There are lots of sophisticated tools and technologies that help companies analyze whether their marketing investments are translating into sales dollars. However, many of those tools are out of reach for smaller businesses with tighter budgets.

Even so, every organization should recognize the value of gathering at least some objective information on the effectiveness of their marketing communications. Often the simplest data is sufficient to describe the overall success or failure of a particular tactic or initiative.

You don’t need to do everything, or the most expensive things, but you should do something to evaluate whether your marketing is working. Otherwise, you’ll only be replicating marketing efforts that may not have worked in the first place and even repeat the same unwitting mistakes.

Here are just a few simple ways to institute measurements for marketing.

• Start at the tactical level. Focus on promotion-related activities. Gauge the effectiveness of a coupon blitz by calculating redemptions. Tally up the sales leads generated after a company-hosted event. Add up the number of requests for more information initiated by an advertised offer.
  
  
• Track response rates as well as dollars generated. It’s important to know what marketing campaigns are working (those with high response rates) and whether campaigns are contributing to the bottom line (those that result in sales). Getting only 25 responses to a large direct-mail campaign can actually be a very good thing if the resulting sales dollars surpass the mailing investment.
  
  
• Try shifting some resources away from traditional advertising. Unlike TV, print, and radio ads, online advertising and direct marketing give companies easy and straightforward measurements through response rates. Event marketing also provides more immediate opportunities to collect and track prospect information.
  
  
• Use the technology you already have. If your company has a website, you should be tracking and analyzing opt-in e-mail lists, subscription requests, keyword searches, and any other customer data that’s easily gleaned from your site.
  
  
• Conduct customer service surveys and focus groups. Doing so can provide valuable insights and feedback about how your marketing is working, particularly in terms of less quantifiable factors such as consumer loyalty and brand awareness.