In-store signage, digital ads, social media, radio, TV, shopper marketing, cause marketing… the list goes on and on. There are many marketing tactics your brand could take to get your message out to consumers. However, no matter where you’re spending your marketing dollars, how do you justify your spend? How do you calculate ROI?

There are some tactics, in-store sampling or demos for example, where you can draw a pretty straight line to distribution, sales and ROI.

There are some tactics, however, like digital or social media marketing, where you’ll need to do a little work ahead of time so that you can speak to the campaign’s success to your team and organization’s stakeholders. For example:

Identify campaigns goals
Before you spend on a program, it is important to outline the goals of the campaign. Are you looking to drive brand awareness? Drive traffic to your website? Increase engagement with your current audience? Make sure your goals are attainable, measurable, and if you are working with a third party (agency, influencer, etc.), you must communicate expectations ahead of time, so everyone is on the same page.

Do your homework
When spending on digital marketing, especially with influencers for example, it is important to do your homework and ask questions prior to working together. Knowing their average website traffic, impressions and engagement will help you set expectations and better grasp what the campaign results will be. Visit your partners’ websites and social media pages to get a better understanding on how your brand is going to be represented.

Trust your partners, but track your own analytics, too
Hopefully, your brand is working with partners you trust, and you have built relationships with like-minded organizations where your partnership can be mutually beneficial. Having set goals ahead of time, your partner should be able to provide you with the information you need to demonstrate a campaign’s success. However, you should also be tracking your own analytics and looking at your own numbers. Websites and tools like similarweb.com, hashtag tracking, tiny URLs, etc. can help you run simple analytics and keep you informed.

Remember that content is gold
Customer engagement with your brand is vital in building brand awareness and loyalty. It starts with having a robust online and social presence. One hurdle that I often see with brands trying to win the social media game, especially in the produce industry, stems from lack of meaningful and useful content. Often, what sets brands apart from each other is their ability to meet customers where they are in their shopping cycle and interact with them in a relevant way. In order to do this effectively, you need content, content and more content. Therefore, no matter what marketing program you deploy, it is important to remember that not only should it aim at driving sales, it should also create content that you can share with your consumers. Never underestimate the mileage you can get with one meaningful piece of content that you can share with those who are going to be seeing your product while they are shopping.

Are you doing good? Today’s shopper has a desire to make the world a better place and they are looking to give to causes that are important to them by using their purchase power. Ninety-one percent of consumers say that they are likely to switch to a brand that supports a good cause, given similar price and quality. Eighty percent of consumers believe that businesses must play a role in addressing societal issues. Millennial shoppers especially are gravitating toward brands that give back and they are demanding more and more do so. When you create or partner with a cause-marketing initiative, you are letting your customer know that you are socially responsible and interested in the same causes they are.

(Trish James is the vice president of Produce for Kids)