, there are still many areas of marketing where the honest answer is “We can’t prove the it, but we believe this will help us.”
Unless you’ve done “it” before, you have to rely on reference calls with a star customer to prove that “it” works. Kind of a skewed representation of value, which doesn’t always help you feel confident that your new initiative is going to move the revenue needle.
The good news is that with all of today’s capabilities to collect data, software companies are able to collect the information on how effective their product is for their customers. If they’ve got some good analysis behind it, they can even predict your results.
Here are some questions to ask the next time you are looking to bring on a new technology:
- What is the average result for a company of my size/situation?
- Is there a wide variation in that result across your customers?
- What bottom line cost savings or top line revenue growth can I expect to see in year 1, year 2 and year 3?
- What ROI can I expect to achieve in year 1, year 2 and year 3?
- What are the key factors that affect ROI year over year?
If you just read these question and scoffed because you don’t think any company can accurately predict how their software will affect your revenue, think again. Amplifinity has analyzed all of the data on its referral automation platform over the past 3 years and can provide this information based on real customer use. If you are tired of not having a solid argument to drive your ideas for demand generation, I encourage you to test drive Amplifinity’s ROI Calculator. Just by inputting the number of your customers, employees or partners and identifying your average annual revenue for a single customer, the calculator generates your predicted results based on real customer data.
If you are dealing with a vendor that can’t provide answers to your ROI questions, you might want to think about changing your investment to something like referral software that can truly demonstrate success.
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