As public health marketers we know that social media can be a great resource to connect users with support services. Health departments and non-profits, however, have limited marketing budgets making every penny count. Knowing how to calculate the ROI for a proposed campaign can help public health marketers use their limited budgets strategically and justify future spending to stakeholders.
Measuring Effectiveness
Like with any other marketing campaign, we want to start our social media campaign with a clearly defined goal. A clear goal is needed to direct efforts and to determine whether we achieved it or not. Next, we need to ensure that we have measurable metrics assigned to our goal so that we can track the performance of our campaign. If the metrics chosen are not measurable, it is impossible to determine if they had an impact. Finally, we must calculate the ROI for the campaign. The traditional ROI calculation is [(value-investment)/investment * 100]. There are also ROI calculators available online that can help with this calculation.
Calculating the ROI for a social media campaign is important for marketers to utilize their budgets effectively and justify spending. Limited funding and budget restrictions of public health organizations make ROI calculations that much more important. Connecting users with support services has been made easier through social media and has proven to be an excellent tool for public health marketers.