George Bailey, a senior advisor to Sony and a MarketShare Advisory Board Member, addresses the struggles many marketing organizations are having with todays data explosion, and the secrets to successfully integrating marketing analytics.
In today’s data-driven environment it’s important not to confuse analytics with acumen. Analytics may help facilitate or enhance business acumen or astuteness, but it certainly doesn’t replace it. The Oxford English Dictionary defines acumen as the ability to make good judgments and quick decisions.”
Analytics, on the other hand, is logical analysis derived by applying some type of algorithms or mathematics to data. In 2007, Davenport and Harris described analytics as a set of technologies and processes that use information and data to understand and analyze business performance. Certainly well-thought out logical analysis can be very useful in understanding and addressing business situations and making quick decisions that will produce a desired outcome. But there’s more to business acumen than logical analysis. A McKinsey article I once read framed this well, good analysis in the hands of managers who have good judgment won’t naturally yield good decisions.
Research by the Perth Leadership Institute, the Conference Executive Board (CEB) and others offer a variety of recommendations for how we can improve our business acumen. One of the key competencies cited is strong, quantitative skills. Why? Because being able to see the big picture requires an understanding of your market and how your organization operates in that market, and what drives profitability and cash flow for your organization. This is where analytics come into play. Read More
Irv Shapiro. “I am fascinated by many of the results that reflect the innovation that is occurring in marketing measurement.”
A primary trend from the 2013 research is the level of support, and scrutiny, that marketers are receiving from their CEO’s around marketing measurement as a growth engine. Two thirds of CEO’s surveyed have significant influence in marketing decisions and half receive regular marketing measurements. In fact, one in ten CEO’s seek marketing measurements daily (9.2 percent) while one in five (19.7 percent) are receiving updates weekly.
(graph by Ifbyphone 2013: State of Marketing Measurement Survey Report)
Marketing teams are being asked to measure a wider range of marketing metrics with a greater focus on revenue and tracking of customer interactions from both offline and online sources. Tracking new customer sources is the highest rated marketing metric utilized (by 49 percent of all respondents), with measuring increases in sales/revenue across marketing channels a very close second (48 percent).
Given the dominance of the sales-related metrics already being measured by the marketing team, it is not unreasonable to conclude that marketing measurement innovation, which enables marketers to better track and monetize engagements with customers and sales prospects, will be a high priority in coming years.
(graph by Ifbyphone 2013: State of Marketing Measurement Survey Report)
Investment in an emerging generation of marketing measurement tools is needed to satisfy the CEO’s increasing demand for tracking data. In order to facilitate this, budget growth and additional marketing resources are being provided.
Possibly as a result of the increased focus from the CEO and the growing role marketing has as a growth engine, almost half of respondents (45 percent) reported an increase in their marketing budgets in the past year while only 12 percent are working with a tighter marketing budget.
Respondents were asked what their marketing personnel priorities would be for 2013/14 and a significant majority were focused on proactive and growth related strategies. Almost a third (32 percent) plan to add more full-time marketing resources, one in five respondents (19 percent) plan to invest in more contingent marketing workers, while one in 10 (10 percent) will hire a new marketing agency.
One in 10 respondents (10 percent) will also share resources with other departments, such as IT, reflecting the highly technical nature of twenty-first century marketing analytics. A much smaller percentage of respondents are planning to downsize their investment in marketing personnel in 2013/14.
In line with increasing marketing budgets, more marketing people are being hired. Growth hackers, marketers who combine marketing knowledge with a strong technical background to drive growth, are having an impact on improvements in marketing measurement. One quarter of respondents (25 percent) now have a Growth Hacker on their marketing team, the same percentage that have Product Managers.
Marketing teams with Growth Hackers are prioritizing investments in emerging marketing measurement technology, across both online and offline channels. Almost three quarters of marketing teams with a Growth Hacker engaged (72 percent) are experimenting with Voice-Based Marketing Automation (VBMA), 19 percent more than marketing teams generally. Meanwhile, 44 percent of marketing teams with Growth Hackers are using marketing automation software compared to only 26 percent of marketing teams generally.
Over a third of Growth Hacker-backed marketing teams (34 percent) are utilizing heat map tools compared with only 20 percent of the average marketing teams. Almost twice as many marketing teams with Growth Hackers (28 percent) are experimenting with emerging workflow automation tools, compared to 15 percent generally.
Across every category of marketing measurement technology, it is the Growth Hackers who are leading the charge in experimenting and innovating with emerging tools that will give them, their CEO, and their marketing colleagues the edge in tracking where the best results are being achieved for marketing investments.
See the complete survey at Ifbyphone.com
You know you need to market your practice, but how effective are your current methods? Marketing metrics give us the best information about whats working and what is not and will help you make better investment decisions. Learn how to measure the impact of your efforts and refine your approach in this webinar, Marketing Metrics Getting the Most from Your Marketing Dollars with Cheryl Whitman, CEO of Beautiful Forever Consulting.
Cheryl Whitman is an internationally-recognized pioneer in medical spa and aesthetic medical business consulting. She is a published author, speaker, and cosmetic marketing specialist, and spearheads a successful team of aesthetic business consultants and business professionals as founder and CEO of Beautiful Forever. Dont miss the opportunity to learn how you can get more out of your marketing dollars!
Ever since 2001 VisionEdge Marketing is conducting a Marketing Performance Management survey to better understand how marketers are using marketing data, metrics, and analytics to inform marketing decisions, predict buyer behavior, improve marketing performance, and forecast trends. The new 2013 issue of the survey is online now.
Survey participants have found the results to be an excellent benchmarking tool. It provides insight into how marketers use data, metrics, and analytics to inform marketing decisions, improve marketing performance, and report on their contribution, impact and value. This year’s survey is particularly focused on marketing dashboards, data, and analytics- important capabilities for today’s marketing professionals.
In appreciation for completing the survey, participants will receive:
All responses will be kept strictly confidential and reported only in the aggregate. The survey closes at April 30, 2013. If you leave the survey and re-enter, you will be returned to the place where you left off.
The modern technology, and especially digital technology like e-mail, websites, mobile and social media, are a blessing for marketers. Not ever before were they able to gather so much data on what they do. But, this also comes with a danger. The flood of data is large, marketers are awash in data. Marketing analytics is the way to take control over this flood. In the 2013 Marketing Analytics Benchmark Report
Over 1.100 marketers are surveyed for this research. It provides insight into analytics for all kinds of marketing channels.
According to Marketingssherpa the surveyed marketers provided some interesting insights, and also highlighted areas where marketers could improve in taking advantage of this valuable marketing asset.
The availability of marketing analytics data is promising with 79% reporting having average, significant and even vast amounts of client interaction data to analyze. Only 3% reported having no analytics data at all. An overwhelming majority — 97% — of marketers have some amount of marketing analytics data to work with.
Dr. Robert Shaw is a renowned businesswriter on marketing. He also is a consultant on the field of marketing, particularly Marketing performance measurement and management and Database marketing.
In his work two key elements come forward.
In this ten minute interview, conducted by Mayer Becker, Shaw sheds his light on Leaner, faster and better marketing.
Ross Graber serves as Research Director for the Marketing Operations Strategies service at SiriusDecisions. He brings over 15 years of marketing experience with focus spanning marketing measurement, demonstrating ROI, data management, process development, marketing technology, customer marketing and sales enablement. He sheds his light on measurement tools. The web is littered with people who know best for you and your organisation. They think they know what your marketing measurement needs to be like and look like.
But dont be fooled, Graber says. There’s way too much bad advice being dispensed from sources that you’d expect to be credible. Whether this advice is well intentioned or simply snake oil, b-to-b marketers need to be able to spot bad measurement advice and reject it.
In his article Marketing Measurement Snake Oil he explains three key points which any marketer should consider when shopping for tools to measure your marketing.
Do you rely on hearsay when it comes to your marketingcampaigns? No you say? Feedback on your marketingcampaigns, showing results and measuring effectiveness. It sounds like every marketer would own one or more processes to do so, but do they?
Most senior marketers say they either have a formalized process or are using one when the situation calls for it. “But when it comes to the types of local market data used to impact campaign performance, those same marketers appear to be too reliant on ‘hearsay data’,” the CMO Council states in a new study.
Marketers are twice as likely to gather insights from field and business development teams as they are to examine online voice of customer listening and analysis (57% vs. 29%).
Efficient marketing supply chain management will deliver significant financial results, as well improving collaboration amongst the marketing department, its internal customers and the suppliers of marketing services.
If you want to know more, watch this video.
