Walk a Mile in a Salesman's Shoes
And Five Other Great Ideas for Measuring Marketing ROI

By Susan E. Fisher and Todd Smart

Move over, brand. Accountability is the new mantra of marketing and with it comes a heavy emphasis on measurability.

Just look what Donovan Neale-May, the executive director of the CMO Council has to say. The CMO Council, a self-professed elite thought leadership group of top marketing executives, has centered a major new initiative on calculating return on investment (ROI).

"Accountability — not brand or eyeballs — is the new watchword in this performance and governance-driven business environment," Neale-May announced while releasing a major report on the topic.

"Smart CMOs are investing in a new set of tools, processes and disciplines that will give senior management better insights into the effectiveness of marketing and its contributions to overall business value creation."

Of course, in our acronym- and initialism-loving business world, we can't kick off an initiative with a worn set of initials. We need to coin some new terminology and definitional baggage to accompany it. Enter MPM. It's the hot abbreviation making the marketing rounds, and it's generating some well-warranted buzz.

Defining MPM

What is MPM anyway? No, in marketing parlance it's not "maximum permitted mileage" or "multi-processing modules." Rather, it's Marketing Performance Measurement. And, it's all about standards and processes that define expectations and outcomes at a strategic level, with a bit about cultural issues and company mindset thrown in for good measure.

"MPM is a company-wide cross-functional process that marketing must drive and build consensus around," stated Bill Glazier, the editor-in-chief of the CMO Council's key report.

Following more than a year's worth of research, a special CMO Council task force churned out a 227-page report outlining a standardized model and framework for measuring marketing ROI at a strategic level. The "Measures + Metrics: Assessing Marketing Value + Impact" report offers a standardized model and framework for measuring the value of ROI at a strategic level. Now the CMO Council is on the road discussing the model in a series of forums across North America and Europe.

Even without reading the report, I can quickly make this judgment call: Whether you call it MPM or just old fashioned ROI, it makes obvious dollars and sense that marketers are set on taking hard measurements of their performance and demonstrating tangible value of marketing efforts.

Such measurement is sorely lacking. "Only 17 percent of surveyed companies have formal MPM systems despite spending up to 25 percent of their revenue on marketing," noted a CMO Council survey of leading Chief Marketing Officers. The companies that did, enjoyed better financial results than their peers — not to mention the chance for marketing to get a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T from the C-suite.

Basic Steps to Get Started

Of course, effective measurability is easier said than done, and a comprehensive, enterprise-wide MPM system is complex. Here are some basic steps to get moving to make MPM, or ROI for that matter, more than just a bunch of initials.

1. Walk a Mile in a Salesman's Shoes

   Remember, marketing feeds sales. Professional marketers don't want to hear it this way, but marketing is a support function of sales; it is supposed to help salespeople by building a brand and a company's reputation. For marketing to establish a strong ROI there must be a bridge between sales and marketing. Key marketing measurements should hinge on sales outcomes including lead generation, the quality of leads and actually closing deals (and putting money in the bank.)

2. Consider Your Own Metrics

   In a CMO Council webinar presentation, David Hirsch, director of Google's B2B vertical markets group, talks of such metrics as a return on objectives or a "ROO" (Now, isn't that a great acronym for marketers who spent their childhood years reading "Winnie the Pooh"?) Metrics can be applied to such customer interactions and activities as the downloading of a white paper or specialized content or an email registration.

3. Talk Amongst Yourselves

   MPM discussions are headed your way. Here is the schedule for forums in North America:

   Chicago, Tuesday, May 17
   Boston, Tuesday, June 21
   New York, Wednesday, Sept. 7

   Registration is $395 for each U.S. forum. Details and registration are available online.

4. Count Like A CFO, Think Like a CEO

   What are higher-ups outside your department thinking about what you do and how you justify your spending? Consider what metrics and outcomes they care about — and talk about those metrics and outcome in their terms.

5. Get Educated

   See what the CMO Council has to say. The report, by the way, can be yours for $2,495 — just more than $10 a page.

   For a free introduction, view a webcast on the topic. Or check the opinions of marketers already weighing in on the MPM discussion. Here's one to consider.

6. A Gut-Check is Still a Measurement

   Here's a caveat. Although accountability may be the new watchword of marketing, don't let the bean counters — or a bean-counting mentality — take over the marketing department. Creativity still reigns supreme. There's so much clutter that the creativity will separate your marketing handiwork from other competitors' efforts. A gut-check, visceral reaction from a marketing pro can still play a role as a measure of success.

Here are some additional resources:

• Gaze into Our Crystal Ball: Customers' Thoughts Revealed Through E-Newsletter Reading
• Say it with Data: To Grow Customer Relationships, Exceed Expectations Systematically
• CMO Council MPM announcement
• CMO Council MPM white paper (pdf)

Deliver Real Return

We are living in a marketing utopia compared to 10 years ago. With the rise of the Web and electronic marketing, marketers who embrace measurement have a whole new world of possibilities. With tools like email newsletters and blogs, at BeTuitive, we help our customers track measurable interactions such as open rates, click-throughs, survey replies and what we call "forward to friend," electronically passing a registration form to a friend.

The screws are being tightened in every corner of every organization. Each functional area must deliver real return that clearly impacts the company performance. Traditionally, marketers have been behind the eight-ball in measuring the value of what they do. Now is the time to move ahead because the times demand it and the means are available.

Todd Smart is the President of BeTuitive Marketing. A "serial entrepreneur" — as described by Crain's Chicago Business — Todd has founded and been president of four successful businesses since the age of 22. In addition to Crain's, Todd has been featured and quoted in a number of publications, including Forbes, Success magazine, ePraire and a cover article of Inc. magazine. Todd is an entrepreneur who possesses a deep understanding of the complexities of nurturing a business and offering guidance on relationship building.

Susan is the Editorial Director at BeTuitive Marketing. Susan's articles have been published in both the print and online versions of a variety of publications including Investor's Business Daily, the Boston Herald, Fortune magazine's Technology Buyer's Guide, InfoWorld and the Chicago Tribune. USA Today has quoted her, highlighting one of her columns in a collection of expert opinions from around the country. Magazines in Europe, Africa and Asia have published her work. Her words have been translated into Russian, Japanese and Thai.

Copyright © 2005 BeTuitive Marketing