Not long ago I saw a survey designed to assess the current adoption, sensitization and utilization of marketing solutions that facilitate deeper interaction and communication with customers asked the following questions types of questions:

How are you?

· Increasing marketing efficiencies and effectiveness?

· Evaluating all areas of marketing spend to increase yield and accountability?

· Modifying and/or curtailing campaign scope or investments?

· Improving behavioral targeting of advertising and online marketing campaigns?

· Exploring new customized communication technologies

· Moving more marketing investments to the Internet and mobile channels?

· Giving regions and/or business groups more autonomy to manage budgets?

· Leveraging existing resources within the organization to enhance, improve and optimize customer communications?

· Restructuring marketing groups and agency agreements?

· Adding tighter costing and control systems across marketing operations?

· Reviewing and assessing value of the marketing supply chain?

· Bringing more discipline and rigor to marketing budgeting and spend?

· Deploying solutions or hosted services that drive process and performance?

· Driving adoption and use of CRM and sales automation applications

At first glance this may seem like a lot of good questions. But I think the survey puts the cart before the horse. Increasing marketing efficiencies and effectiveness need to begin by insuring the marketing initiatives are linked to business outcomes and that these initiatives are based on measurable objectives.  How we do this?  We have the perfect tool right within our reach, the Marketing Plan. Well constructed marketing plans establish at the outset the performance targets by which marketing effectiveness, value and efficiency will be measured. This is why the marketing plan is so critical to the marketing performance management process.  So I’m always amazed when we work with marketers who don’t have a plan or have a plan that doesn’t have measurable objectives or performance targets for their tactical programs.

Goals such as improve the customer experience, generate advocacy, maximize key stakeholder relationships, optimize joint development opportunities, and increase awareness sound good but how will we know if they’re achieved.  Do we just arbitrarily declare success?  That would be nice but as we say in these parts that dog won’t hunt.  To get your marketing accountability and measurement efforts off on the right foot, start by creating a measurable marketing plan.  Your marketing plan should outline the unique, meaningful strategies you are going to employ to achieve your objectives.  It serves as your roadmap for action, provides focus and should establish and clarify your priorities.

Take a moment to stand back and evaluate your plan.  In addition to analyzing your situation, identifying your target customer group, what they want and need, defining your positioning strategy relevant to this group, the compelling reason why these customers should buy from you, and outlining your strategies and tactics to achieve the objectives and generate demand and loyalty, make sure your plan includes the following:

1. Clear measurable objectives linked to the organization’s business outcomes – can you draw a direct line between the outcome(s) and objectives?

2. A set of well-defined performance targets and the metrics you will be using

3. A plan for how you are going to measure and report your progress.

Are any of these missing? If so, do not pass go and do not collect the money.  Don’t call “it a wrap” until these three elements have been addressed.  By starting with a measurable marketing plan you will get your measurement efforts off to a good start.

VisionEdge Marketing, Inc, is a leading data-driven metrics-based strategic and product marketing firm located in Austin, Texas. The company specializes in consulting and learning services that help organizations use data to make fact based decisions to address market, customer, and product opportunities and to improve and measure marketing performance. For more information, go to www.visionedgemarketing.com.

Key Performance Indicator (KPI) has become one of the most abused marketing buzzwords since CRM. What really is a KPI? Just because a metric can be “glammed up” doesn’t make it a KPI.  A metric refers to a direct numerical measure that represents a piece of business data in the relationship of one or more dimensions, such as the number of qualified leads per week.  A KPI is a metric that is tied to a target; it is a quantifiable measurement that reflects the factors which contribute to success.  Usually a KPI represents how far a metric is above or below a pre-determined target. KPI’s usually are shown as a ratio of actual to target and should provide some indication of whether you are on or off the target and by how much.  When you think about KPIs, keep each of these words in mind: Key, Performance, Indicator:

1. Key – Focus on the most important or most relevant metrics. In marketing we may be able to develop, measure and monitor an extensive number of metrics and performance indicators.  Choose those KPIs that are tied to the outcomes that matter most to your business that the organization expects marketing to impact.

2. Performance – Select a KPI that measures how marketing executed on an action and how well the organization performed against a target.

3. Indicator – For a metric to be a KPI it must indicate some result and/or pending result.

As you think about your metrics, focus your metrics on what matters to your organization, what you can do to move the needle for these, and which measures when combined will enable you to proactively change performance, you will be well on your way to having the right KPIs.

VisionEdge Marketing, Inc, is a leading data-driven metrics-based strategic and product marketing firm located in Austin, Texas. The company specializes in consulting and learning services that help organizations use data to make fact based decisions to address market, customer, and product opportunities and to improve and measure marketing performance. For more information, go to www.visionedgemarketing.com.

Efficiency metrics such as marketing headcount to revenue, time to fulfillment of an inquiry, and cost measures help us assess how well the marketing operation is being run.  But they don’t help us understand how marketing is affecting the business and how well it is driving key business outcomes.  These questions are addressed with effectiveness metrics.  Effectiveness metrics help us understand the role marketing is playing in acquiring and retaining customers. Effectiveness metrics help us make decisions about strategy.  Impact metrics are designed to demonstrate the link between what marketing does and tangible effects on the organization’s ability to gain and sustain a competitive advantage.

If you’re wondering which you should measure and improve first effectiveness or efficiency – it’s not a chicken or egg question -choose effectiveness.  This may seem counterintuitive since financial pressures often take you down the efficiency path, but improving how your marketing effectiveness is about generating incremental sales and customer value as opposed to efficiency which focuses on reducing waste.  It’s hard to make decisions about where to cut when you don’t know what is and isn’t working.  This choice is about doing the right things and then focusing on how to do these things right. Only by starting with effectiveness can you demonstrate marketing’s impact  on the achieve key business outcomes and make a strong case for playing claim a strategic role.

Of course to measure effectiveness takes data.  One of the primary reasons we fall short of being a strategic partner is that we lack the data, analytical models and right metrics needed to demonstrate our contribution and connect marketing back to the business.    To drive effectiveness you will need analytics and data that can be used to tease out the causal relationship between particular marketing efforts and such business outcomes as customer acquisition, customer loyalty, and customer profitability.  The more you can show the impact of marketing efforts and investments on the bottom-line the more influence marketing will have on company business decisions and future business strategies.

VisionEdge Marketing, Inc, is a leading data-driven metrics-based strategic and product marketing firm located in Austin, Texas. The company specializes in consulting and learning services that help organizations use data to make fact based decisions to address market, customer, and product opportunities and to improve and measure marketing performance. For more information, go to www.visionedgemarketing.com.

Everyone we speak with is concerned about the economy, battening down the hatches, hunkering down.  Many of us in marketing are seeing our budgets sliced, diced, and chopped faster than an infomercial gadget.  But if your strategy is sound consider being a contrarian and refuse to participate in the downturn.  We’re not suggesting you be rash with your money; but when everyone else has decided to go into idle mode, there can be a unique window of opportunity.  The PIMS research has shown those companies who continue to market during the downturn come out on the other side in a better position than their competition.  If you’ve done your homework and your products and service meet the needs and preferences of the market and you can demonstrate you deliver tangible value to your customers, then it is just as important to promote your company during business downturns. And if you’re been doing marketing performance management and measurement you can have the data to make a strong case for how your investments are going to add value to the company. Continuing your marketing efforts will help you build brand preference and support an image of strength in the market when times are tough.  Here are some that are good to do regardless of the economy:

1. Stay top of mind with customers.  Existing customers may consider changing suppliers when there is volatility and uncertainty in the market.  This is not the time to go silent with existing customers.  Develop and execute on customer marketing programs that will keep existing customers engaged.  It may also be the right time to conduct some customer research.  According to a recent survey of European businesses conducted by SPSS, about a third of companies consider customer retention their number one priority in the current economic climate, compared to only 8 percent of companies whose main concern is customer acquisition—a sharp drop from previous years, when about 40 percent of organizations cited customer acquisition as their primary concern. Not surprisingly, nearly 70 percent of the survey’s respondents said that gathering and analyzing customer feedback will be vital to their success over the next few years, as they work to boost retention by better understanding their customers.

2. Redouble your new business efforts.  Your sales people and channel partners are swimming against the current and are probably finding it challenging to make their numbers. With fewer opportunities, salespeople will have more time to invest in every qualified lead.  . This isn’t the time to try and do more with less, rather this is the time to do better with less.  Rerun demand generation programs that have proven to have high returns in terms of both effectiveness and payback.  Revisit your definition of the ideal customer in terms of personas and scenario marketing, rather than just demographics and other traditional profiling.   This may provide new ideas for how to connect with these opportunities.  If you didn’t do post-mortems are programs in the past due to lack of time, do them now.  This way you can examine what worked and what can be improved.  If the program looks like it is still relevant make the improvements and leverage your learning curve and the investments you’ve already made.

3. Benchmark your marketing performance.  If you don’t’ know how you stack up and you’ve never had the time before to find out, this may be a good time.  While measuring and managing marketing is always a good discipline; it is even more critical in tough times. Executives are more receptive to making an investment if you can quantify the results.  Benchmarking will help you understand whether your performance targets are in line, better, or behind your industry set.  Use this information as part of your marketing planning, performance target setting, strategy development, and budgeting.

VisionEdge Marketing, Inc, is a leading data-driven metrics-based strategic and product marketing firm located in Austin, Texas. The company specializes in consulting and learning services that help organizations use data to make fact based decisions to address market, customer, and product opportunities and to improve and measure marketing performance. For more information, go to www.visionedgemarketing.com.

The marketing operations function enables the marketing organization to operate more like a business, with formalized processes, infrastructure, and reporting. Best-in-class marketing operations organizations develop a performance measurement process that cascades from corporate objectives to marketing objectives to marketing programs.  A best-in-class marketing operation organization should tackle three areas:  the measurement of marketing ROI and demonstration of value, balancing marketing strategy with tactics, and tying marketing success to the goals of other groups. As you evaluate your marketing operations function, you want to make sure that at a minimum it:

1. Drives the processes for budgeting and investment decisions and more effective strategic planning

2. Leads the charge for marketing performance measurement processes.

3. Identifies and implements the required infrastructure to maintain the consistent implementation of processes.

If you’re ready to take your Marketing Operations to the next level, here are five things you should tackle:

1. Collaborative and transparent planning processes to ensure alignment between marketing plans and business outcomes.

2. Increased visibility and accountability in the budgeting process and expenditure tracking that ensure alignment between investments and impact.

3. Detailed project plans that link tasks to deliverables to outcomes and define the workflow for the approval process for the deliverables to improve predictability, on-time deliverability, and cost management.

4. Systems for storing and easily searching marketing assets along with guidelines outlining usage parameters and templates that enable field marketing, sales and distribution partners to localize and customize any content for specific geographies, customer segments and customers that promote sharing and reuse and ensure that sales and field organizations can find and use these assets, resulting in better return on investment.

5. Development and deployment of dashboards that enable marketing organization to gain instant visibility into key outcome-based, operational and activity metrics.

VisionEdge Marketing, Inc, is a leading data-driven metrics-based strategic and product marketing firm located in Austin, Texas. The company specializes in consulting and learning services that help organizations use data to make fact based decisions to address market, customer, and product opportunities and to improve and measure marketing performance. For more information, go to www.visionedgemarketing.com.

CEOs face challenges every day. If you’re the CEO of a small or medium size business (SMB) your challenges not only include prioritizing the numerous demands on your time, balancing short-term opportunities with long term goals, managing cash flow and long sales cycles, solving resource shortages ranging from funds to people, but also the variety of hats you wear as the CEO. The SMB CEO is often responsible for closing key deals and serving as the company’s primary marketer. Sound familiar? Then build this simple CEO marketing toolkit, designed to save you valuable time and money.

Every toolkit should have six basic items:

- A hammer, to use as a lever

- A wrench, to turn things

- A screwdriver, to attach or close things

- Pliers, to bend things or hold on to small stuff

- Screws, bolts, duct tape or super glue, to connect things

- A measuring tape, to – you guessed it! – take measurements

Let’s translate these everyday tools into marketing tools.

In the world of marketing, the hammer is your company’s value proposition. What’s a value proposition? Simple – it’s the basic reasoning for why people should consider your product or service. Your value proposition shows you understand who the customer is, and what they want and need, and that you understand their purchasing criteria and supplier evaluation attributes. It answers the question, “Why should someone buy from you?” It addresses pain points and buying motives while serving as the basis for your positioning.

Here’s an example of a weak value proposition: ‘Company A is a leading provider of real-time mobile network intelligence solutions that are creating the foundation for a successful mobile data experience.’

This is a stronger value proposition: ‘Company B tailors and integrates web-based solutions that automate business processes so broker-dealers can increase rep and employee loyalty.’  Which example best reflects your value proposition?

Your second important tool is your wrench. Generating more sales leads is one of the top three business goals. How do you turn on lead generation? By developing market-centric actions tied to incremental behavioral commitments – we call this the Buying Pipeline.  How do you control the pipeline flow? By optimizing the marketing mix (offer, price, placement and promotion) to address your prospects needs, wants and buying process.

You need an all-purpose screwdriver for closing and tightening. In the business world, the screwdriver represents your proposal and contract templates, customer references, and how accessible you can make your products and services to prospective customers. Having the opportunity to try your products or services before buying is key to accelerating the adoption process.

Use these six questions to gauge the speed of adoption of your product or service:

1. Does the target perceive that the product/service adds value?

2. Is the product compatible with current practices and processes?

3. Is the product/service easy to understand and use?

4. Can the product/service be sampled and/or trialed?

5. What is the risk factor in buying/using the product? (Tip: lower is better)

6. Is it easy to communicate the advantages of the product/service?

No toolkit is complete without a set of pliers, which allow you to hold onto small delicate objects. In the business world, these delicate objects can be your prospects. Pliers also offer flexibility – as do your product/service roadmap, product line, product configuration, purchasing and financing options.

Screws, bolts and glue allow you to connect or hold things together. To connect your business operations together, make a contact management and/or relational database system that supports sales, customer support and marketing, which should be one of your first considerations (not something you install once the task has become formidable and expensive).

Although listed last, the business equivalent of the ruler or measuring tape is one of your most important tools. Use metrics in your company’s business, marketing and sales plans to clearly identify how success will be measured, and to track your business’ progress towards that success. Metrics can include securing a specific set of customers, a certain number of deals each quarter, a certain amount of repeat business from existing customers etc. These business outcomes serve as the basis for your strategies and tactics.

These six simple tools will:

- help you clarify why people should buy from you

- make it easy for people to adopt your product or service

- give you and your prospects room to maneuver on product and pricing

- enable you to establish sales and marketing processes and systems

- help you establish clear metrics that indicate how well you are achieving your business objectives

With your CEO marketing toolkit in place, here are three tips on using it for maximum impact:

1. Remember to repair things that are broken quickly – the longer you wait, the worse and more expensive it can get.

2. Use the best materials you can afford.

3. And wise words from my father apply, “Do the job right the first time.”  Rework is expensive in both time and money.

VisionEdge Marketing, Inc, is a leading data-driven metrics-based strategic and product marketing firm located in Austin, Texas. The company specializes in consulting and learning services that help organizations use data to make fact based decisions to address market, customer, and product opportunities and to improve and measure marketing performance. For more information, go to www.visionedgemarketing.com.