Is ROO the new ROI?

by Tiffany Simms

We all know that measuring the performance of marketing initiatives has always been tough to pinpoint but, just when one gets the hang of how to quantify the industry standard, Return on Investment (ROI), along comes the concept of ROO, or Return on Objective. The good news is, the latter may be a lot easier to manage. According to a ThomasNet study on website management, site owners need to take a step back to see the broader picture of their website’s role in sales generation. In other words, are customers getting the information they need, where they need it, and when they need it? In Get Content, Get Customers by Joe Pulizzi and Newt Barrett, the authors subscribe to the belief that along with using ROI, ROO-centric measurements provide a more holistic view:

• Tracking conversions for everything published online and measuring new or increased sales
• Measuring [time spent] through online research or by using analytic measures on e-newsletters or web portal products

However, the conventional ways to measure ROI are still quite relevant:

• Number of Leads Generated
• Total Sales Revenue
• Incremental Sales Revenue from Existing Customers
• Cost Per Sales
• Conversion Rate
• Time to Conversion

Objective-based performance measurements allow decision makers to take a closer look at how customers gather the information they need and whether sales inquiries and transactions are produced. By focusing marketing efforts on both ROI and ROO, one can easily manage how the flow of that information to customers produces tangible results—sales revenue.