Marketing Metrics

Author: Mike Moran
Publisher: IBM Press
Year Published: 2007
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Web 2.0 marketing can be a daunting endeavor to undertake for virtually everyone but those on the bleeding edge of technology. It seems every day there’s a new technology that hits the market or a new social network opens its doors or the trends shift from blogging to audio/podcasting to video. With all those new changes, it’s easy to become obsessed with doing it right the first time, overwhelmed with all the new choices each day, and frustrated that you can’t keep up. continue

There’s an interesting article in this month’s premier issue of CMO Magazine about measuring marketing ROI. The article highlights how difficult it is to measure ROI. Why? Well, because measuring the sales impact of marketing is difficult - there are numerous factors involved, and it’s difficult to pinpoint what metrics a company should be using to define and track ROI.

Here are some ways companies measure marketing ROI:

• incremental sales revenue as generated by marketing activities
• changes in brand awareness
• total sales revenue generated by marketing activity
• changes in purchasing intention
• changes in attitude towards the brand
• changes in market share
• number of leads generated

How do you get started? Start with your firm’s objectives and develop strategic goals from there. Then, evaluate where your firm currently is, and what metrics would be most important to get to where you want to be.

Still, the article points out that

when it comes to measuring impact, marketing faces some unique challenges. “Alone, ROI cannot be used as an effective measurement tool for marketing because the value of relationships, attitude, brand awareness and reputation are difficult to calculate in financial terms,” says Sabol. “It’s not so easy to tie marketing to the income statement because we own only portions of it. But ultimately we know that premier marketing drives premium returns.”

» Read Article: Metrics Revolution