Do marketing metrics show the true picture?
Metrics are crucial. They establish operational discipline, aid in evaluating the efficacy of critical tasks, and confirm that the objectives of the business are being met. For marketers, metrics can convey important messages. They convey messages about how we evaluate our impact on the organisation and establish goals for how we aim to contribute to the organisation.
If the measurements, we provide are too constrained. We run the danger of misinforming or under-educating our colleagues in other functions about the true scope and impact of marketing. Metrics with gaps indicate a marketing function with little influence over the expansion and change of a company.
We advise marketing leaders to create a marketing metrics roadmap that indicates what they’ll track and how they’ll participate in setting realistic expectations.
1. Creating a Successful Marketing Metrics Roadmap
When done right, the following steps can help tap into the rewarding world of marketing technology.
2. Know your audience’s needs
Current consumer trends must be considered to tailor the roadmap to the needs of the customer for a firm wanting to create a successful marketing technology roadmap.
Consumer behaviour at each stage of the purchasing process offers valuable information about the instruments you should use to meet client expectations.
3. Understand your internal goals
You should identify the ideal tools with the aid of your organisational goals, including the experiences you strive to provide for your clients. There are many marketing tools on the market right now, but not all of them will work for your current or future marketing objectives.
To stop this, you must describe your issue precisely, pick the tools that best address it objectively, and implement crucial measures to gauge progress.
4. Create a budget
Strategic planning is only helpful if you have the resources to support it as a marketer. First, you must consider what is financially possible. According to a recent Deloitte CMO research, marketing expenses currently make up 11.8% of the total corporate budget.
Additionally, marketing expenditures are rising quickly. Since most instruments are pricey, you must prioritise those that best upgrade your capabilities while staying within your budget.
You can use tactics like the following to do this:
– Deciding between a monthly, quarterly, or annual budget
– Set a limit for each tool.
– Set a budget for each plan.
Each of these tactics has advantages, but your organisational structure should aid you in selecting the finest and most economical choice.
Pick feasible and easy-to-integrate tools.
Although many digital marketing tools are available. You might want to avoid adding new tools that will work with your current technology stack or pose a risk to your data. For instance, think about how well a lead generation product connects with your tech stack before adding it to your pile.
You should also assess how quickly and well you can combine your chosen marketing techniques. Although using individual tools can be advantageous, cross-tool synchronisation can offer much more value. For instance, you might use effective CRM programs with various capabilities. This would guarantee that all the tools operate in unison.
Why are some marketing metrics not being measured today?
The most popular KPIs were those for campaigns and sales/satisfaction.
Brand and capability related KPIs were rarely measured by marketing teams. This is remarkable, considering that most senior marketers perceive brands as a crucial component of their profession.
Being so underweighted in brand equity metrics is inconsistent with the function and influence that marketing may have. Additionally, it underestimates the value and importance of marketing in the firm by ignoring KPIs related to capability-building.
So, why does this gap exist?
Part of the problem is due to marketing becoming bogged down at the sales/satisfaction stage of the roadmap. In addition, members of other company functions may scrutinise and doubt these indicators due to the fierce internal battle for the right to attribute sales growth.
It is challenging to demonstrate responsibility for specific functions’ efforts, both technically and politically.
To support and justify these measurements and show attribution, marketers may invest a lot of time and money. Taking up too much bandwidth for just one of the many possible sets of metrics.
In other instances, marketers have given up trying to get other teams to grasp marketing’s purpose and have accepted their perceived primary role as assisting sales. The efficiency and effectiveness of marketing campaigns, the part played by marketing programs in boosting sales and customer satisfaction. The worth of the brand and its capabilities, and the effects of marketing-related activities on other functions must all be considered to give a complete picture of marketing’s impact.
A marketing roadmap reduces the possibility that your division will be solely responsible for supporting sales. It enlightens C-suite colleagues about the importance of brand-related, capability-building, and enterprise-wide enablement activities. Even though the roadmap’s complete realisation is still a way off, outlining metrics will show how marketing plans to provide business impact.
By Nikhil Varma
