Posted by Ajay Kelkar on Fri, May 08, 2009
Peter DeLegge has this interesting take on Marketing accountability,which continues to be a hot topic for CEOs today! Often the challenge that Marketers face is that it is actually very hard to measure some aspects of marketing-how do you then direct your efforts at "measuring what can be measured". The other aspect is to co-opt the CFO in this journey towards establishing measurements.It helps to have the CFO on your side and maybe for that one has to choose the areas where you want Marketing measurement to make a mark! For companies which have abundance of Customer data ,an interesting way to do this is Analytical Marketing. It is of course difficult to implement Analytical marketing with well crafted Marketing measurements! And often the reality is that there is a lot of talk, but not an equivalent degree of action. Consider a recent study by the CMO Council that found less than 20% of top technology marketers surveyed had developed “meaningful, comprehensive measures and metrics for their marketing organizations.” The last major study on marketing ROI found that 68% of marketers were unable to determine the ROI of their initiatives. While marketing accountability is a priority, these studies send a clear message: We’re not there yet.While determining marketing ROI is ideal for large initiatives and initiatives where it can be easily determined, such as direct mail or online marketing, it can be complex and cost prohibitive process to accurately determine marketing ROI on small offline branding campaigns. Marketing ROI is the ideal measure, but it can be costly to properly implement. The real bottom line is that CMOs need to sit down with CFOs to determine the appropriate marketing measures and who is best suited to monitor these measures.See what Peter DeLegge has to say about ‘The Bottom Line on Marketing Accountability’.http://www.marketingtoday.com/marketing/1204/bottom_line_marketing.htm
Posted by Ajay Kelkar on Wed, Apr 22, 2009
For many marketers Campaign management is purely a tactical and operational process. While to some extent this is true,what marketers do not realize is that at its core Campaign management needs deep insights into Customer strategy and without that creating automation to support customer engagement is meaningless! Often the Campaign manager ends up being the execution arm and is not able to influence the levers of customer strategy. Especialy in growth markets where customer acquistion rates are galloping,it is all the more important to allow a coherent customer strategy to drive your company's campaign management.
Marketing can no longer afford to simply act as a bullhorn pushing the product du jour or blasting cross-sell and up-sell offers. Ad overload, consumer neglect is only the few things that marketing campaign management cannot ignore. The requirement is for creating an integrated marketing effort across the organisation to enhance interactive marketing.
http://www.customerthink.com/blog/next_generation_campaign_management
Posted by Ajay Kelkar on Tue, Apr 07, 2009
Marketing is possibly amongst the last areas in the corporate world to really embrace automation. Possibly it has been driven too much by "right brained" creative persuits and it is only now that "left brain" orientation is making Marketing a far more number driven discipline. Technology allows marketers to start engaging with their customers in previously unthought of ways. It allows marketers to move from the world of "push marketing" to the unexplored territory of "pull marketing" through the use of customer data which allows marketing action to become far more relevant. However all this transfoms marketing into a process discipline where it is critical to become process focussed. How do marketers go about bringing automation into the Marketing function? Where should you start? Here is an interesting paper by Bruce Biegel of the Winterberry group which provides insights into the state of marketing automation and also provides guidance on what prospective buyers of Marketing automation technology should look for -check it out! Marketing Automation