INSIGHTS
The benefits of having a defined role for Marketing Effectiveness
- November 02, 2022
Measuring the effectiveness of marketing activity has been on the peripheral radar of businesses for many years, but since the impact of Covid and the cost-of-living crisis, it is something which is now rising up the agenda for many companies as they look for ways to ensure efficient use of their budgets and increase their return on investment.
A recent survey of primarily senior marketers found that over 61% of respondents stated that marketing effectiveness measurement had become a more prominent factor in their marketing and business decisions over the past three years.
Yet, somewhat surprisingly, the same survey also found that more than half of marketers work for brands where marketing effectiveness is not a defined role and is rarely a priority. Around 25% said that while they were engaged in monitoring marketing effectiveness, their responsibilities were carried out ad-hoc or as part of a broader role or team function. In contrast, a fifth of those asked said there are no employees within their organisation with dedicated responsibility for marketing effectiveness. Only 10.3% reported having a dedicated marketing effectiveness position within their business.
So, the data suggests that the appetite for accurate and detailed reporting on marketing effectiveness exists, but brands seem to be struggling to put their ideas into action, and this could be where a defined role for marketing effectiveness could benefit a company.
How has reporting changed
There was a pre-digital time when measuring the effectiveness of marketing activity was a tricky business. Trying to accurately assess the impact of mixed outbound activity such as radio adverts, brochures and magazine advertising and convert it into a metric to define success was primarily based on estimates and assumptions, often made from the number of leads coming in. This tended only to provide a short-term snapshot, making it hard to identify which activity was working and which was wasting valuable marketing budget. With the restricted options for accurate reporting, it is easy to see why limited attention may have been paid to assigning responsibility for formally measuring marketing effectiveness in the past.
However, times have changed and in the digital era, reporting on the effectiveness of a brand's marketing pursuits is something which can be carried out with far more accuracy, in detail and often in real-time. Customer journeys can be easily tracked on social media, via website analytics, and through email marketing to find out where and when potential and existing clients enter and leave the process, how much repeat business a company is receiving and which activity is driving enquiries. It is now possible to analyse data so that marketing activity can be tweaked instantaneously for maximum effectiveness, improving outcomes and helping to predict long-term customer behaviour to inform strategy.
There now seems to be an obvious advantage to focusing efforts on measuring marketing effectiveness. The accurate metrics and benchmarking opportunities now at marketeers' fingertips can reduce the cost of customer acquisitions, increase profits and give brands a competitive edge. With such critical information at stake and far more in-depth data available to analyse continuously, expecting the responsibility to be shared amongst marketers who are not dedicated to the role or only report on an informal basis is likely to result in missed opportunities.
Conversely, businesses that invest in the measurement of marketing effectiveness by creating a defined role could find that they enjoy long-term benefits in the shape of cost savings, customer retention and better-informed marketing and business strategy.
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