KEY TAKEAWAY: Research continues to show that management’s biggest concern when it comes to marketing is “where did the money go?”. In other words “what did the money we gave marketing actually do?”. Too many marketing dollars are wasted on vanity metrics that don’t do a thing for bottom line business objectives.
Just read any issues of AdWeek and you’ll read about marketing and advertising dollars being wasted. There are still too many agency people who like to pat themselves on the back for winning awards that didn’t do a damn thing to sell more products.
When strategizing marketing tactics the first question that should be asked are “what are the objectives?”. The top line objective should define the campaign and needs to quantifiable. Saying things like raising “awareness” or “ensuring that our audience remembers the commercial/ad” are soft metrics that have little to do with the objective of marketing which is to sell product.
A great example are the repeated Geico commercials that are airing. While “hump day” is a funny commercial it in no way drives me to consider Geico insurance. This is especially true when you Google “Geico sucks”. I’m sure the agency that developed them is feeling good about them but can they say that a camel asking “what day is it” will actually drive people to consider Geico insurance?
Once you have the objectives of your marketing initiative you need to then ask “how are we going to define success?” and to get the metrics approved by senior management. This is imperative. By getting senior executives to sign off on the budget spend, with rationale, they become defenders of your spend.
Finally always issue a summary that tells a story after any marketing program but ensure that the summary includes clear and direct lines to your marketing program. There are always going to be people who know what everything costs but who don’t understand the value of what you’re doing.
Your marketing analytic summary should never be just numbers or show just one channel. Marketing is best if it’s integrated and your analytic summary should show that your marketing is working like a fine tuned engine driving people to move from prospect to customer.
