Why marketing ROI should focus less on the returns, and more on the investment.

This becomes doubly difficult when you expand the customer journey all the way from them first becoming aware of your product to the customer loyalty feedback loop long after.

In a world of hyper-personalised marketing and the Protection of Personal Information (PoPI) Act, a like (or several) is simply not enough. The most successful brands are those that have invested real time, effort and money in building a relationship with their customers.

The most recent generation of marketers might believe that they’re living in the golden age of marketing analytics, given the number of tools social media provides for those advertising on their platforms. While it’s true that people have never been able to target advertising with the amount of precision they can now, or track the e-commerce journey from the customers’ very first click, the most valuable marketing tools are potentially being overlooked.

While most tools allow for a brand to see how many eyeballs are on their ads, or how many click all the way through to purchase, this data misses the most important step in the process: consideration. Understanding what exactly triggers the difference in mindset from being aware of a product or service, and actually seeking it out, is crucial to expanding your customer base.

When it comes to measuring consideration, there are very few tools that can do this effectively- it’s almost as if this is a missing part of the funnel. We know that the biggest influencers are great at the ‘awareness’ stage of the marketing funnel – they’re nowhere near as good as micro-influencers at motivating the customer towards the ‘acquisition’ stage. What’s the difference?

The difference is simple: it’s a relationship which feels authentic and meaningful. And for brands this translates into owning a share of mind, rather than just getting their product in front of potential customers.

When we built our Lighthouse platform, consideration was top of mind. How do brands serve up information in a neutral way? How do they share their purpose? Because we know that brands that are purpose-led out perform those that aren’t. People want to feel like a brand has invested in something, whether it’s in them, its people, the community it operates in or the environment.

Lighthouse essentially allows a brand to gamify their customer engagements but it is as much about the customer as it is about the brand. Crucially, customers opt-in and get to play games, take quizzes and win rewards and at every step they feel like the brand knows them, values them and is rewarding them.