Only 17% of executives and marketing professionals think that their CEO would give the marketing department an 'A' for performance, according to the sixth annual Marketing Performance Management survey from VisionEdge Marketing.
Of the 136 executives surveyed, 17% said they believe that marketing programmes make a difference to the company and that they could document that contribution, compared to 53% of respondents who think their CEO believes that marketing programmes are effective despite their contribution not being measured.
A marginal effect?
A total of 48% felt that their CEO believes their organisation's ability to measure marketing performance was only marginally effective. And, as in surveys from previous years, there remained a gap between business goals and marketing metrics. For example, 63% of respondents agreed that increasing share in existing markets was a top priority but only 37% had regularly reported performance indicators for share.
It also seems that companies are still struggling with the contradiction between priorities and action, with 58% stating that measuring marketing performance was a top priority while 64% had no marketing performance training or budget. As a result, the company concluded, a major opportunity remains for marketing executives to improve the linkage between marketing expenditure and results.
Key findings
According to Laura Patterson, president for VisionEdge Marketing, "Marketing departments in general are still failing to live up their CEOs' needs. The results suggest companies need to invest in systems, processes, and training, as well as continue to develop a culture of accountability to create more performance-driven marketing organisations."
Other findings from the survey included:
- Marketing renews their focus on market share. In 2007, 63% of the respondents said the number one area marketing needs to address in increasing market share in existing markets compared to 2006 where the number one area of focus was growing the company's brand value.
- Tracking campaign ROI moves up in priority. In 2006, marketers were expected to track and measure in priority order lead conversion, market share, awareness, revenues from new products, campaign ROI and customer satisfaction. In 2007, the number one priority is tracking campaign ROI followed by lead conversation, customer satisfaction, market share, and then awareness.
- Over 80% of the respondents still gave a six or less on a ten-point scale in terms of their satisfaction level with their ability to track marketing performance.
- Acquiring new customers, bringing new products to market, and growing share of wallet of existing customers remain the top three initiatives most critical to a company's success.
- Revenue from new products, customer satisfaction, and market share remain the top indicators marketing regularly tracks and reports.
The full report will be available for purchase from the end of March 2007 from the VisionEdge Marketing online store - click here.
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