Live Blogging from MarketingProfs B2B Forum.
A series of posts covering selected sessions at this year’s conference in Boston.
Speakers:
Dennis J Chapman, Sr. President & CEO, The Chapman Group
John Mueting, VP Distribution & 3rd Party Relationships, Allstate Distributors, LLC
First up is Dennis. Here are some of his comments.
It didn’t used to be complicated. It used to be we measured success dashboard of revenue against targeted sales. The role of marketing is changing in the new economy.
Decision making has changed in corporate America. Used to be 20 percent facts and 80 percent intuition. This is now the opposite. Why? The former is too risky.
Marketing needs effective dashboards that provide “predictive analytics.”
If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Measure what you and your company requires/expects.
Three questions executives are asking Marketing:
- How much revenue and profits are coming from our marketing efforts (investments)?
- How can we optimize the results from our marketing investment?
- How can you prove your positive financial impact to the organization?
An effective marketing program is one that impacts the bottom line and can prove it.
Grounding Point: Establish Marketing as “Investment,” not “Spend.” Investments are well-founded, have short- and long-term financial benefits, are experience- and outcome-measured, and are last to go in a “cash crisis.”
On your marketing dashboard, you should have your business goals and how your marketing efforts are impacting those business goals.
Four Marketing Dashboard Metrics that Compliment Business Goals:
- Loyalty Indexing
- Marketing Consideration Rating (MCR)
- Quality Lead to “Closed” Business Ratio
- Quantitative and Currency-Based Economic Value Proposition
Interesting Stat: Don’t measure satisfaction. 60-80 percent of accounts who defected had declared themselves satisfied or highly satisfied in their last satisfaction survey.
Next is John Mueting, who shares some Sales and Marketing Effectiveness Internal Loyalty Metrics
Give your sales force a voice. Use a real-time, non-anonymous tool. Roll up the feedback for analysis. Close the gap between programs and execution. Inform future decisions by tracking marketing programs.
John shares his experience using LoyaltyPro to ask producers (Sales) what they need from Marketing to be more effective. John shared some of the questions asked of producers.
Finding: There was a big disconnect between what marketing programs/initiatives Marketing thought was delivering results and what programs/initiatives Sales thought was delivering results.
Big Learning: We don’t have to change our marketing programs every year; we need to tweak and change existing programs to improve their effectiveness.
Key Learning Points
- Of the more than 15 marketing programs we were investing in, only 2-3 were having a positive impact on the field sales force
- There need to be some field sales coaching to focus on high-impact marketing results.
- The relationship and mutual value between marketing and field sales has been significantly increased.
- Marketing and the company now know where to more effectively invest to increase revenue.
Dennis resumes presentation.
Marketing Consideration Rating (MCR)
What is it? The percentage of targeted customer base who recognizes your company as one of the top three viable alternative solutions.
Quality Lead to “Closed” Business Ratio
Of all the leads given to sales, how many close?
Measure this. Don’t send leads to Sales unless the lead has a minimum quality ratio. This allows Sales to close more business sooner with less people.
Economic Value Propositioning
Customers buy products/services for one or more of the following economic reasons:
- Reduces costs
- Assists in avoiding costs
- Increases revenue
Marketing message is not important. Marketing must develop compelling “economic-based” reasons for customer to have a relationship with a supplier.
Customer/Prospect: “Tell me how you’re going to affect my bottom line.”
Critical message in the new economy: Validate the economic value and impact that your marketing program has on business goals through tangible measurements and metrics
