Everyone in entitled to an opinion so I try to allow myself to be very open in encouraging people to share their opinions with me. When it comes to marketing and advertising (which is designed to provoke opinions) it’s easy to criticize and pick apart the specifics and to say what’s wrong. As soon as new creative is presented, have you noticed how everyone becomes a marketer?
That’s why when I work with my CFO’s to set budgets for the group it’s clear that what they want is transparency and openness about what activities are planned and a demonstrable link between these activities and the business plan. That’s why I have worked hard to change the business planning process to include more provision for marketing and it’s relationship to CAPEX and revenue targets.
It’s the marketer's burden (privilege?) to show causation or correlation to new business revenue, reduced churn, longer contract terms or brand equity. Return on investment is notoriously tricky to measure and some companies I know allocate a full time accountant to help measure their marketing RoI. This approach is admirable if you have the right tools; tools which are becoming more readily available through online and digital marketing (although I think that the metrics for digital are about to be proven to be a big frothy bubble of a white elephant).
But where art meets science you still have to use your experience, your qualitative skills and some valued judgments honed with experience. In other words, you have to use gut instinct.
Click a subject below for some of my thoughts on,