Every business knows that marketing is important to build a brand, attract new customers, and retain current customers. But, a marketing expert at WNY Holdings, Christopher Lee, often sees that business owners don’t know how to track, manage and analyze their marketing plans effectively.

Luckily, there are standard metrics that any business can use to track marketing performance and the company’s long-term success. These metrics are called Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and Customer Lifetime Value (CTLV).

Taken together, both of these metrics help a business track the effectiveness of its customer acquisition and lead generation strategies. They also help companies predict how much revenue they are going to turn over in the future and what their rate of growth is likely to be.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, though. The two metrics also allow businesses to develop strategies to effectively increase revenue and understand which part of their lead generation strategy is the most effective.

However, before you can do that, you need to understand how to calculate these two essential metrics. WNY’s Marketing Manager, Christopher Lee, explains how.

Customer Acquisition Cost

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is a measurement that shows how much it costs a business to convert one prospect into a paid customer. This calculation refers to the overall average cost to acquire a customer. It’s not narrowly focused on a particular digital marketing campaign, for example, like Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) is.

CAC is a relatively simple metric to calculate. You divide the total marketing expenses spent by the number of new customers that you were able to acquire.

If your total marketing spend was $1,000 and you acquired ten new customers with that money, your CAC in this instance would be $100 ($1,000/10).

The variable here is the amount of time that you wish to analyze. CAC can be calculated across any time period you choose, whether it be one month, every quarter, twice a year, once a year, or more.

Obviously, the goal of any business is to keep their CAC as low as possible. The less expensive it is to acquire a new customer, the more profitable the company can be with each new customer.

Customer Lifetime Value

It’s essential for businesses to understand what their CAC is. However, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Not until you bring in Customer Lifetime Value (CTLV) do you begin to see the entire picture.

CTLV shows you the total that each customer will spend with your company from the time they make their first purchase until the time they make their last purchase.

This metric is valuable in quite a number of ways. First, it affects the business’ overall revenue. By calculating CTLV, you can segment and target all the customers that would be ideal for your business.

Then, you can tailor customer retention, loyalty, and service programs to meet their needs. By focusing on the ideal customers, you’ll optimize your marketing spend and your spending across multiple departments.

Finally, by tailoring programs to increase your CTLV, you’ll directly decrease the cost of acquiring new customers. Since you’ll be improving your retention rate — and therefore scrambling less to find new customers — you won’t be spending as much to acquire the new customers.

To calculate CTLV, you first have to take the average purchase price of your products and/or services. Once you have that data, you multiple it by the average purchases that a customer will make. The result will give you your business’ customer value.

Finally, take the customer lifespan and multiple it by your customer value, and you’ll have your overall CTLV.

As Christopher Lee points out, there are many variables that can go into CTLV. Typically speaking, businesses will figure their average purchase value by taking their total revenue and dividing it by the total number of purchases/orders they get.

You can also calculate your average purchase frequency rate from average purchase value, which is done by dividing the number of purchases by the number of customers you have.

Then, you can calculate your customer value by taking the average purchase value and multiplying it by the average purchase frequency rate.

That leads to average customer lifespan, which is calculated by dividing the total lifespan of all your customers by the total number of customers you have.

Once you do all this, you’ll land back on the CTLV formula from above — customer value multiplied by average customer lifespan.

Knowing how to calculate both CAC and CTLV, and understanding how you can use these metrics, are crucial for business owners in any industry.

About Christopher Lee

Christopher Lee is the Marketing Manager at WNY Holdings LLC, a customer-focused digital marketing company that was started in 2018 to provide tailored marketing strategies for small businesses. Christopher Lee assists clients with all their digital marketing needs, from content marketing, web, and graphic design, media creation, SEO, all the way to Facebook advertising.

Video chat platforms are remarkable ways to enhance your social life, but they have a darker side, too. If they’re used inappropriately, or users don’t use common sense, video chat platforms can allow malicious people and predators to target unwary victims with ease.

People looking for romance can end up being catfished by dangerous individuals, children can be exposed to inappropriate or illegal content, and their personal information can get stolen.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use video chat sites to meet new people and have fun. It just means you have to use a few common-sense practices regarding internet safety.

Let’s go over the different ways you can protect yourself on a video chat platform and have fun while you’re at it.

Rule 1: Do Not Divulge Personal Information

Just because someone seems like an okay person, it’s never smart to give them your full name, address, phone number, or other bits of personal information. If you happen across a wolf in sheep’s clothing, you can have your private information stolen and used for identity theft, or even worse, the person might show up at your door with evil intentions.

Do not divulge your personal information to random people on the internet.

Rule 2: Do Not Set Up Private Meetings

If you’re using the platform to find romance, or you’ve known a friend on the platform for years, you’ll likely end up wanting to meet them in person if possible. This isn’t recommended, but in some cases, such as having an online boyfriend for years, it’s just going to happen. So, make sure you do it the safe way.

First, never meet anyone at your home or in any other private place. You may think you know the person, but they may have been lulling you into a false sense of security so they could target you in malicious ways.

If you absolutely must meet someone in person, always set the meeting for a public place with good lighting. Meet them at a popular restaurant, tourist attraction, the mall, or somewhere else that is packed with other people and plenty of cameras and lighting.

This will ensure that, in the worst-case scenario, you have other people there to both help you and witness what happens.

Also have a backup plan at the ready in case the person isn’t who they said they are, or if they give off red flags. Have a friend drop you off and pick you up. If anything goes wrong, make sure you can text that friend a code word so they come with an excuse to pick you up early.

Rule 3: Don’t Blow Off Red Flags

If you’re in a chat with anyone, for any reason, and that person makes you uncomfortable, says something strange, or asks for personal information, don’t blow it off. Use the built-in block feature to block that person from speaking to you.

It can be easy to look past these red flags if you’re enjoying a conversation, but it’s better to be safe than sorry, and oftentimes, those red flags are legitimate warnings that who you’re talking to has malicious intentions.

Use CamSurf

You should use these three tips on any platform, but one video chat service offers a family-friendly environment that makes it much easier to deal with problems that arise: CamSurf.

With a full moderation staff and multiple systems in place to protect users, CamSurf is a safe video chat platform that can alleviate many of your worries.

When it comes to a large-scale project at work, you need a team beside you in order to work at your best possible. For those who are just beginning a company, you may wonder what roles are key to your projects being organized to perfection? These roles may include a marketing department, project managers, freelance workers, and designers. Today, we’ll diving deep into these roles and how the help facilitate a project. Let’s see how project management software can help the team work well together.

Marketing

Every company needs a marketing team, as they help in the branding and identity of the organization. Marketers are team leaders and have good organizational and planning skills, which is put to use with a project management tool, allowing them to compartmentalize all their tasks in the one place. This system allows them to feel motivated and supported to finish their daily tasks, making sure the marketing is updated via social media, emailing, cold calling, and other duties involved in their role.

Project Management

Any successful project needs a project management team, as they help bring the vision to the staff to finalise tasks and get them achieve their goals. These managers are organized, diligent, and analytical, overseeing everyone’s planning and strategies to make sure every task is done by the deadline. These experts know just how to run a project, focusing on the timing of the task and what needs to be done to achieve their goals.

Design

The design team is responsible for the overall look and appearance of the branding of the company, which is the first glimpse clients and customers see. This includes the color theme, the logo, fonts, and many other design elements to consider to showcase the vision for the company. Designers work to capture the message of the brand, working on a variety of different projects from social media pictures to website design and more, requiring a project management software to organize everything.

Freelancers

Sometimes a project requires an expert to ensure that the timeline goes smoothly. A freelancer promises that you will get the job done on time, with their incredible knowledge and experience, to get the task done on time. Because they are only working for a particular project, they require all the necessary filing to be on the one system and this is possible with a project management software. They can get into contact with their team, allowing them to get any questions they have answered and any miscommunication gaps sorted.

Every company requires many different roles which help a project be overseen by everyone and finish by the deadline. From marketers, project managers, freelancers, and designers, they all come together to make help a business achieve goals and provide an all-round service. With the help of a project management system, they will allow each department to communicate with each other, improving the organization and work flow of tasks between the groups, to get the project to the finish line.

We’ve all heard an earful about them — the misconceptions and untrue tales of everything financial planning isn’t! These fables are designed to deter financial breakthroughs and accomplishments and you should take them with a pinch of salt.

We seek to prove how misleading these financial myths are and why they shouldn’t be believed!

5 Common Financial Planning Myths Debunked

1. The Myth: A budget is Synonymous with a Financial Plan

Debunked: A financial plan is far from a budget! Though it includes the attributes of budgeting such as spending and savings, it encompasses a lot more than that. While a budget serves to track your cash output and saving habits, a financial plan encompasses every aspect of your finances including income, insurance, savings, spending, housing, estate and retirement plans. A financial plan helps you manage your finances effectively and teaches you how to make reasonable financial decisions to improve your cash flow and balance sheet. Always seek reputable financial services.

2. The Myth: Financial Planning is for the Rich

Debunked: Wrong! Granted, financial planning can be an expensive affair but not in all cases. There are several financial planning platforms and enterprises that offer their services on an affordable platter. Plus, the technological advancement and industrial expansion of the finance industry has made financial planning more accessible than ever. There is also the assumption that only wealthy individuals can consult financial planning resources, this is also untrue. You can start financial planning with a few assets and resources. Starting early and small is the key ingredient to building a higher net worth and wealth in the future.

3. The Myth: Financial Planning is not for the Young

Debunked: who says you are too young to have a financial plan! Admittedly, you may not have a robust salary and assets at a young age, but this doesn’t mean you can’t have a financial plan. As earlier mentioned, investing in a financial plan from the get-go lays the foundation for future wealth. It also helps to nurture good financial habits as you go. So never say or believe that you are too young for a financial plan, because the sooner you start making wise financial decisions, the sooner your goals will materialize.

4. The Myth: Having a Financial Advisor or Broker is Enough

Debunked:  A financial broker or advisor isn’t the be-all-and-end-all of financial planning! While a financial advisor or financial broker makes life easy for you, they aren’t magicians that can create perfection. You also have to put in some effort to maximize their solutions and work. Improve your financial literacy and always stay on top of the trends and market patterns.

5. The Myth: Financial Planning is the Same as Investing

Debunked: Many people think financial planning is equivalent to investing, which is nothing but a misconception. Investment is a part of financial planning and not the concept itself.  Financial planning factors in the fundamental aspects of investment such as asset allocation, rebalancing portfolio and etcetera. It helps lay the groundwork for your investment plans and points you in the right direction to achieve your goals.

In a Nutshell

Now that we’ve comprehensively debunked some common financial myths affecting financial mindset and growth, you can filter truth from falsehood and proceed to make smart financial decisions that can shape your future.

A leader carries the business into success, with a heavy heft of responsibilities in the role description. It can be hard to be in a management role, with the pressure to be able to become the figure representing the company. In this case, leadership coaching is a great way to understand your management style, your strengths, weaknesses, and areas of improvement.

By having a mentor who understands the crux of the leadership role, this will allow you to have better tools and strategies to improve your work ethic, your employees, and the whole of the company. In this article, we are going to showcase what leadership coaching involves and what are the advantages of joining this service for your business.

What Is Leadership Coaching?

Leadership coaching is a service involving a mentor with experience in managerial and executive fields, providing advice to a prospective or current leader. The mentor’s purpose is to help their mentees understand their capabilities and foster effective leadership skills so that they can reach their career goals. In some companies, they may have hired leadership coaching on-site or out source to an external service. These sessions may go on from a few weeks to even years, which is based on what your particular goals are and what you want to achieve from the service.

What are the advantages?

Deeper Insight

Having a coach to tell you like it is can be hard to hear but it can help you become a better leader than prior to the session. They will uncover your strong points and areas that you could improve on. By going through your goals, they will see what resources, tips, and suggestions for the next move are. You’ll get a new perspective offering you educated advice to better your business.

Confidence

You can relax knowing you have someone to guide you to take your leadership role to the next level. By giving you the insight to know about your management style, you will learn how to combat the issues and improve as a leader. This will ultimately increase your confidence in your role, self-aware of what is the best method to manage your employees and business. With this learning experience, you can feel at ease knowing you can do the job justice.

Beat Your Competitors

One key missing factor in a business is a good leader. If you can be able to lead your company to victory, you can stand out from other businesses in your field. By growing as a leader you can motivate your fellow colleagues, overall improving the work performance and success for the company. You can therefore find yourself having the best tools and strategies to overcome any problem and move along to the road of success. In this way, you won’t have to worry about any competition coming your way.