Articulating the effectiveness and impact of your design, creative campaign, or project on the business is imperative if you want your Inside Out® Award entry to be noticed
We have enlisted the guidance of Charlotte Ellis Maldari, founder of Kaffeen New Business Coaching for agencies, who recommends a number of ways to calculate and demonstrate the ROI of design.
- What were targets for the design project? Have these been achieved, and if so, how quickly?
- Increase in sales (value / volume by percentage but preferably with amounts).
- Increased market share (against competitors’ products / services, or penetration of key consumer groups or geographical areas).
- Increased market distribution / new international markets broken into
- Increased profitability
- Increased conversion rates
- Increased share price
- Increased awareness / profile
- Business Growth (other ways in which the business has grown).
- New revenue streams created (new product development or extension into new categories, driven by success of design solution).
- Attraction of higher-value customers / partnerships / sponsorships.
- Production Efficiencies / cost benefits (reductions in labour time; reductions in materials and production costs, increases in productivity, improvements in processes / systems; streamlined supply chain management).
- Improvements in customer experience (e.g. reduction in customer queries / complaints, increased interaction, increased customer satisfaction levels as determined by surveys/questionnaires / positive feedback / market reaction, etc).
- Increased engagement of external stakeholders (peer approval, adopted as best practice, increased usage or response rates).
- Increased engagement with internal audience (reflected in changes to frontline attitudes and behaviour (e.g. improved customer service, increased productivity, reduction in customer complaints, reductions in staff absenteeism / sickness), tracking studies demonstrating shifts in attitude; peer approval, adopted as best practice; increased usage or response rates).
- Calculate how quickly the redesign achieved ROI
- Improved footfall (increased capture rates / dwell times / spend, improved visitor attention / retention / return, uplift in occupancy rates).
- Rollout of design solution.
- Sales team testimonials
- Specific changes to working practices or company attitude / strategy.
- Media impact / reach (press and social media coverage driven by design, measured by impressions, media stories, value of organic coverage equivalent to advertising value).
- Digital growth / engagement (across social media (active engagement), mobile and online (uplift in traffic / sessions, conversion rates, open rates, sign ups, downloads, session times, bounce rate, online revenue, etc) versus objectives / industry benchmarks; increased usage or response rates).
- Funding / investment in a business / initiative or brand (against original target), sale of business (against expected value).
- Improved recruitment and retention of target audience / staff / sponsors / partners (higher calibre of recruits /partnerships).
- Job creation / retention (expansion of business or premises because of increased demand)
- Sustainability improvements (reductions in carbon footprint; elimination of waste; impact on transportation; impact on energy consumption; consideration of circular economy, etc).
- Social impact (increased education and awareness leading to positive behavioural change).
- How is the brand performing against the market now? Any increases in market share and/or value as compared against competitors’ products/services, penetration of key consumer groups or geographical areas?
Hope you find these hints and tips helpful and good luck with your entry!
Full list of Inside Out® Awards categories can be found here.
