Download One Focus of Marketing Accountability: Building a

One Focus of Marketing Accountability:
Building a Performance Measurement Culture in Marketing
Today, many marketing organizations are
required to identify hard ROI from every
marketing dollar invested, while constrained
by an ever-increasingly challenging
marketing environment. To quantitatively
analyze performance against strategic goals
and objectives as well as better allocate
marketing resources – including people,
budget and materials – many organizations
are implementing marketing performance
measurement (MPM) solutions.
3. Marketing budgets are under heavy
scrutiny. Increasingly, marketing budgets
are scrutinized by top management.
Marketers are required to account for
their investments and demonstrate with
hard numbers the returns they are getting.
4. Marketing is increasingly regulated. An
increasing number of regulations, such as
the do-not-call list, CAN SPAM and the
European Union’s Data Protection
directive have been driven by consumers’
desire for greater control. Other
Defying the Limits
Business Trends Are Driving
the Need for an MPM Culture
Within Marketing
CRMproject.com
2
As complexity grows, measuring and
tracking performance are even more
important than in the past in order to
ensure only the most effective, profitable
and loyalty-building marketing activities are
executed. Many external forces have
contributed to this increase in marketing
complexity, including:
1. Consumer exposure to an increasing
number of marketing messages.
Consumers are bombarded with
marketing messages through television
commercials, mailings, websites,
billboards and more. The number of
messages each consumer receives has
grown dramatically in just the last two
decades. In 1985 it was estimated that
the average consumer was exposed to 650
marketing messages every day. Today it is
more than 8,000 [Entrepreneur
Magazine, November 2002].
2. Consumers assert more control over
how marketers can contact them.
Consumers are taking steps to control how
marketers engage them, in part through
the adoption of new technologies that
filter out marketing messages. Consumers
are also demanding that marketers adhere
to new standards of behavior that put the
consumer in the driver’s seat when it
comes to determining when and how to
deliver messages.
processes and to gain access to multiple data
sources in order to determine which
investments are working, at both a macro
and micro level, as well as how each
marketing effort contributes to the
company’s overall success.
Success with MPM also requires the
involvement of the right people, in particular
executive support from the CMO or
marketing vice president to set the right
objectives and put measurement in context.
Additionally, buy-in from executives outside
of marketing is needed so that when
performance is reported, they trust what is
measured and how it was measured.
And lastly, processes must be put in place
to ensure that information is accessed,
gathered, formatted and distributed in a
timely manner to a central reporting location.
These processes require approvals, and access
to multiple data sources and systems so that
data can be integrated for a complete
performance review.
Tips for Implementing a
Successful MPM Culture
Effective Marketing Performance Measurement =
Marketing Technology + People + Process
regulations, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley
Act of 2002, are peripherally related to
marketing in that they require
organizations to implement firmer
auditing and quality controls.
What Is Needed for an Effective
MPM Culture: Marketing
Technology, People and Processes
Enterprise marketing management (EMM)
technology makes performance
measurement easier and enables marketers
to implement standards, to streamline
Creating an MPM culture is unique to each
organization, based on the type of business,
the role of marketing within that business and
the overall corporate culture, and involves 10
major steps.
1. Ensure sponsorship. Key stakeholders
and sponsors should be identified to drive
the creation and on-going development of
an MPM culture. A task team including
executive staff, marketing staff, and sales
should be formed to drive the processes,
reviews, approvals and output needed.
2. Clearly articulate goals and objectives.
In order to make sure everyone in the
marketing organization understands the
value and purpose of the MPM practice,
goals and objectives must be defined. This
will ensure alignment across roles
ultimately providing each team member,
as well as the marketing organization,
with the ability to measure progress
against key objectives.
The first five steps above describe how to create an internal process for marketing performance measurement. The next five steps
describe ways to make the execution of that
process more efficient.
6. Implement EMM technology to speed
MPM. Using EMM technology, organizations can streamline and automate
marketing activities so that performance
measurement is just one step in the
marketing process. Automation also frees
up marketers to analyze the effectiveness
of each customer communication and
activity. The timelier this analysis, the
more flexibility marketers have to refine
and adjust communication strategies to
ensure goals are met.
Implementing a successful MPM culture
requires a combination of people, processes and
technology. Early adopters of MPM are seeing
the benefits, including: visibility into which
investments are most profitable; a marketing
mix analysis across channels, segments and
product lines; and ensuring all marketers can
tangibly measure how their programs contribute
to the bottom-line. MPM is helping
organizations better navigate, manage and
analyze the growing complexity of marketing. ■
About Unica
Unica Corporation is a leading global
provider of enterprise marketing management (EMM) software designed to
increase revenues and improve efficiency and measurability of marketing
operations. Approximately 300 companies use Unica’s Affinium software
including Capital One, Choice Hotels,
Comcast, Lands’ End, Nordstrom,
and Reader’s Digest.
Yuchun Lee
Co-founder and CEO
Carol Meyers
Vice President of Marketing
Eric Schnadig
Vice President of Worldwide Sales
Unica Corporation
Worldwide Headquarters
Reservoir Place North
170 Tracer Lane
Waltham, MA 02451-1379
USA
Phone 781.839.8000
Fax 781.890.0012
www.unica.com
[email protected]
Business Contact
Jennifer Sullivan
Director, Marketing,
Operations & Inside Sales
[email protected]
Phone 781.839.8099
Defying the Limits
7. Develop a prototype with sample
reports. Using the information gathered
from the task team regarding what metrics
to track and calculations to apply, create
an MPM prototype – including sample
reports. This will allow you to flush out
the processes and approvals pertaining to
how information is gathered, evaluated
and distributed. This step is key in
identifying any gaps in your solution.
8. Review and refine prototype. Execute an
iterative design approach. As with all
organizational changes, creating an MPM
culture is a mix of business process and
supporting technology. This necessitates a
thorough and ongoing review and
refinement to ensure that the results
match the original objectives and metrics
previously agreed on.
9. Roll-out. Once the prototype is reviewed
and necessary changes are made, the
MPM solution is ready for organizational
rollout. Planning the rollout of the
resulting processes, supporting systems
and technology as well as reports is an
important step. The same task team who
originally participated in the planning
process should be involved to stress the
importance and value of the MPM
solution. They key objectives during
rollout are to drive broad user adoption
and acceptance.
10. Assess and review. The iterative nature of
MPM doesn’t stop after the initial rollout.
Over time, all aspects of this culture change
must be monitored, assessed and reviewed.
As with any business process, marketing
performance measurement improves with
time, new information and experience.
3
CRMproject.com
3. Identify important external and internal
metrics. Using the experience of your task
team, identify the most important external
and internal performance indicators to
measure. Be sure to include appropriate
metrics for every major element of your
marketing mix (such as PR, advertising,
and so forth), so that the MPM solution
created enables all members of marketing
to track their progress and contribution to
the organization’s success.
4. Gain agreement on what and how to
measure. Since the output of the MPM solution will be regularly shared, analyzed, and
reviewed by individuals internal and external
to marketing, obtain buy-in from key stakeholders once metrics are identified. Sales,
finance and your CEO should have visibility
into the measurement and reporting planned
so that all groups are level-set in terms of
measures and calculations; understand the
value of marketing investments and ensure
marketing is fully aligned with the strategic
direction of the company.
5. Review information needed and available
to measure each metric. Be sure to review
how the information will be gathered to
populate your final output. Do you have
access to all the data needed? Or do additional processes or access levels need
to be put in place? Review all constraints
in advance and make certain access to
required data is tested and working.