Part 4 and the last of the new 4Ps of Marketing is Performance. Ultimately, performance is the most important of the New 4Ps of Marketing. Why? Because all marketing related activities are investments and as such, they need to be measured, tracked and compared to other investments to ensure that they yield the highest rate of return to the business.
So, how do you measure and track marketing performance to ensure that you are receiving the anticipated return on your marketing investments?
For the client, marketing performance translates to delivering value, backing up your claims and meeting your stated commitments. Internally, marketing performance is about delivering ROI to the business in support of your overarching business and financial goals. Improving ROI leads to improved marketing effectiveness, increased revenue and profits, and market share growth.
Marketing ROI can be used to determine other less tangible aspects of marketing effectiveness as well. For example, it can be used to determine the incremental value of marketing as it pertains to increased brand awareness. Marketing ROI may also come into play in relationship marketing, customer loyalty and retention programs.
Fun Fact: U.S. companies spend more than $8 billion on product marketing every year to generate more leads, yet less than 10% of these companies have a leads tracking and follow-up system. Don’t make mistakes like this with your marketing investments. Have a solid game plan and a proven methodology to effectively manage and track marketing performance.
(4) Keys to Effective Marketing Performance …
1. Focus and planning – define the appropriate KPIs and metrics.
2. Know your intended audience and create predictable results through targeting.
3. Develop a detailed Marketing Calendar and Budget and monetize the expected results.
4. Measure, track and audit Marketing ROI performance.
To ensure that the expected results are achieved, you must inspect what you expect. So, what are the things you should measure to determine the marketing performance for your business? It is a good idea to track ROI performance on all marketing investments. However, at a minimum, you should measure and track the revenue to expense ratio for all of major marketing campaigns and programs to determine which ones yield the most favorable returns to the business.
For larger campaigns, tracking Marketing ROI performance can be more complex, so you should obtain a ROI calculator to help you with the calculations. Go-To-Market Strategies http://www.gtms-inc.com/ provides some excellent sales and marketing plan resources, including a ROI calculator, in the Sales and Marketing Resource Center to help you get started.
Once you have established specific marketing performance goals and developed the measurement and tracking system, it will be much easier to determine where to invest your future marketing dollars. Knowing the Marketing ROI performance will also help you identify and eliminate projects that are not meeting the established performance targets, thus saving money and improving marketing profits.
This concludes the four-part article on the New 4Ps of Marketing. The key take-away from this series is that you need to constantly assess your advertising, branding and marketing to ensure that your go-to-market plans are aligned with customer needs and can be adapted on the fly to ever-changing market conditions.
Today, the New 4Ps of Marketing are about People, Promotion, Perception and Performance. A decade or so from now the New 4Ps of Marketing that are outlined in this article will be replaced with something else. So, stay prepared for change, and continue to explore creative and expansive new ways to build great client relationships and market your business!
COPYRIGHT © 2010-11 John Carroll