Marketing Governance

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.

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%).

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New Media Forecasts report, ZenithOptimedia found that the leading country in 2012 terms of new media adoption was Norway, with an average penetration rate of 38.8% across three key digital technologies – smartphones, tablets and IPTV.

It was followed by France on 35.7%, the Netherlands on 35.1%, Sweden on 31.3% and Denmark on 31.2%. However, balance will shift a little towards 2015. ZenithOptimedia expects the Netherlands to be on top in 2015 with a penetration of 65.1%, followed by France 60.8% and Ireland 50.2%.

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Marketing is under pressure to deliver results and drive business outcomes. But how are they doing? Research shows that measuring marketing’s performance is an area of major frustration for the C-Suite and a significant challenge for most marketers. In fact, according to the ITSMA and VisionEdge Marketing (VEM) just completed study, most marketers are dissatisfied with their MPM capabilities. On average, marketers award their marketing organizations ability to manage its performance a 5.6 on a scale of 10.

In August 2012, VisionEdge Marketing conducted a Marketing Performance Management Survey with 405 marketers to assess marketing’s performance with regards to how they use data, metrics, and analytics. With more than a decade of industry talk on the topic of marketing accountability,  this research shows that only a few exceptional marketers have cracked the code.

Those few marketers whose leadership team assigned them A grade for their ability to demonstrate their impact to the business have adopted six principles of Marketing Performance Management to increase marketing ROI and contribution. They are:

• Alignment
• Accountability
• Analytics
• Automation
• Alliances
• Assessment

The A-list marketers VisionEdge has identified are able to show how marketing can benefit the organization: 96% say they can prove the direct link between business goals and marketing activities; 91% say its clear to the management how marketing impacts the business; and 90% say that marketing can measure and benchmark their results. That is another important takeaway from the study the A category use statistics as a basis for important decisions, and are more mature when it comes to adoption of Marketing Automation systems.

The survey identified several characteristics in the organization of successful marketers:

• Empower Marketing Operations
• Implement integration and interoperability initiatives
• Institutionalize marketing standards
• Establish formal partners within IT, sales, and finance
• Regularly benchmark to drive performance innovation

For more information, there is an abbreviated summary available for free download. . .

Lenskold Group. The marketers reviewed reported an increase in six key outcomes, with 6 in 10 reporting increased quantity and quality of leads and close to half reporting increases in the Percent of Leads Accepted by Sales and the Total Marketing Revenue Contribution.

The 2012 Lead Generation Marketing Effectiveness Study examined how integrated Marketing Automation, strengths in key competencies and the use of ROI metrics influence marketing performance and key lead generation outcomes. The results were drawn from 373 B2B lead generation marketers with responsibilities to generate leads for a sales organization or external channel partner. The research study provides guidance on what is necessary to achieve effective and efficient lead generation marketing. Read More

Marketers who have come to be perceived as value generators for their organization have learned how to use data, analytics, processes and metrics to move business results and demonstrate their contribution. The problem is that many marketers are tracking metrics that are easy and convenient but have little or nothing to do with the organization’s performance. The real challenge for a good number of marketers is to develop and use metrics that drive results.

ITSMA and VisionEdge Marketing have teamed up in an Marketing Performance Mangement survey (open until July 27th) to give marketers the opportunity to gain insight in their use of marketing data, metrics, and analytics to inform marketing decisions, predict buyer behavior, improve marketing performance, and forecast trends.  Read More

The Definitive Guide to Marketing Metrics and Analytics. The marketing firm says that Revenue Metrics and Marketing Program Performance Metrics, which document the impact of effort and investment and directly link it to revenue and profit, are the only relevant markers in the financial minds of business owners:

Soft metrics like brand awareness, GRP, impressions, organic search rankings and reach are important – but only to the extent that they quantifiably connect to hard metrics like pipeline, revenue, and profit.

While marketers are inclined to share with the C-Suite how many clicks and likes and pageviews their campaigns get, the CFO en CEO are more interested in how the Marketing department contributes to the companys revenue. Marketers should learn to see business from their point of view and adjust the way they share information with other departments accordingly. If you can prove Marketing is a justifyable investment, Marketing will no longer be seen as a cost center, but as a valuable part of the organization. We agree strongly with this message, as weve also outlined in our slideshow The Real Value of Operational Marketing Excellence earlier.

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Members of the leadership team expect marketing to generate value for their organization. Why? For many organizations, over 80% of their value is derived from intangibles. These intangibles, such as marketplace position and customer relationships, are often produced by marketing initiatives and result from marketing investments. Therefore, it’s no surprise that the leadership team’s expectations and pressure on Marketing will continue to rise. Generating value requires marketing to help the organization capture market share, increase customer lifetime value and grow customer equity. It is essential that Marketing maps out a clear direction and, as we say in Texas, Get ’er done. Read More

new report from the trade body, performed in partnership with researchers at Nielsen and NM Incite, analysed the online marketing activities of auto firms BMW, Hyundai, Mercedes and Range Rover. Results indicated the companies are achieving conversion rates of between 4% and 11% for visitors to their websites.

For the report, the IAB counted as conversions visitors who subsequently continued their engagement by performing additional brand-related activities, such as configuring a model, downloading a brochure or booking a test drive. The research highlighted strong integration effects between search and display advertising, which are the two most widely-used forms of online ads. Of the consumers analysed, 40-50% of those exposed to display ads also performed some form of search activity related to the brand. Read More

Bloomberg Businessweek Research Services study conducted earlier this year among 930 businesses across the globe in various industries, found that only one in four organizations believes its use of business analytics has been very effective in helping to make decisions. Even though more than half of the companies in the survey said that they rely heavily on data and metrics when making decisions, many admitted that intuition and business experience still tip the scale when it comes to decision-making. Read More