“THINK.” The word that built IBM’s early culture. And right now, it’s what small businesses need to do more than ever when it comes to their marketing.

A few days ago I finished reading Making Numbers Count by Chip Heath and Karla Starr.

The subtitle is “The Art and Science of Communicating Numbers.”

Like most people, I don’t naturally love numbers. They feel abstract. Cold. Easy to misunderstand—or worse, easy to ignore.

Turns out that’s normal.

“Numbers are like foreign language. You need to translate them before people understand what they actually mean.” – Chip Heath

So I decided to try some of Chip’s advice. Let’s talk about marketing ROI—the actual numbers—and what they really mean for SMBs right now.

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Drowning in Data, Starving for Insight, Failing to Execute

Here’s what recent industry data shows us:

• 45% of SMBs don’t measure marketing ROI. That’s nearly half of all small businesses. Imagine lining up 10 local businesses in a room. 4 to 5 of them have no idea what’s working. They’re running campaigns blind, like trying to drive in fog with your headlights off.
• 50% admit to poor or no measurement systems at all. That’s like running a marathon with no map, no mile markers, and no idea how far you’ve come.
• Less than 13% of businesses feel confident measuring email ROI. That’s 1 in 8. If this were a football team, only 1 player would know where the end zone is.

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Why This Is Happening (And Why It’s Dangerous)

SMBs are stuck. Not because they don’t care—but because they’re buried in complexity:

• Multiple tools with disconnected data
• Unclear metrics (what should we track?)
• Customer journeys that zig-zag through 10 platforms before buying
• Budget, time, and talent constraints

So instead of focusing, they freeze. Or worse—they keep guessing and call it strategy.

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How to Break the Inertia: The One-Page ROI Dashboard

Here’s the fix: Clarity over complexity. A visual, simple, one-page dashboard that helps SMBs track what matters.

You can always get into fancier dashboards later, but you have to start with clarity and understanding. This is a great way to do it.

Step 1: Track the 3-5 KPIs That Matter Most

Let’s translate these into Chip Heath-style comparisons:

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) Say you spent $5,000 last month and got 100 new customers. That’s $50 CAC.

That’s like spending $50 per handshake. If each handshake turns into a sale, you’re winning. If not, you’re just buying noise.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) If someone buys $50 worth of stuff 4 times per year, and sticks with you for 5 years, they’re worth $1,000.

That’s like meeting someone at a coffee shop and realizing they’ll buy you dinner for the next 60 months.

Conversion Rate If 1,000 people hit your site and 50 buy, you’ve got a 5% conversion rate.

Imagine 100 people walk into your store. If 5 of them buy, that’s average. If 20 buy? That’s a line out the door.

Cost Per Lead (CPL) Spend $300 and get 30 leads = $10 CPL.

That’s one lead for the cost of a fast-casual lunch. Now ask: how many lunches are turning into relationships?

Return on Investment (ROI) You spend $10,000. You make $50,000. That’s 400% ROI.

Every $1 you put in brings back $4. That’s not a budget drain—that’s a profit engine.

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Step 2: Use Tools That Don’t Require an MBA

• Google Analytics 4 (GA4): Free, powerful, and integrates with your site.
• Mailchimp or Constant Contact: Great for email ROI tracking.
• HubSpot or Nutshell: CRM tools to track leads, deals, and campaign impact.
• Cyfe or Looker Studio: Build dashboards that visualize all this in one place.

You don’t need 20 tools. You need one source of truth.

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Step 3: Review Monthly, Not Annually

Don’t wait for Q4 to realize your Q1 campaigns failed. Set a Monthly ROI Review—just one hour. Look at:

• What worked
• What underperformed
• What to double down on
• What to delete

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Your Challenge: Build the Dashboard This Week

No more mystery marketing. Open up a doc, a spreadsheet, or a dashboard tool—whatever works for you—and list your:

• CAC
• CLV
• Conversion Rate
• CPL
• ROI

If you don’t know the number, that’s your starting line. Track it next week. Measure again the week after. This is how momentum starts.

If you can’t measure it, you can’t scale it. And if you can’t explain your ROI clearly, no one else will fight to protect your budget. And it starts with making the numbers count.

If this helped, forward it to someone stuck in the fog. We don’t need fancier tools. We need sharper thinking and one source of truth simplicity for measuring.

See you next Saturday!

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