Billboards and brand advertising. Trade shows and podcasts. Social media and search. Direct mail and print. The ever-evolving and ever-more-crowded media landscape has made media buying and accurate measurement about as easy as running a four-minute mile.
All these options, coupled with increased workloads and tighter budget constraints, make the concept of “accountability” sometimes feel impossible. That’s not a good thing, since marketing credibility is a major issue for many upper executives today.
Let’s face it: Many CEOs and CFOs simply don’t trust marketers’ ability to accurately assess their budgets’ ROI.
A recent Marketing Management Analytics and Financial Executive International survey found only around 7% of financial managers are satisfied with their company’s capability to measure return on marketing investment (ROMI).
The Association of National Advertisers’ recent studies of the financial suite echo more of the same:
- Nine out of 10 do not use ROI numbers or forecasts that come from marketing for annual budgeting. (Fewer than two out of 10 senior managers have confidence in marketing’s forecasts.)
- Seven out of 10 do not use marketing input for financial guidance or public disclosure.
- Four out of 10 claim that internal marketing forecasts can’t pass the rigors of a corporate audit.
- Six out of 10 say marketers have an inadequate understanding of financial controls.
It’s little wonder that successful marketing measurement is so hard to find.
The overwhelming volume of marketing messages is forcing everyone to tune out in both a figurative and literal sense. Figuratively, consumers and business prospects have begun treating unwanted media communications as white noise — just a whirring sound in the background of life. People are adopting new technologies to help select what, when and how they hear and see the messages that interest them. Digital video recorders make it possible to watch TV shows — minus commercials — at the consumers’ convenience, and the iPod’s playlist capabilities produce personalized music selections without advertising interruptions.
SO WHAT’S THE BEST WAY TO MAKE SURE THAT MARKETING’S ROLE IS RESPECTED AND SOUGHT BY THE ENTIRE ORGANIZATION AND IS ALSO AS RELEVANT AS POSSIBLE TO YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE?
COLLABORATE — Too much marketing and planning is done in a bubble. Engage your customers, past buyers, prospects and, of course, executives in the marketing planning process. Be detailed and define your plan around modest goals, moderated goals and stretch goals. Get the C-suite to help define what goals are reachable, and have an action plan on how to achieve them. This exercise begins and ends with your ability to measure and prove what’s working and what’s not.
PLAN — Continue your collaboration by developing a comprehensive, measurable marketing plan that involves the CFO and CEO, if her/his time permits. Make their tasks small yet important so they can feel they are vested in the marketing planning. If you create a dialogue, the plan will be taken more seriously.
Without a comprehensive marketing plan and companywide agreement on its contents — including objectives, target markets, strategies, key messages and tracking/measuring tactics — gathering and analyzing results and ROMI is put on the back burner.
A marketing plan should focus not only on analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, but on achieving an increase in marketing and sales accountability; outlining realistic objectives; and creating innovative strategies and responsible measurement, with the media mix and results broken down in meaningful ways. Until recently, defining the tools with which a campaign would be measured was not a common component of a marketing plan. Build a measurement matrix into your plan that will make finance happy and can show your progress quickly and convincingly. Consider segments and lose the mass media mindset in favor of true micro-marketing.
This includes planning on media-what to buy where and when-and needs to include social media, especially if your budget is heading that way anyhow.
SET GOALS — While this seems like a given, don’t assume that goals are always included in marketing plans. Again, don’t operate in a vacuum. Get buy-in on goals and realize that the best way to reach those goals is to have a defined process that everyone understands and can agree on. Create scenario reports that show how much you can achieve below budget, at the budget figure, and over the budget figure. That way, if your budget has to be revised, either up or down, your goals will be in line with your budget. Obviously, obtaining meaningful goals at figures below budget will get finance as excited as a sharpened pencil.
While you’re achieving measurement goals with emerging technology like social media, it’s still imperative to set goals that can be analyzed and improved upon. Without goals, measurement is often a wasted exercise.
TEST — Today’s marketing plans must contain testing, return-on-investment scenarios and an outline of how each and every campaign is going to be measured. It must address relevancy and segments.
It’s important that any plan include a section that deals with marketing testing. In order for you to have success, you have to test. That, in turn, means that you will have some-hopefully many-failures that you can use as a guide to help you continually market smarter. This includes all media used, including social media.
APPLY — Whether you have success or failures, your end results will be determined by how you apply the knowledge you gained to your next marketing effort. Learning and applying that knowledge are hallmark characteristics of marketing professionals who demonstrate real measurement.
Measuring marketing performance is considered a strong leadership trait for an accomplished marketing professional. Each effort you make to enable your current employer to account for every dollar spent on marketing is going to make you a better, more sought-after marketer.
Whether you employ manual processes to take control of your metrics or use a marketing measurement system, make it a career choice to rationalize your marketing planning and maximize business results.
Grant A. Johnson ([email protected]) is CEO of Johnson Direct in Brookfield, WI.
TESTING ENSURES SUCCESS
For reasons of time, expense or goodness knows what, many marketers want to skip the crucial step of testing new strategies. This is a mistake if you want a healthy ROI.
Using narrowly focused product-specific marketing, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Wisconsin was experiencing marginal marketing success. The company had aggressive goals to double sales for its under-age-65 individual product sales, increase over-65 business, and re-engage the independent field sales force.
The insurer repositioned its messaging by running several sequential tests and then evaluating the results prior to roll out for each segment. The result was an increase in leads by over 700%, with a simultaneous reduction in marketing spend.
— Grant A. Johnson
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