Marketing Metrics --Using a Dashboard

Great article to help you determine if you need an oil change, or if you need to fill up your tank..Its about creating a dashboard...what too many people automatically interpret as a software application...but it can simply be a "thought process"..read the whole article!

oes your company suffer from any of these symptoms?

• Marketing is not seen as having a direct impact on the organization's financial performance.
• Functional silos within marketing seem to be operating independently and fighting for budget dollars and attention.
• With the swarm of marketing initiatives, no one is clear on which ones are really contributing the most to the bottom line.
• Marketing budgets are set on what was spent in the past year, not on what was achieved in the prior 12 months or on new company goals.
• Finance isn't buying into the ability of the marketing mix model to link brand attributes to revenue or profits.

If so, you might want to think about how a marketing dashboard can help build marketing's alignment with organizational goals and increase marketing's accountability to enhancing the bottom line. A good dashboard reflects what's going on in marketing, what resources are deployed, to what end, and what ROI is expected for each initiative.

$5 million idea in three sentences

Business Week tripped over this blog posting and republished it in the May 1 edition. They have no idea out prescient they are.....but I'm betting my own $$ that MSN Autos takes notice and forges a deal with NY Auto Show, to be a follow-on to the sponsorship deal that yours truly put into place for this week's 2006 NY International Auto Show... (see www.newyorkautoshowwalkup.com for details of the deal)

NOTABLE POST
Even without considering the cost of an auto-show stand or the expense of going to one, the Internet is 175% more efficient... If the organizers of the New York International Auto Show could suck a buck from every one of the Web heads who check in on their vapid display of automobiles-in-aspic, they'd make enough money to pay for post-traumatic show disorder therapy -- for everyone!"

Whats In Store...

A must read for any media buyer or consumer brand marketer..but it only makes sense for those that know how to do basic math....

Today's article: Where do ad agencies stand with at-retail media?

If April's AdAge article has told us anything about how ad agencies feel about in-store marketing, it's that many firms have not given it the respect it deserves. And if the responses to the original article (including the letter from POPAI President/CEO Dick Blatt) tell us anything else, it's that people in the retail marketing industry are working to remedy the problem. While it's unlikely that one little article will derail the in-store marketing movement (in both static and digital forms), it still seems like the big agencies have done very little to establish their position one way or the other. Sure, all of the big conglomerates have agencies that focus exclusively on below-the-line tactics (including in-store, direct mail, data mining, etc.), but there's no clear powerhouse in the industry as of yet. This is especially surprising given that some of the biggest advertisers in the world, like P&G and Unilever, have conducted extensive surveys on the effectiveness of in-store marketing and stated that they will be spending more marketing dollars on in-store media, while research firms like Arbitron have found that shoppers are receptive to at-retail media. And the trend isn't just limited to the US. Just the other day, one Canadian newspaper noticed that while "TV advertising showed the slowest growth, increasing just 1 per cent, according to Nielsen... spending on out-of-home advertising grew by 14 per cent....

Inventive Ways to Use Place-Based Media

Great update from industry pro Kim Gordon!.

When was the last time you left home and were in a truly advertisement-free environment? Think about it. Now advertising messages go anywhere and everywhere people do. Go to almost any U.S. beach and you'll be greeted with a plane towing an ad banner. You may even be exposed to "beach sand impressions," which are ad messages imprinted into the sand and regenerated overnight. How about a ball game? Every conceivable stadium surface is covered with advertising, from signage to food snack packs, and some stadiums even have video screens built directly into the seat backs. Feel like going for a bike ride surrounded by nature? You may find your local biking trails are named after businesses, thanks to the new availability of naming rights for everything from nature trails to neighborhood swimming pools.

The industry calls this alternative out-of-home or placed-based media, and it's a bonanza for small businesses because there's literally something for everyone. While there are virtually limitless places to put your ads, here are just a few ideas to get you thinking:

Google's Latest Enhancement: Demographic Targeting

No doubt that Google's latest enhancement to Adsense and Adwords is neat. The latest update allows marketers to select specific websites within Google's ad network--if you don't know which sites are in the network, there is a tool that allows you to submit specific phrases and terms, and Google displays the sites that complement your phrases. In addition, you can target sites based on demographic profile of your audience (age, gender, income)... Here's the catch: this program is not a pay per click program--its a CPM impression program.. I got suckered into selecting one site within their network that delivered 65,000 impressions in the course of 6 hours...which is implausible given the 'product' that I was promoting on behalf of a client. But, the good news is that Google's network includes a wide spectrum of high profile and credible sites--the frequency by which the ads are displayed is merely a function of the price you are willing to pay for 1000 impressions.

Professional Services Marketing

Excellent excerpt from last month's CMO ...for all of those law firms looking to hire marketing execs.

Throw your brochures away. Peek in the dark closets of many professional-service firms and you're likely to find cartons of unopened marketing brochures gathering dust. Why? They missed the mark.

Too many brochures, websites and direct mail pieces focus on the professional-service provider, not the client. Clever slogans and images swallow up precious real estate that should be used for what clients really want: help with their problems.

If your marketing material doesn't directly address clients' business issues, you might as well throw it away. Stress instead how your firm solves specific problems. That will get the attention of the right clients. And your practitioners will want to use the material instead of relegating it to the broom closet.

Harness the power of feet on the street. What's the professional-service marketer's secret weapon for carrying the company's message to the market? Your practitioners.

The needs of professional-service clients vary too widely for generic marketing.

The best companies are able to create evangelists of their people—in essence, thought leaders who enthusiastically spread the firm's point of view through multiple but coordinated channels to existing and prospective clients.

With the liberal use of low-cost, high-return marketing tactics like nonsponsored speaking opportunities, e-newsletters, blogs, webinars and surveys, the leading firms take full advantage of their experts as part of their marketing and sales processes. Clients want to know what your practitioners can do, not what you proclaim they can do.

Existing clients get the biggest slice of pie. In professional services, clients are the richest source of new business and referrals. For that reason, focus roughly 60 percent of marketing resources on cultivating those relationships.

Some companies have elaborate client-specific marketing strategies to generate new business and develop referrals from their clients' circle of influence. They measure the ROI of client-specific marketing by observing if the efforts result in incremental revenue.

You must also invest in prospective clients. Use 30 percent of your marketing efforts to reach prospects in your target market(s). Save the final 10 percent for building visibility in the business community.

It's not a refrigerator. What do you need a fridge to do? Keep items cold. Refrigerators vary in size and price, but the basic functions are standard. Not so with professional services. Ten clients who need tax help, for example, probably all need different types of help. The needs of professional-service clients vary too widely for generic marketing. So a critical guerrilla marketing principle applies: One size fits none.

Tailor marketing to meet the precise needs of clients and your market. And don't waste time and money trying to be too clever. You're seeking clients, not marketing awards.

Answer the tough questions. Before using resources for any marketing program, ask these questions: Why do we need this program? Is it aligned with client needs? What are the desired results? How will we measure effectiveness? How will the company be involved in rolling it out? Is there a better way to use these resources?

CMOs must answer these questions and be able to pull the plug on any initiative that is not generating business. Marketers can't solve all the problems facing those selling professional services, but as Peter Drucker said, "The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous."

Cheerios To Start The Day

White House Breakfast

Dick Cheney and George W. Bush were having breakfast at the White House.The attractive waitress asks Cheney what he would like, and he replies, "I'd like a bowl of oatmeal and some fruit." "And what can I get for you, Mr. President?" George W. replies with his trademark wink and slight grin, "How about a quickie this morning?" "Why, Mr. President!" the waitress exclaims. "How rude! You're starting to act like Mr. Clinton, and you've only been in your second term of office for a year! '' As the waitress storms away, Cheney leans over to Bush and whispers..."It's pronounced 'quiche'

In-Store, Place-Based Media

Sam Walton's famous insight into advertising (paraphrase)--"...maybe 50% of advertising is effective; if only one could figure out which half of the advertising really worked..."

Ok, a bit dated perhaps--as there are now a number of measurement tools that can actually determine the effectiveness of certain types of advertsing...dedicated 800#'s tied to specific print and TV placements, and the internet clearly provides tools to follow a shopper directly from an ad into a shopping cart...But lets face it, the bulk of most advertising spends are directed to wide-net extended reach 'channels' (traditional network TV and print ads)--the effectiveness is hard to track, but are justified because a marketer exec can say to his boss ''Hey--our ad reached 20 million viewers yesterday".. Yeah..maybe some of them are even gauging the impact by reviewing real-time sales data and noticing whether those ads had any real impact..but lets face it...there's a trend taking place..and its about time...and its about place. I've said this before..and Aribtron's latest study, published on Friday, says it all.. "nearly a third of shoppers reported making an unplanned purchase after seeing a product advertised on a retail digital signage network." In-store and place-based advertising makes dollars and sense because the message is being delivered at a single moment in time when the consumer is most responsive, most impacted, and most likely to make a purchase decision...

Duh! Prospecting in Gold Mines; Not Haystacks

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times...the best source of new customers is leveraging your existing ones...You can cut your advertising budget in half, direct that money to customer service and relationship managers, and if you don't seen a noticeable (more likely quantum) leap in new sales over the next year, I'll eat my hat, turn in my passport and move to Mars.

Here's the excerpt from Forrester's latest poll...."That’s why “recommendation by relative/friend” comes out on top in just about every survey of purchasing influences. ....more than 90% of consumers trust “recommendations from consumers,” while trust in various types of ads runs from about 40% to less than 10%." Click on the link to read the article

MISTAKING A MARKETPLACE 'VOID' FOR A MARKETPLACE NEED

Brilliant article from today's AdAge profiling the do's and don'ts of branding--whether re-vitalizing an established product, or more likely, introducing a new one.