I was recently the recipient of one of the slickest presentations I have seen for some time, as the Marketing Manager of a business on whose board I sit employed the full range of his presentation skills on us. It was a truly impressive performance, at least at a superficial level.
The business is successful, and its marketing programs are seen as a key component of that success, but the reality is that we really do not know in quantitative terms the value delivered by the marketing investment.
Marketers, and the boards to which they report need to be recognise that the days of hype are over, and what is needed now is a solid, quantitative foundation linked to the outcomes so that intelligent, informed assessments of the marketing investments can be made.
Boards are used to numbers, and generally have to date tolerated the marketing hype delivered to us because:
- They do not understand the marketing jargon
- They had no idea how to measure it, so as it appeared to work, why change.
Those gravy-days of marketing are now ended, and no marketing function or person should be able to avoid the scrutiny and opportunity for productivity gains in marketing investments that have been delivered by intelligent metrics available in the digital world.
