February 5th, 2009 @ 6:30 am
I’m tired of hearing these accusations that I think “all marketing is bad.” Marketeers try to position my viewpoint as “bashing marketing” because then it’s easier to ignore my real point, which is that marketing should be limited to activities that can be measured quantitatively and objectively. And that viewpoint scares marketeers spitless, because if top management finally “gets it”, a lot of marketeers are going to get fired.
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E-ZOIL
As a small businessperson with very limited resources, it's refreshing to hear that someone understands the basics of business. The lifeblood of any small business is sales. All marketing activities, therefore, should be directly tied to sales. I receive calls regularly from marketers pushing ad sales, trade shows, sales promotions, etc. There is nothing wrong with any of these activities unless you have no method to measure your ROI. If this is the case, you're very likely throwing money down the toilet.
goosemonkey
Isn't part of the struggle in figuring out what
to measure?
Take brand awareness for instance. One could
argue that you can measure this: ask people if
they know the brand; run the campaign; ask
again and measure the result. However, I think
brand awareness is the type of thing that most
people thing marketing wastes their time on.
I some sense I think you can "measure"
anything.
tripallen
I agree.
1) It must be measured
2) It must link to sales and the salespeople.
Too much marketing has been dreamt up by an out of touch marketing team. There must be sales and marketing INTEGRATION to make it successful
Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore
EricHall1
Well said! Most sales heads and small business operators know this implicitly. It's the leaders and staff in the vast marketing megaplexes of corporate America that need to understand it better. Keep on them!
PJKrupin
You totally left out publicity, which to me is a mistake of omission or lack of knowledge. This very article is about as good of an example as you could ask for.
A good media pitch is worth more than any direct marketing expense of equal value. The key is whether you offer the media something newsworthy, educational or entertaining that has value to the audience. If all you do is ask for free advertising, you're doomed for failure. But if you learn what to say that turns people on, then you get to use technology as a force multiplier to repeat the message with publishers, radio, TV and Internet media and the publicity that results can be like magic.
The best publicity message is one that results in professional branding where the help and inspiration you offer is like the tip of the iceberg and the effect is that people are convinced to buy everything you have available. The answer to the copywriting question is this: Help the People you can Help the Most.
Contrary to popular notions, PR is also measurable. There?s an article at my website I wrote several years ago that goes into far more detail. The title of the article is:
Tracking Publicity Success and Public Relations Effectiveness
http://www.directcontactpr.com/free-articles/article.src?ID=14
Paul J. Krupin - Direct Contact PR
Reach the Right Media in the Right Market with the Right Message
http://www.DirectContactPR.com Paul@DirectContactPR.com
800-457-8746 509-545-2707
http://blog.directcontactpr.com/
gjkalra
While the thought makes a lot of sense in today's scenario, there are several marketing activities which cannot be measured directly but have a hugh impact on sales in the long term e.g. brand perception, imagery which help in differentiating a brand but may not lead to immediate leads/ sales. If one were to ignore these facets of marketing, I am afraid, sales will suffer in the long term.
Girish
daryush
Obviously there must be reply for your any activities. i don't know if there is still business which do activities without measuring. i think it is a obvious object.
there is critic for the subject. you said "Everyone?s compensation should be tied to their ability to help sales generate profitable revenue." for me it means that you have a sales vision. if you start a project i.e. a one year branding project, the project will yield next year.
i think marketeer, should be thoughtful, measuring and tracking everything patiently.
a marketing management should be alchemist leader. it means she should know where is she going. other than that that's not a marketeer and also it is not HPO organization.
HSeaton
Sorry, but you're wrong. Just because lots of
marketing communications are stupidly thought
through doesn't mean that the only effective marketing
is that which can be directly measured. How then
would you sell Pepsi, or Palmolive, or other CPG
brands? "Sales" guys like you miss the reality that in
the end we're all trying to effect a consumer (not a
retailer) decision, and mature businesses have too
much in the marketplace to reasonably expect to hold
it all to ROI. Over time, yes of course you dump things
that don't work, but at present just because you can't
hold it to ROI standards doesn't mean you shouldn't do
it. Experiments (vs. 'tracking') can help. but the point
of being a senior marketer is applying experience to
winnow out those tactics that don't work.
Hugh Seaton
NCWATKIS
Marketing is about generating sustainable profitable revenue by anticipating and satisfying customer demand. Sales is the executive arm of marketing, and is not a separate function. Marketers need to consider how thier actions contribute to the generation of revenue.
Some marketing functions, such as advertising and PR are contributive to generating revenue by preparing the potential customer and there by assisting sales, but do not directly make money.
Every marketer should consider and be able to justify how their activities actively contribute to the generation of sustainable revenue. Concentrating on such things as image and brand are difficult to measure and in themselve deliver little in terms of revenue.
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
Email from a reader:
Geoffrey, what about measuring ROI in PR? It cannot be measured. Therefore the article written by you advises to 'kill' PR as activity. Right?
It depends. There are ways of measuring PR (and non-actionable advertising) but they're expensive and seldom done. More on this later.
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
Quote from NCWATKIS: Sales is the executive arm of marketing, and is not a separate function.
Uhhh... no. Marketing is the lead generation arm of Sales. And once you start valuing activities that don't "directly" make money, you're off into the cloud cuckoo land of marketing where nothing is measurable and where marketeers don't have to prove their worth to the company and its revenue. Which is the problem.
MOSimmons
Are we talking B2B marketing, or B2B, or both? It seems
most of the principles Geoffrey outlines are best and
easily applied in the B2B space. It seems we are saying
goodbye to marketing as a cost center. Companies that
turn marketing into a revenue center are capturing a
huge competitive advantage.
Not sure I agree with Mr. Seaton. All of the sudden
consumers are effecting us, our product development
and our brand building. That can be quantified and
objectively measured, because it is in large measure
inbound communication.
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
Quote from MOSimmons: Are we talking B2B marketing, or B2B, or both?
Sorry for the inability to edit comments in BNET. I'm sure you meant "B2C, or both" so I'll go ahead and respond to that. It's harder to measure B2C because in most cases you've got an indirect sales force. However, it's not impossible, although it can be expensive. It's my feeling that when push comes to shove, marketing groups in B2C firms would rather spend more money on whatever they're doing (and then claim victory, regardless of what happens) than spend extra money on a statistically valid measurement scheme that might prove that they're failing. More on this next week.
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
Quote from goosemonkey:ask people if
they know the brand; run the campaign; ask
again and measure the result.
The problem with this metric is that there's no connection to selling. It's easy to create "brand awareness" when you don't really care (i.e. you're not measuring) whether the publicity is driving buying behavior.
For example, want to make sure everyone knows your B2B brand name? Have it tattooed on a hooker's butt and get her (or better yet, him) streak the court during a NBA game. Trust me, you'll get plenty of publicity. Higher sales figures? Probably not.
silvia_pop13
Indeed, marketing is not an art, but a way of making profit. Though, sales are not everything when it comes to making profits. What about competition? And if good indirect market strikes the competition, then of course it's good marketing. Or even no marketing can help a company's profits, because it might reduce the brand of a whole category of products, and again, be dramatic for the competition.
SILVIA FROM ROMANIA
kelsey group
Having sat on both the brand side and the sales side I couldn't agree more. All marketing activities have to support sales in some way be it leads, store traffic or increased sales. The "brand as an art" message just does not play well anymore, particulalry during this economic period. I think we will see a new phliosophy emerge where brand activity will be measured and calculated with an ROI -- that's the reality since online marketing has conditioned advertisers to expect this.
One other tactic not mentioned is call tracking. By adding call tracking to click traffic or ad campaigns, marketers can clearly see interest turn to qualified prospect to final sale. Just another way most if not all campaigns will be measured.
jeremy blake
Hi Geoffrey, Yes to all of the 5. However as Greg Stuart CEO of your IAB and co author along with Rex Briggs of 'What Sticks' makes clear in this brief film, the internet can't be measured by clicks, and all advertising mediums infact have never been measured in this way. He puts it best see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtVwNM5lW2s , cheers, hope u aren't as snowed in there as i am in Bucks in Blighty! Jeremy
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
After I posted comment #14, it occurred to me that some folk might think my suggestion about the hooker at the MBA game to be over the top. However, truth is almost as strange as fiction. Vide:
http://blogs.bnet.com/pr/?p=163
See what happens when you don't measure marketing against its ability to generate sales? You get your CEO making an idiot of himself.
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
Quote from jeremy blake: the internet can't be measured by clicks
No, but it can be measured by clicks that convert, even if that conversion takes place after a lead has been handed to the sales team for follow-up.
SteveLanning
Mr. Krupin is correct on PR--I spent 10 years thinking direct response was the ONLY way one could get business--and the next 25 incorporating PR into everything I did. What REALLY turned my head was in having a heart to heart with a rival association trying to find out their marketing budget but finding (also through others) that they did not spend a dime on direct marketing. They got all their 3800 members via PR.
There are so ANY good thoughts today--as in what SHOULD be measured. It then comes from the mission/vision to drive marketing. I've been in many companies who, through their mission/target objectives, ask their people to try to nail Jell-O to the wall--and measure it.
Just stupid--if not deadly to the health of the company.
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
Email from a reader:
I didn't want to post because I didn't want to come off as a salesman peddling our company. But thought I'd add to your list based on a service my company offers that isn't used, which is Measuring ROI (or ROM) based on distribution of collateral. I don't want to write a long book here and can explain in another email or on the phone. Our company offers management services for business print and marketing material. In regard to the latter, most companies don't measure obsolescence (what gets chucked). If you track both usage and what's discarded and match to sales, you can measure how effective a targetted campaign has been. You wouldn't believe the waste at most companies, whole skids of marketing crap that was bought/expensed winds up in the dumpster due to a spray-n-pray approach.
Interesting. Feel free to post your company name and a URL. Nobody will think the less of you.
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
Email from a readerGeoffrey, Just a thanks for your great content AND one offering (albeit not exhastive...) about marketing: The vital area of LEADERSHIP marketing and communications to the internal customer: employees. This (or any time) is a VITAL time to remember and revitalize the organization's Vision, Mission, Core Values and Strategic Roadmap. This is one of LEADERSHIP'S primary responsibilites--and the one most often lacking... in good time and bad. Thanks, Geoffrey.
Important, though, that these elements be tied to revenue and profit. And there needs to be penalties (like CEOs thrown out of the plane without the golden parachute) when the revenue and profit doesn't materialize.
smclean
It's a mistake to think that marketing results are necessarily linear...do A, get B. If that were true, consumers would be reacting to each marketing message independently of all their previous exposure. The actual message and what consumers already know, or don't know, about the advertiser also factor in to the response. It's important to look at a variety of factors in evaluating the results (good or bad) of any given program.
Lindenfrederick
Dumb article by a guy living in the past. In
my experience, the days of unmeasured marketing
are long gone. Most corporations spend a
fortune measuring the effectiveness of their
marketing.
Sales boneheads continue to think that they
cause revenue--when they are often the
unwitting beneficiaries of great products and
marketing.
Last, but not least, I think your quarrel is
with marketing communication, which is one
facet of modern marketing. It does not
include channel marketing, product marketing,
marketing research, and a number of other
functions.
If your purpose is to say inflammatory things
to get readers, fine. Just try not to pass
them off as true, thoughtful, or supported by
evidence.
warmsoul
Dear Geoffrey, I globally agree but I would
pinpoint that this approach is missing a couple
of marketing contributions to business. First,
all indirect marketing benefits (indirect
effects often cannot be linked to originating
investments), that penalizes and underestimates
their impact). Second, and not less important,
actual financial pressure and risk adversion is
bringing more and more to short term thinking
which we all know is not beneficial for
business and unhealthy for most impacting
strategies and investments. So now it seems
that in some cases branding, customer
experience and other "slow working" (or
cumulating) investments are not bringing any
return.
Marketing, just to close, has not exactly same
time horizon and goals as sales: it should
bring and protect profitable growth in long
term. So let's link marketing evaluation to
profit but also to other less short term KPIs
(NPS, retention, bradn value)
regards
afcosys
Excellent analysis, but post #5 is a critical piece of the mix - especially in the B2B world. Your core message is best expressed through publicity generated through third-party endorsements. It's the key to the credibility of the other demand generation techniques you documented.
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
Quote from Lindenfrederick Sales boneheads continue to think that they
cause revenue--when they are often the
unwitting beneficiaries of great products and
marketing.
Ah, there it is: marketing taking credit for other people's work. Always pops up sooner or later when I post about marketing. Amazing that the corporate world continues to support leeches. But then, there are plenty of C-level execs who are leeches, too, so what do you expect?
coreybwong
Good marketing can be mucked up by a bad sales force. Then your ROI goes out the window. You have to consider your sales teams effectiveness. The leads produced by any given marketing campaign, given to two different sales teams, could conceivably produce two completely different results. How's ROI now?
coreybwong
....and it works both ways. A great sales team can convert at a very high rate, making marginal marketing seem very successful.
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
Quote from coreybwong:You have to consider your sales teams effectiveness. The leads produced by any given marketing campaign, given to two different sales teams, could conceivably produce two completely different results. How's ROI now?
Sales failures self-correct because Sales is EXTREMELY measurable. "Bad" sales teams don't exist for long because the sales reps get fired or the company goes out of business. "Bad" marketing groups go on and on and on and on, because they're not measured in any meaningful way.
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
Quote from coreybwong: A great sales team can convert at a very high rate, making marginal marketing seem very successful.
And, man, aren't those marketing guys quick to claim victory when this happens! When you don't measure marketing in a meaningful way, if the sales go down, the sales force is responsible, but if the sales go up, the marketing group is responsible. Since marketing looks good in either case, is there any wonder marketing folk react with such eye-rolling alarm whenever I suggest some real measurement -- with consequences for marketing failures?
ipagan
Geoffrey, I do not disagree with your premise, but I sense a 'Silo' mentality. We deal with it heavily in our organization. While the sales team is held to 'aggressive' expectations (as it should be..), without the integration or support of other parts of the organization, successful sales/marketing is a moot point. The apparent disconnect of our customer service and logistics/inventory side from the sales group, we have become, primarily, chief apologists, rather than effective messengers of our services and products. It is a discouraging environment... (tears.. and whining)
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
Email from a reader:
Hi Geoffrey,
Great article! And interesting comments! I had a question specifically to #5 (Identifying qualified leads.) You mention that there are a number of packages out there that will troll through the internet to create a qualified prospect list. Could you share some of those resources with me? Please and Thank You!
Sure. Check out these guys:
http://www.demandbase.com
http://www.zoominfo.com
http://www.genius.com
http://www.jigsaw.com
Pair those up with:
http://www.connectandsell.com
and some extra training on cold calling from:
http://www.richardson.com
And you're pretty much set up. If this stuff interests you, you ought to check out this upcoming conference:
http://www.sales20conf.com/2009/
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
Sorry about the formatting of the above. I put an extra "br" in between the lines, which made it bigger and uglier than I wanted.
kyle@...
All the responses about public opinion and PR and awareness are useless if it does not tangibly increase sales.
Branding and the associated product and service buzzwords that surround it all factor into the buying decision at some level but when it gets down to brass tacks the only thing that matters is if it can be directly tied into the final sale.
I doubt it does.
davidplamont
Provactive, but short-sighted. Much is true; however, by saying everything in business/marketing must be objective/measurable sounds like the dialectical materialism of a fellow named Marx; did he ever enjoy a sunset just for its beauty?
Also, Drucker would correc tly argue that commerce/busienss exists for one purpose: to produce customers (sales/marketing does this). Profits are third level derivative of having a customer: revs minus expense = profit.
This is a "formula" for disaster, and I have an MBA, so I am quantitatively proficient.
TactixSales
I absolutely agree with this article. When I was a media sales manager, one of the most difficult concepts to get my sellers to grasp was that the best relationships they could build needed to be based on understanding a client or prospect's ROI expectations and delivering solutions that were accountable for delivering these results. In their haste to simply close a sale and ring up a commission, my coaching died on the cutting room floor 80% of the time! As usual, Geoffrey is very much on point.
LesDel
Thank you for highlighting what I thought was obvious.
When I returned to the workforce after a 7 year absence, I went straight to marketing to find out how what they were doing to fill the sales pipelines in the various territories. After all, they had team meetings weekly, comprised of a technical writer (for the internal newsletter, press releases, and collateral), an events coordinator (set up the booth at industry events with the partner and staffed with the recruiters), a graphic artist (?), an assistant and the marketing manager. These meetings were run by one of the partners, who carried the title of VP-Marketing and Sales. The response to my question? "Oh we don't do lead gen." Thunk.
I was given hope when a new hire joined, also with the title VP, responsible for sales in our region (6 locations). He spent so much time traveling and asking to "help close" and this was apparently such a drain they (I have since left the organization) have just hired a Sales Director.
The marketing team continues to receive praise for its efforts. The sales team, however, now has an average life span of 7 months.
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
Quote from davidplamont: Marx; did he ever enjoy a sunset just for its beauty? Also, Drucker would correctly argue that commerce/business exists for one purpose: to produce customers.
Ah, yes, I forgot. The pristine beauty of a brochure...what would life be without it? Empty. Meaningless...
And customers, by all means, let's get as many customers as possible, especially customers that aren't profitable. Oh, wait... You weren't talking about Peter Drucker, were you? You meant Mort Drucker, right?
dfranks1@...
If sales is the life blood of a business, marketing should be the beating heart. That is what makes this so right on. Especially in current market conditions.
Dillon Franks
Relevant ideas...
SteveRider
I thought your response to Lindenfrederick was petty. He referred to "sales boneheads" you countered with "leeches". C'mon you can take the higher ground here, you do control the forum.
I've commented before about your pattern of marketing-baiting and the need to create controversy. I still think that's your primary motivation. Despite that I do enjoy reading your posts.
But that said, if you were a new entrant in a B2B market with existing competition, your tactics alone would not be sufficient to generate enough business nor satisfy the sales organization. If you said "Go to jigsaw and start a direct calling campaign with IT decision makers in 'pick an industry'" The first feedback you would get is that no one knows who we are. The sales team would then request "we need more PR, we need more trade show, we need more advertising, we need to be in the Gartner Magic Quadrant" All of these are marginally measurable. So do you do the marginally measurable campaigns or do you tell the sales team, "the product is good; go sell what you've got"?
My answer would be that you do some of them. Because, your job as a marketer is to make the selling process easier. It's a lot easier if the prospects know who you are than if they don't.
ingoodcompany
"If the only tool you've got is a hammer, then all your problems tend to look like nails."
Still hammering away at this one, eh? The sales mind at work. Sell one, count one. Don't count anything else.
Come on folks. Mr. James is still just jerking your chains. Tell us, Geoffrey, is this blogging of yours a sales activity for your books, or a marketing activity for your books?
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
Quote from ingoodcompany Tell us, Geoffrey, is this blogging of yours a sales activity for your books, or a marketing activity for your books?
Since the last time I published a book was 1998, I haven't gotten a royalty check in five years. So if I were writing this blog to promote books, I'd have to be a real idiot.
Look, I don't have anything to sell, other than what you're reading right here. And these marketing posts don't even generate much traffic (despite all the comments), so they're pretty much a dead loss to me financially. I don't do consulting, I don't do speeches, and I certainly don't do sales training. (Blech!) I'm not working on a business book, nor do I have one to flog. In fact, every time I criticize marketing, I burn bridges that otherwise might have been big money jobs for my freelancing business. So your insinuations are not only insulting but ludicrous.
Here's the truth: I'm exposing marketing fraud as a public service, in order to help companies improve their performance. Why should hard-working sales reps and engineers and factory workers get fired because marketing groups are spending money on worthless, self-aggrandizing, career-building BS? So that's my motivation. But perhaps altruism and public service are concepts that are too difficult for you to understand?
PranaDevelopment
Let's look at marketing on a grand scale- Super Bowl advertising. I really enjoy these ads, because I have been a marketer and they are really a product in their own right. But, in this business climate- what do they do for the money- the astronomical money they cost? I liked the Dorito's one, but did it change the brand image of Dorito's? Did it prompt increased sales of Dorito's? Did it influence any behavioral change relative to Dorito's at all?
PranaDevelopment
By the way, I like Dorito's, but see them as a commodity product and usually purchase my store brand. Even though I like their advertising.
mjkkissinger
I agree with your article. All marketing like anything else should be measured for results. Marketing is lead generation. Sales in conversion. By measuring both a business owner can tell whether it is or is not performing. For instance at Profit Builders Inc. all services are based on direct response techniques. All is tested for results. All clients don't pay a single penny unless the results agreed upon are met. Because it focused on direct marketing techniques as opposed to "me-too" marketing or "tombstone" marketing techniques it is easy to see the results through measurement.
Jemmeroni
I'm with the principle of what you blog, Geoffrey.
But don't miss Digital PR: it's totally measurable providing you decide on the KPIs and ignore the 'noise'.
Jeremy
Kolco
I have no problem with your standpoint that marketing should generate leads (and have years of experience in B2B marketing execution and management to confirm that).
On the other hand it is unbelievable how you are mixing marketing promotion or marketing communication with marketing.
Could you do something about it?
For many years I have been running a small research. At every possible event I asked marketing professionals how they see the relation between marketing and sales function.
I offered several possibilities they could choose from:
1, Marketing function is completely separated from Sales function
2, Marketing function is relatively separate from Sales function but there is an overlap
3, Marketing function is sub-part of Sales function
4, Sales function is sub-part of Marketing function
5, Marketing function and Sales fucntion are identical
As said I ran this research among marketing professionals and in the long run answer number 2 wins.
I believe that your answer, Geoffrey is number 3 which is second most answered.
So?
Ferdinand
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
Quote from Kolco: As said I ran this research among marketing professionals and in the long run answer number 2 wins. I believe that your answer, Geoffrey is number 3 which is second most answered.
There's a saying I heard once: "Where you sit is where you stand." You'd expect marketing folk to think of marketing as a separate function. But that doesn't reflect business reality.
What happens when a company loses its sales function? It immediately goes out of business. What happens when a company loses its marketing function? Most of the time, pretty much nothing. Some of the time, sales go down (because the marketing group was helping sales), some of the time sales go up (because the marketing group was cocking things up with stupid messages that were orthogonal to the sales process.)
So, logically, which function should be dominant? The one that is the most important, indeed, the single most important function in EVERY company? Or the one that can disappear from the scene pretty much without causing a ripple in the revenue?
strategicrating
I think there is another new category for actions related to social media marketing - that addresses:
1. The number of submitted shared media receiving comments and comments to comments (the 2nd more important)
2. The number of contacts and network communities associated with the poster's identity, the poster's media or the poster's media tags associated with the media
3. The rating or popularity for both above respectively
This is the arena of social network marketing and while classical marketing often sees this as a land of spam and sex, it is the standard for our under 20 generation (who reply on self-generated but heavily monitored services like Wiki over the dictionary.... and effectively filter-out what many of us see as trash as invisible or just TRANSPARENT to them... just as each of us has learned to filter through the odd 3000 ads we receive each day).
The increasing popularity of this media is that it provides a personal value (available anywhere), that is also a backlash to our contemporary forms of major media that are advertising based... Consider many primetime shows are up to 50% advertising.
By contrast, a real sense of trust is promoted by this shared experience, when you consider how the mind filters material as well as how how a self-monitored system of user generated content cleanses itself with positive or negative comments.
It is all defintitely measurable in both terms of quantity and quality.
... the 'twist' to Social network marketing is when you combine content and individual contact and communities, and realize that each participant is also part of many other communities (cross-community networking)
... It's a challenge, responding to customer's real-time interests, vs. promoting a one-way message.
kyousif
Geofrey you are becoming true to your name with each passing day (The pot stirrer)
Anyway i think that you are looking more for incoming comments rather than your topic itself. i will counter your argument with a series of questions:
1) How do you measure Corporate Social Responsibility activites?
2) Channel branding, how do you measure that?
3) As mentioned earlier how can you measure customer perception about a certain brand.
Now lets come to the main part of your argument "efficeincy". Tell me which brand or company that doesnt measure its campaigns effectiveness. Now as we all know this crisis has made the global corporate world much "stingier" or more aware to pour their money into activites that actually work.
I really am surprised on how a man with such vast experience argue on the obvious truth. That 90% of marketing activities are tracked, measured and analysed. But disregarding that 10% of uncertainty is in my opinion amateur like.
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
Quote from kyousif: That 90% of marketing activities are tracked, measured and analysed.
Usually neither nor objectively, and usually not tied to directly to sales activity. And in many cases, the marketing group is either measuring themselves or paying another marketing group to measure them. This is like asking grade school students to fill out their own report cards.
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
"neither quantitatively nor objectively"
tsutherland@...
If marketing is a "fraud" then why does Pepsi and coke do so well? Branding....you have to market yourself for that....no?
thibault69
Hello there. I'd like to thank Lindenfrederick
, for he is writing in plain English what I think in French. Modern marketing is about helping designing the value we want to bring to the market, and not about making some communication about it. I usually like this blog but here and now I also think the "who's superior to the other between sales & marketing?" is a 15 years old ended battle. Hundreds of thoughts, including Balanced Scorecard teached us that the value chain is all functions working in the same direction of listening carefully to the market, preparing its best answer to the needs, and measuring each step of this process, including sales, revenue and customer satisfaction. Aren't most modern companies doing like that ? This kind of dispute if occuring in a company in 2009 would be possibly reflecting the company doesn't know who is doing what in a middle of a storm. Geoffrey: Merci beaucoup par ailleurs pour votre chronique !!
Report as spam
ingoodcompany
Altuism? Looks more like egoism. By the way, I know one company that got rid of the entire mmarketing function, eliminated all but two sales folks and now calls them "marketing managers", and turned sales over to their old secretaries. Their customer base is shrinking every day and their parent company has been desperately trying to sell them off for five years now, and can't find a buyer that can seal the deal. Enjoy the following:
"In Praise of Marketing"
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6015.html
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
Quote from ingoodcompany: I know one company that got rid of the entire marketing function, eliminated all but two sales folks and now calls them "marketing managers", and turned sales over to their old secretaries.And exactly where did I recommend this kind of bonehead move? Look, here's the proposition:
Marketing should be measured quantitatively and objectively against its ability to help sales take place
Do you agree or disagree? Apparently you think that demanding accountability within marketing is completely unreasonable. I'll bet I can guess why.
scuccurullo
I have been preaching this theory for years and sales people (and finance people) are pleasantly surprised when they deal with a marketing person that "gets it." I find it amazing that more marekting people don't live by these general rules since in times of market downturn, if you don't contribute to sales you will be eliminated. Aren't marketing people tired of being seen as an expense? My only suggestion is that you have left out data analysis and modeling of your existing clients (the most fruitful source of new leads). If you can use these techniques to more accurately identify a target market, then you can significantly improve your results. Then whatever contact strategy you use: snail mail, email, event, telemarketing, etc. can be applied.
SteveRider
I think it's best if you confine your comments to marketing communications. Since that is the one of the areas in most sophisticated companies that is difficult to measure.
There are methods to measure communications. The tricky part is creating a direct connection between improvement in marketing communication metrics and sales results. People implicitly know that higher awareness and a favorable brand image will make it easier to open doors and get prospects to hear your pitch. So to throw that activity out when you can't create a direct correlation is short-sighted.
I can't speak for other industries, but I don't know anyone in High Tech that does not measure their marketing effort in terms of sales effect. That's pretty outdated thinking.
chenarde
Another poorly written article on marketing. Not seeing the difference between the activities of marketing and the people in marketing. Just like sales, there are a lot of bad marketers out there, believe me, I meet them everyday and they pretend to know marketing when they don't. Just like I meet sales reps everyday who can't close and then blame marketing for it. So because the fake marketers know they will get fired if they are exposed, they pretend their activities are marketing when it is not. Then Geoffrey writes about them as if all of marketing acts that way (I think he really hates marketers because they have nicer hair), which is just showing he doesn't do his homework well enough. Seriously man, you amuse me. But in all seriousness, get more granular in your marketing articles so people can really see what is great marketing and what isn't, that way you do more of a service to your readers than just bashing marketers because someone gave you a soundboard. Anyone in marketing who knows what they are doing, measures their activities.
thibault69
Please Geoffrey just don't call yourself "moderator", as I just noticed !!, because it is not what are good at. As some salesmen and marketers are not selling or marketing, and we do measure their (non) results, we all appreciate here you don't moderate, and obviously don't want to, or.. don't know how to do.
dale.underwood
I actually disagree with both sides of this argument for obvious and easy to prove reasons.
I'm speaking from a pure B2B niche of IT product marketing primarily using the web.
First Geoffrey, your comment about "all measurements should tie back to sales" doesn't pan out. What you are implying is that the sum total of marketing's contribution will be some percentage of total sales. You know as well as I do that Marketing would be lucky to get credit for 25% of the sales funnel (as an IT sales person for 15 years I ALWAYS found my deals without marketing, or so I thought). So for a company that sold $100M, Marketing could "claim" credit for $25M of it when in fact marketing most likely generated ten times the $100M, or a Billion, in potential business. But, marketing can't measure that because they don't tie the VALUE of the products and services to each lead generated.
For that you need a tool like EchoQuote which should be added to your list of tools in a new category called "Tools that give the serious inbound customer what he needs so he will tell you who he is and what exactly he wants and how much it is worth" (end of shameless plug).
Now, for the marketers. Marketing has focused all of its energy on driving prospects to the corporate website with the promise that "we have something valuable for you there". Ok, I'll bite. I'm on your site and it looks like every other site I've seen this year. Tons of sales content with no strong Call to Action. Seeing "Contact Us" for more information is a joke. After the webinars, demos, tours, case studies, whitepapers what else is there? Marketers are so enthralled by what they can do with the web (have you seen my cool new video? I have and it sucks) that they never stopped to ask what will help engage the customer. Sales needs to wake up and realize the website is no longer an electronic brochure and take some responsibility for what is being published on the Corporate website or they no room to complain.
I can realistically envision a day where both marketing and sales don't exist but the internal product knowledge folks rule the day.
Dale Underwood
EchoQuote
cliffordsfleas
"marketing can't measure that because they don't tie the VALUE of the products and services to each lead generated."
I have to agree with Dale personally. In addition even if the marketing does happen to be more measurable I'm hesitant to trust companies having the right people in place who can read between the lines with some ingenuity as to what to do with that data.
Cliff
Dial800 call tracking and lead tracking services.
jiking
Are you approaching marketing as only to generate leads for sales?
Who do you think conducts business intelligence to drive what will be the next product you sell?
Is marketing's job done once you've closed the sale? Is yours?
tesandori@...
I'm also tired of hearing people who tie marketing to dollars and cents. Marketing is beyond sales. Products are becoming more and more generic and the actual purchasing process is becoming more and more virtual.
I agree that we need to justify marketing expenses, but let us always keep in mind that we should at least leave a portion of that expenditure for brand building...etc.
I can assure you if sales people rule, they will rule for a short period. And if immeidate ROI is what we're looking for then they will do a great job. On the long run, it's the marketing guys will make it or break it.
After all sales people are replaced by e bay and every seeler is now a salesman there.
Cheers
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
Quote from tesandori: Marketing is beyond sales.
Finally I see the light. We have to accept marketing on faith. Let me start the mantra:
Brand building is good (gami gami gami).
Brand building is good (gami gami gami).
Brand building is good (gami gami gami).
Repeat 1 million times.
Joefclark
Very good post, Geoffrey. However, I would disagree with the philosophy that all activities inside a company should be measured quantitatively and objectively. It can often be difficult to try to drum up an ROI on certain activities. I often encourage my clients to consider whether or not they are getting an ROI on all the time they are spending trying to figure out if they are getting an ROI. Think about it...
Some things in business are intuitive and good managers need to access their intuition to make decisions about activities that truly lead to customer value.
roger_jolley@...
#2 is an obvious mistake, I wonder if anyone
else caught it. #2 is bankrupting companies
left and right because they don't know what
they are "doing." Surely they know what they
think they are doing, but customers know things
now.
If your purpose is anything other than
satisfying a customers demand who happens to
have a dollar in his hand, you are driving your
business into the ground.
I swear, I don't understand how so many smart
people can get themselves situated so badly.
The fundamental element MUST make a profit or
you can't keep doing it-true. However if you
are confused as to what you are actually doing,
with elaborate company rituals to make sure you
are paying attention to the wrong details, all
you and your fellow managers do is fly your
business in a crashing dive to destruction.
Let me repeat this for those who need it
spelled out- fulfilling a customers desire is
your business. Making money is the
stockholders business. Don't be confused and
be sure you are solving the right problem.
roger_jolley@...
One last thing, sales people don't design a
brand new product, Shepard it through years of
testing and prototypes, supervise the branding
and copy which will stay in a consumers mind
there entire life.
Campbell soup- -billions of people know a great
deal about that soup can and the soup in it.
Sales people generate cash, true, but without
marketing, they have noting but their large
ego's to sell.
roger_jolley@...
So you don't have to scroll back up and look,
#2 is "The point of commerce is to generate
profitable revenue, so all measurements should
tie back to sales."
The point of commerce is to satisfy a customer
ready to buy. If your aim is to generate
revenue, or even to create jobs, your
enterprise is doomed.
roger_jolley@...
For years, salespersons and factory workers
were seen as the economies producers, all
others was mere service or support- cost
centers with no reasonable return.
The person that brings in the cash is standing
on a large pile of bodies who made their sale
or product possible.
Dismissing or simply lampooning the logistics
and support for the front line seems suicidal
from a group standpoint, yet some sales people
always disparage marketing.
I think its because they don't know squat about
marketing, and believe the industry PR that
factory workers and sales people are the only
value-creators that count, because they are the
agents that "create" the cash-flow. Baloney.
Misguided business leaders make short term
sales targets and that short term plan has
lately been terminal to what was assumed to be
strong companies.
I see marketing the same way I see engineering.
Both have dozens of special areas of study and
discipline, and unless you are one, you don't
have a clue what they do.
roger_jolley@...
Geoffrey, you have some good ideas and I say
keep writing. Often the reasoned responses of
readers are more valuable than the catalyst
written with its specific limited intention.
Yet, your pseudo-scientific insistence on
measurements and your conclusions about the
worth of activities you clearly do not
understand is a stretch.
Marketing was developed as an arm of
manufacturing and is part of the production
process. Sales is important, been there, done
that successfully, yet you sales people have
noting to sell till marketing gets done.
To diminish a large intellectual enterprise
such as marketing into a sales prospect
generator is an obscene simplification that
simply proves you don't know much about
marketing.
You may know a lot about current business processes though because I see companies
failing left and right who have expressed the
silly things you appear to sincerely believe.
needo82
A though provoking article. I would like to add
that even much of the brand building
initiatives can be measured easily these days.
e.g. Top of mind awareness, desire to purchase
a product etc questionnaires directed at the
customers.If you brand position improves on
such KPI's as a result of a particular brand
building initiatives such as new advertising
campaign then you could easily say that the new
campaign created a positive impact on the
customers and was successful
C. Lee Smith
If one believes the purpose of marketing is lead
generation, shouldn't marketing be evaluated on the
quantity and quality of the LEADS, not the sales team's
ability/inability to close sales?
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
Quote from C. Lee Smith: shouldn't marketing be evaluated on the quantity and quality of the LEADS, not the sales team's
ability/inability to close sales
Sure. Let's goal marketing on the quantity of leads. That way they can just drop a phone book on the sales rep's desk and consider it a job well done. And let's goal them on the quality of those leads, as based on whatever marketing says should make up a quality lead. How about "everyone at the prospect's firm wears bowties"? Or "everyone at the the prospect's firm plays golf"?
Silliness aside, if the sales team can't close a lead, it's a lousy lead. Blaming the sales team is pointless because they are who they are. If you want to increase their close rate, hire different sales people or retrain the ones you've got. Don't hand them leads that they can't close and then say you've done a good job marketing. That's just foolishness.
C. Lee Smith
Quote from Geoffrey:Silliness aside, if
the sales team can't close a lead, it's a lousy lead.
Blaming the sales team is pointless because they are
who they are.
Speaking of silliness, congratulations! You've just
removed the sales dept. from ANY accountability.
Meanwhile, you're trying to evaluate the marketing
dept. based on criteria they themselves have no control
over - the sales team's ability/inability to close. You've
managed to mismanage TWO departments in one blog
comment! (shakes head and rolls eyes)
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
Quote from C. Lee Smith: Speaking of silliness, congratulations! You've just removed the sales dept. from ANY accountability.
Never heard of commissions, eh? Since the concept is apparently unfamiliar to you, permit me to explain. When a sales person sells something, they get a special kind of compensation called a "commission" -- typical some percentage of the revenue or (sometimes) the profit generated by the sale. Such payment schemes create automatic accountability because, if the sales person doesn't sell, he or she doesn't eat.
cgoumas
Author...I hope all your advise is not this simplistic. Take two scenarios. 1) Mediocre sales support person working for a real pro sales person who kills his/her number. 2) Fantastic/talented sales support person working for a mediocre sales person.
In your view of the world, the only real "quantifiable" way to measure these two sales support folks is by the sales generated, but I think you see the flaw in the logic already.
From 10,000ft. I agree with what you are saying, but application of that advice is not straight forward
HaroldWismann
I like your proposition to a point. Where do you emphasize the
customer experience of your product or service? Experience is based on perception and relationship with your business. Some of these things are measurable some are not. Yet, to encourage and create raving fans one's strategy and tactics must be about creating the positive uplifting feeling of delight while working with your company if you plan to have repeat sales.
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
Quote from HaroldWismann:Experience is based on perception and relationship with your business. Some of these things are measurable some are not.
I suspect that sales revenue from that customer might possibly be a usable metric for this.
josmiley
Here at Sentrana we are propelling Marketing into a more quantitative and scientific discipline, to help business leaders who struggle with the challenge of optimizing marketing decisions when it comes to resource allocation and pricing strategy. We have successfully implemented Revenue Optimization solutions with clients spanning industries as diverse as Consumer Packaged Goods to Computer Software, where these organizations were empowered to determine their prices, marketing mix, and product assortments that maximize revenue and profitability. These solutions allow companies to actively shape their demand environments and provide immediate and enduring impacts on the organization?s financial performance and competitive strength, with typical results of 1-3% revenue growth, 6-9% gross profit growth, and 12-18% gross margin growth.
A relevant blog post:
What Happens When We Can?t Keep Up with Information
http://blog.sentrana.com/2009/03/29/what-happens-when-we-cant-keep-up-with-information/
Joe Smiley
http://www.sentrana.com
http://blog.sentrana.com
S K "Bal" Palekar
I am certainly for EFFECTIVE MARKETING but you must realize that everything that counts cannot be counted. In fact THIS IS THE problem with financial measures of a business. The accountants count only what can be counted. That is why stuff like BALANCED SCORE CARD came into picture. Even in personal life everything matters cannot be counted.
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
Re: Comment 82
Business is business. If you can't measure it, it's not real.
digiteye
It makes sense to split marketing into two parts: one is which I call "strategic marketing" and the other is "technical marketing".
Strategic marketing is the art of defining profitable market niches, customer needs and creating a product which answers to these needs in a hungry market. This is also the place where to create messages for the sales force, once your market and customer needs are defined.
If you miss this out you can measure anything until the end of times by your "technical marketing" people who would become the Hunchbacks of Notre Damn Marketing Department by sitting in front of their Excel sheets and anal-yzing the ROI of marketing tactics, PPC costs, DTC effectiveness until nose bleeding.
On the other hand I would ask the author of the article, how would he measure the effectiveness of the changes he made in the submitted marketing messages? If he can provide me with such techniques that would be revolutionary.
Testing them by how much they were liked by other marketing people who has read the article is nothing more specific than selecting an ad agency by getting employees to vote for proposals of agencies by how much they liked their ad design. That is far from being objective. Testing them in the market and measure customer response is valid measurement - but that involves upfront costs, even before the product launch. And you pay for testing also those which will be the losers. So your ROI wont look good as you cannot only pay for the winners - at least I have yet to see a market research company offering such a deal.
So again, while you can cut marketing costs by religiously measuring everything, you cannot avoid unnecessarily spent money. And if your money saving starts by populating your marketing department only with Excel wizards, then you better work in the bank industry.
If there was no art in marketing but measures and balanced score cards only, the world had never had Disneyland, Ford T, Cirque du Soleil or low fare airlines as all these started with thinking and ideas and then only measuring.
And Richard Branson (who was born with dyslexia) would have remained a hippie for life.
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
Re: Comment 84
There are problems with your handy "career-enhancing" definition of strategic marketing.
First, strategic decisions need to be made very periodically and then executed upon. Nothing is more ridiculous than a company that changes strategy every year. Because of that, market strategy is a strictly part-time job and doesn't justify staffs of highly paid MBAs. They're a waste of money.
Second, most marketers are not qualified or able to perform at least three of the functions that you've assigned to them. It is impossible to "define customer needs" and "creates messages" (ones that will work) unless you have been in sales and worked directly with customers. Most marketers lack that key experience.
It is even more impossible for most marketers to "create a product." Engineers create products and generally know what's possible and where a product category is headed. Engineers rightly consider "market requirements" a joke because they see marketers asking for features that don't make any sense, are impossible to implement, or require technological advances that don't exist.
As for measuring the changes that I made in messaging... one of the reasons that I do those clinics is to prove that it's ridiculous to pay marketers $100k and more to come up with such awful stuff. And nobody, least of all me, believes that the measurement in the polls in this blog are scientific.
Zabie67
Unfortunately, your article just enhances the misunderstanding between sales and marketing... The problem is that you mix the medium with the message. If the marketing team is not able to produce a message that attracts the customer, no matter how much cash you pour into lead-generating events or internet advertising, it just won't work. Just like comments already mentioned above, there is good and bad marketing, just like there are good and bad sales people... Want a good example? Look at Apple. I am sure not ALL their marketing activities are fitting in your simplistic list. But they know what to say to their target audience, hence making life so much more easier for their salesforce.
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
Re: Comment 86.
Yes, there are bad sales people. They eventually (and often quickly) get fired because their failures are IMMEDIATELY apparent. By contrast bad marketing people often stay employed -- and waste money -- for years, even decades. I know of one idiot marketer who's wasted major marketing dollars at DEC, Compaq and HP. I met him at DEC in 1988. That's 20 freakin' years of marketing horse manure... which is what happens when marketing isn't measured according to its ability to generate leads that result in profitable revenue.
JesLeb
It is really pretty simple. The job of marketing is to create
a message that consumers of the product or service will
act upon. It is the job of sales to turn that act (when the
phone rings) into a sale. Period. How well the marketing
people do in creating that message is trackable. How well
the sales department does in closing the lead is trackable.
This works pretty much for both B2B or B2C. Of course,
there are some products/services that are difficult to
measure -- such is the case in physician marketing or
attorney marketing. But that is another story.
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine
Re: Note 88:
No problem with measuring marketing. But a lot of marketing is entirely unmeasured or self-measured. And that's the kind of marketing that I'm criticizing.
Geoffrey James
Geoffrey James has sold and written hundreds of features, articles and columns for national publications including Wired, Men's Health, Business 2.0, SellingPower, Brand World, Computer Gaming World, CIO, The New York Times and (of course) BNET. He is the author of seven books, including Business Wisdom of the Electronic Elite (translated into seven languages and selected by four book clubs), and The Tao of Programming (widely quoted on the Web as a "canonical book of... more »
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