Most marketing ROI measurements are akin to driving a car while staring at the rear view mirror, you can't see that you are going to crash until the debris is already behind you.
Return on marketing investment and accountability are top-of-mind for almost every B2B marketer today I meet, yet the metrics they are using to quantify their performance are woefully inadequate.
Marketers are cleaning their dirty and cracked rearview mirrors rather than look towards what they can do to help their sales team sell. Peter DeLegge wrote an interesting article on the matter called, "The Bottom Line on Marketing Accountability."
The key is to look at why are we measuring our marketing ROI in the first place? Are we measuring our metrics to simply justify our existence or are we striving to measure our contribution towards growth, revenue and profit?
Thanks to Kate Maddox and BtoB Magazine for pointing me to the upcoming 2005 Marketing Accountability Forum. Maddox notes that, "according to the [ANA] report, 73% of respondents reported a lack of confidence in understanding the sales impact of a marketing campaign."
If the sales team is measured by their ability to bring in or grow customer relationships, then marketing should be measured on their ability to help the sales team get into the right opportunities (a.k.a. sales ready leads).
CEO's expect marketers to provide metrics and to be accountable just as their peers in other departments. Marketers must remember that we're in charge of controlling what is measured.
Relying on just on the tactics that are 'easy' to measure such as tele-prospecting, webinars, website logs, email campaigns while not measuring ROI for public relations and branding is not being fully accountable. In fact, many marketers aren't even looking at their easy to measure tactics.
Here are some of my other posts on Marketing ROI Measurement
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