A recent research survey among business and marketing executives revealed a high level of interest in improving their organisation's ability to measure marketing performance, according to B2B metrics-based marketing company VisionEdge Marketing Inc.
The VisionEdge online survey found that most companies appear to be moving from activity-based metrics to more operational metrics to measure the success of their marketing efforts, and remain primarily focused on customer acquisition as the most important measure of success.
A failing priority
According to the online survey, 59% of respondents consider measuring marketing performance to be one of the top three priorities for their company in 2005. But, despite this, only 9% were satisfied with their company's ability to set and monitor marketing metrics. The results also suggested that managers were feeling increasing pressure to better understand and track the complex, multi-faceted contributions that marketing makes to business goals.
"Today's marketers are increasingly challenged to 'connect the dots' between their marketing efforts and business outcomes. By having good marketing metrics in place, marketers can demonstrate their progress and strategic contributions," said VisionEdge Marketing's president, Laura Patterson. "Marketing metrics provide the kind of measurement points and feedback linked to annual organisational goals that both management and shareholders are seeking. The challenge is for marketers to move from measuring marketing efficiencies to linking marketing to business performance."
Highlights
Other key findings of the survey included that:
- More than half (55%) of respondents said the rate of customer acquisition was the performance indicator most commonly reported to upper management and board of directors.
- Nearly two-thirds (65%) of respondents said they planned to conduct or wanted to conduct an audit of their marketing metrics in 2005.
- Around one-quarter (27%) of the business executives and managers who responded to the survey said they had training budgets for improving their team's ability to set, track and report on performance indicators for marketing.
The report, which can be ordered directly from VisionEdge Marketing, was based upon a survey of 101 companies in the USA, conducted in January and February 2005. Of the respondents, 16% had C-level titles, 50% had marketing titles, 8% were in sales, and the other 26% accounted for a range of other functions.
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