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Beating Industry Benchmarks
In my previous blog, I discussed a fast way to assess relative marketing performance, and covered proven approaches to improving six industry benchmark-based Key Performance Indicators (reach, share, engagement, loyalty, pipeline, and progression) that can boost overall marketing effectiveness. Today, I’m going to review some of the key findings from recent research around Marketing benchmarks. I’ll select key metrics from each of these three benchmarks and their implications for optimizing marketing performance.
3 Ways to Justify a Chief Marketing Officer
Thu, Jun 4, 2015 — I frequently talk to chief executives about the value of a focused, well-reasoned strategic marketing plan. Invariably, during these discussions, I’m hit with the big question: “But how can we measure the ROI of our marketing efforts?” It's THE question that makes many marketers shudder, because, let's face it, what they're really asking is "can you please justify your existence, your budget, and your future with this organization?"
The Cost of Doing Nothing
Tue, May 5, 2015 — Talk is cheap. Excessive talk, however, is very, very expensive. Did you know that the average American corporate worker spends 31 hours per month in meetings – costing U.S. businesses $37 billion per year in salary squandered in the “bored” room? Often, these Olympic gabfests result in a lot of hot air, without a real goal or plan of action in mind. It’s little wonder that 47% of those stuck in the glass cage complained that meetings were the No. 1 time-waster at the office. But there’s a more real – and tangible – cost of inertia when you have identified a problem within your business environment that needs to be addressed. Lost productivity is nothing compared to the product that languished on the clearance rack, the sale you didn’t make, or the partnership opportunity that you missed.
What Digital Marketing Managers Can Learn From the Slow Food Movement
Thu, Apr 23, 2015 — The Need for an Organic Marketing Strategy Pay-Per-Click (PPC), sponsored content, and paid links have become the McDonald’s of modern marketing. With these methods, marketers hope to get traffic and, with luck, conversions, as quickly as possible and with as little effort as possible. It’s as if digital marketing had a drive-through window.
How Predictive Fitness Analytics Can Better Health & Wellness Programs
Thu, Mar 26, 2015 — Technology is changing Predictive Fitness Analytics Technology has made it possible for billions of consumers to shrink the world down to bite-sized, accessible chunks of data. But the growing popularity of health and wellness programs, predictive fitness analytics, and wearable devices is motivating users to focus not only on the world around, but the world inside as well.
Key Marketing Metrics for Revenue and Profit Growth
Fri, Mar 13, 2015 — Marketing metrics are at the essence of any business program. Key marketing metrics indicate the heights to which revenues will soar or the depths to which fortunes will plummet—as a result of your strategic business efforts.
It’s Inc. 5000 Season – Should You Apply?
Mon, Feb 23, 2015 — What Does It Take to Make the Inc. 5000? To make it in the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest growing private companies, a business needs to move from being a scrappy startup to a scaling company. First, the company must simply stay alive 5 years and then hit some revenue minimums to make it on the list. The Inc. growth ranking is based on the last 3 of those 5 years minimum of being in business. The full requirements and application are listed on the Inc. 5000 application site. (Note this year’s deadline is April 30th)
How to Use Predictive Analytics & Lead Scoring to Supercharge Your Sales Funnel
Thu, Feb 5, 2015 — It's time to add predictive analytics and lead scoring to your sales strategy tool belt. As I have discussed in my previous articles, digital marketing tools and technologies are transforming the way businesses connect with prospective and existing customers. Adoption of these technologies is key to maintaining and gaining competitive advantage.
Random Acts of Marketing…Bad for Business
Tue, Feb 3, 2015 — Does your company practice what is sometimes called the “Hope Method” of marketing? That is when you hope you will get new clients, hope people will refer you and hope sales will increase. Most often I see business owners and CEOs practice what I call the “Random Acts of Marketing” method. In executive meetings, the management team laments that the sales team is not meeting expectations. Suddenly the table is filled with marketing experts who begin chanting a litany of marketing ideas (although all too often there isn’t anyone with real marketing expertise in the room). We need a new brochure. Our branding is killing us. The website is tired. Let’s run some advertisements. We need to do social media. Let’s run a sale. We need to do more trade shows. Let’s do some press releases and get an article about us in a trade publication. Then after earnest debate, someone in marketing (or someone posing as marketing) is tasked with one or two of these programs. Voila! You have just witnessed the birth of random acts of marketing. Given that these tactics are born of pain rather than an integrated strategic marketing plan with measurements, they rarely yield profitable outcomes. When CEOs approach me as a CMO consultant, they often tell me they have tried everything to grow their business (and they probably have) but are not seeing the results they expected. They want to know if “I should do more” of whatever the tactic du jour happens to be for them. Being the pragmatist that I am, I usually ask them a series of questions:
The Difference between CEOs who Manage vs. Lead
Tue, Jan 27, 2015 — A long-time client surprised me last week. He called to update me on his pursuit of a new position within his company and, in the course of our conversation, said that his CEO “is an extremely talented manager but not much of a leader.” The assessment itself didn’t surprise me. I have known this CEO for over 30 years and agree completely. What did surprise me was hearing my friend make the distinction. We have often talked about the differences between managing and leading. Like most people, however, he generally uses the terms interchangeably and doesn’t really make a distinction day-to-day—just the kind of thing that drives leadership experts like John Kotter crazy. For over 40 years, Kotter has been on a mission to get people to think about the distinction between management and leadership. Our ongoing transition from a manufacturing-based economy to a service-based economy, however, has made Kotter’s work much more difficult. We still need to understand the difference between management and leadership, but it is increasingly difficult to be an effective CEO without also being a good leader.