| Message to Marketing: ROI |
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After three years of a worldwide economic slowdown and technology meltdown, chief executive officers are giving their direct reports the same message: "Improve results with less budget." ROI is the message and the mandate. Marketing is one of the largest company expenses and the pressure to produce results is strong even in the best of times. Now, marketing departments – with fewer human and financial resources – often feel the hot breath of the CEO to produce even more with less. Technology marketing departments large and small are working harder than ever to improve results and keep their jobs. Marketing results are often viewed by the executive team as "soft" or "fuzzy" - accepted in good times but challenged in bad times. Achieving executive buy-in for marketing program spending and ROI credibility rests squarely on the marketing department’s ability to set clear, focused, achievable, and measurable marketing objectives and establish accurate, consistent, and believable results tracking programs. The most important consideration when setting marketing objectives is to link them with the company’s key business objectives. This will ensure that marketing spending supports the company’s financial and strategic goals and integrates marketing strategy at the highest level. Well-integrated business and marketing objectives bring increased credibility and a better understanding of marketing’s role and importance within the organization. Determination of specific marketing objectives requires discipline and analysis. Clarity and focus are required to develop marketing objectives that effectively and efficiently support business objectives. Analysis of time, money, and resources and prioritization of programs based on business strategies and ROI potential are essential first steps. Focusing spending on a few clear, achievable and measurable marketing objectives will return a higher ROI and help demonstrate marketing effectiveness. Setting financial objectives that tie directly to the business plan will demonstrate marketing’s impact on revenue. Brand awareness objectives that measure not only recall but also understanding of the brand promise, brand differentiation, brand relevance, brand credibility, brand preference, and brand consideration will help you show the value of your marketing campaigns. And, behavioral objectives such as purchase conversion, customer satisfaction, retention, acceptance of brand price premium, and brand loyalty will help offer proof that your targeted marketing programs are producing bottom line results and long-term brand equity. A crucial part of setting marketing objectives is determining how these objectives will be measured. Measurement raises both credibility and cost issues. Credibility increases by degree of measurement precision but so do costs. Setting fewer but more focused marketing objectives with higher ROI potential tied to strategic business objectives will allow you to build higher precision results tracking into your marketing programs. This will also help ensure executive level understanding and acceptance of the marketing program as a key contributor to the overall success of the company. Once results tracking programs are designed and implemented it is important to maintain consistency of methodology to ensure that results can be benchmarked and analyzed accurately over time. Confidence in results helps break down believability barriers and improves marketing planning. Setting marketing objectives that are strategically integrated with the business planning process, focusing on a few key objectives with the highest ROI potential, and building reliable, high-credibility results tracking into your marketing programs are important steps to proving the marketing department’s value. Need help implementing a new sales or marketing program? We've got two suggestions: a) Check out our free marketing templates and tools on this site. There's ton's of them. You might want to bookmark the site now, you could be here awhile. Just become a registered member (it's free) of the myMarketingGuide.com website and you can download hundreds of other articles, templates and more. Don't worry, we respect your privacy. |
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