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February 06, 2006 | Ron Lee: Don’t be happy, worry!

Have you met a really happy marketing executive lately?

The ones I have met with are all running hard and fast. They are stressed. Worried. They are under fire from all sides to prove their worth and to justify the value of their marketing spends, staffs and budgets.

They also are trying to put some definition around just what they should be measuring, and defining key performance indicators (KPI’s) and metrics that they’ll be held accountable for. To that end, they have their work cut out for them.

January 29, 2006 | Ron Lee: Time to thaw our chilly reception of ROI?

ROI, ROI, ROI…if you happen to work in marketing and by now have not heard “ROI,” you’re probably still dialing up to the Web using a 14k modem on a party-line and are awaiting the 14,500,000 Google search results on “marketing ROI” to load in your browser.

Let’s face it: marketing ROI is hot, and rightly so, as accountability is being driving down throughout companies, and Chief Marketing Officers and their staffs are being held to financial standards on their marketing spends like never before.

Even so, free-wheeling marketing types are being thrust into the uncharted waters of marketing metrics and measures, and I would venture a few guesses as to why marketeers may be giving a chilly reception to ROI, and why they are reluctant to cheerfully adopt it in all they do.

January 25, 2006 | Greg Ness: Advertising Moving To Interactive Faster Than Expected

A new study by the Winterberry Group seems to confirm what many other marketing experts have been saying. Advertising services are moving below the line quicker than most had predicted.

In advertising, above-the-line (ATL) services are associated with the more publicly visible, mass media brand efforts, and below-the-line (BTL) services are attributed to more specifically targeted, measureable, interactive and direct marketing methods.

January 15, 2006 | Ron Lee: ROI Silver Bullet: Fact or Fiction?

What’s holding back marketing managers from comprehensively measuring their Marketing spends and ROI?  Is it process? Technology? Mindset?  People?

Pat LaPointe, writing for CMO Magazine, suggests another possible reason: The Measurement Demon.

One such demon is called “The Silver Bullet Hunter.” This is a person, perhaps lurking in your very department, who “seeks the simplistic, single index to explain all aspects of marketing effectiveness,” says LaPointe, referring to that person’s search for a single “holy grail of measurement,” ignoring anything else as being “too complex.”

Think of it. What harried “feet-being-held-to-the-fire” Chief Marketing Officer wouldn’t pay a fortune to have the ROI Silver Bullet to show off to the CFO? “Hey, look at this: 300% ROI! I want a raise!”

December 28, 2005 | Greg Ness: Radio War Heats Up

The fractionalization of former mass media empires continues as evidenced by what is happening in the radio industry. It is no longer just the local antenna-based signal broadcasters who are in the game. Internet radio is a fast-growing way for consumers to listen to what they want and not have their choices limited by radio signal coverage patterns. According to Arbitron, the online broadcast audience in the U.S. had already reached 51 million people by January of 2004.

Satellite radio also has some big momentum and there is a war on for new listeners between XM and Sirius. That satellite radio war will probably heat up even more with radio publicity king, Howard Stern, moving his show to Sirius on January 9. It is predicted there will be 35.6 million satellite radio listeners by 2010.

November 14, 2005 | Greg Ness: Ad:Tech…Marketing Needs To Prove Itself, Too

A recent article on ClickZ highlighted the growing demand for marketing to live by the same accountability guidelines that other departments have had to adhere to for years. The story was based on a panel discussion during last week’s Ad:Tech Conference in New York.

Much of the discussion centered around the exemption from hard metrics that marketing and advertising have enjoyed for years. In the past, it was easier for marketing to answer difficult questions regarding effectiveness by using soft data answers such as brand awareness scores or share-of-mind data. No more. Upper management and the board of directors want hard numbers on what type of return marketing is producing.

October 12, 2005 | Greg Ness: It Really Shouldn’t Come As A Surprise

A report released Tuesday, October 11, clearly demonstrates that “marketing-ready” organizations achieve more than a 15 percent higher return on marketing investment (ROMI) than companies that are less prepared . The report was researched and developed as a collaborative effort between the Aberdeen Group, American Marketing Association (AMA) and SAS. The results were drawn from over 600 AMA members who participated.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that companies doing a better job of managing customer and stakeholder relationships enjoy improved results. What did surprise some of the researchers was the magnitude and clarity of the correlation between these marketing best practices and improved marketing success.

The report defined “marketing-ready” enterprises as companies that 1) possess and utilize data-driven enabling technologies to facilitate better customer relationships and, 2) refine that data to create a unified view of customers across functional areas within their companies i.e., services, sales, marketing, support, etc. I think marketing-ready also implies companies that have the people, products and systems in place to fulfill and exceed their customers’ expectations.

September 15, 2005 | Greg Ness: Targeted, ROI-Based Marketing Is On The Increase

According to the study underwritten by Harte-Hanks, Inc., and conducted by CSO Insights, one in five companies is now spending almost 50 percent of its marketing budget on “target marketing” methods. In addition, another two in five companies are spending between 15 to 45 percent on these same types of activities. According to the study, interactive marketing that is closely integrated with company database management is the leading, and fastest growing, segment in this target marketing category.

August 21, 2005 | Ron Lee: ROI: Bottom-line it for me

I remember when ROI was “easy.” Finish your project on deadline, come in under budget, win an award, and if the company president liked it (or his photo), then you had great “ROI.”  Well, the times have changed and now you’re wondering how to really prove ROI, let alone even define it. And the scary part is, we as marketing types better figure out the ROI deal, because when there is a downturn in business, what tends to get scrutinized first? The marketing budget. Why? No quantifiable ROI, at least in the eyes of the finance department.

August 16, 2005 | Greg Ness: What Headhunters Are Seeking In CMO Candidates

It’s apparent what companies are expecting from their marketing efforts when you look at the attributes/experience top headhunters are seeking to fill Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) positions.

I saw this article in Marketing Sherpa recently and it quickly made its way into many other marketing blogs and relevant Web sites (118 links at the last check). A quick diffusion rate like this usually indicates a great deal of interest in the content. To summarize the article, here’s what CMO headhunters want in a candidate:

June 27, 2005 | Greg Ness: Pay Per Call Could Grow

Pay Per Call is one of those things that just seems ready to burst on the online marketing scene in a major way.

What I found really interesting in a recent Pay Per Call report summary from the Kelsey Group, was the author’s comment, “[Pay per] calls potentially also help ‘close the loop’ between online shopping and offline buying — the dominant transaction model into the foreseeable future.” We all know that people often shop and research online, but still buy locally. Pay Per Call is a way to convert a company’s national online marketing presence into directly trackable local Cost Per Lead actions. It is a way of harnessing the power of the Web and the power of the local Yellow Pages.

June 16, 2005 | Greg Ness: Marketing ROI and Interactive Are High on the B-to-B Trend List

Sometimes it takes an outside resource to make you realize you’re heading in the right direction. We’ve been laser-focused for the last year on Web-centric marketing systems, ROI and interactive advertising. Then along comes this article that essentially says, “Hey, you guys are aboard a big locomotive and on the right track.”

According to an article in this month’s B-to-B Magazine, marketing ROI, electronic communications and online advertising are some of the dominant marketing trends. It’s a great read.

The article states that all departments in most successful B-to-B businesses are being asked to justify their budgets. Marketing is no exception. The story quotes Taddy Hall, chief strategy officer for the Advertising Research Foundation, “A driving force of accountability is the fact that measurement and the ability to calculate returns have improved dramatically with the Internet and real-time response measurement capabilities.”