Marketers are presented with an abundance of metrics. Some metrics measure marketing’s activities: How many marketing campaigns ran last quarter? How many hits did we get from our social marketing content? Who downloaded our app?  Other metrics are outcome based: What was the lead’s conversion rate? How many additional products did the customer leave the store with?  Marketers must understand how activity drives performance to show that the actions they are doing and demanding an increased budget for, is driving desired outcomes. If the connection can’t be made between the activity metric and performance outcomes defined by the strategy, then the metric, the activity, or both will need to be re-evaluated.  Not establishing these types of connections means that high profile company objectives like customer growth or retention won’t be linked to marketing efforts and, well…you’re gonna have a bad time.

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Advanced/ Digest...

I map out approaches to answer two common questions squeaked out by anxious digital marketing execs: (1) Where do I start? and (2) How did I do?

To answer the first one, I focus on the two (yes, two) dimensions of brand positioning and purchase cycle. My research showed that the decision about which digital channels and formats to buy is actually rooted in the strategic position of your brand. A second dimension is the consumer’s purchase frequency, because it determines how much of your target is actively in market at any moment.

The second question – “How’d I do?” – relates to what used to be called measurement, back when digital marketing itself was a trailer park on the edge of town. Today it’s called analytics and everybody wants a piece. My research shows how a simple visual map of the consumer’s potential journey through your campaign, combined with a basic stimulus-response model, can really open the kimono on your campaign’s true value.

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To be an Inbound CMO, you have to sell the rest of the C-blank-O's.

Key excerpt...

[The] first challenge is one of self-education, and when you're the only thing standing in your own way, it's easy enough to get out of your own way, too. But it doesn't end there. Inbound CMOs, even if they understand the dire need for a shift in perspective, need to get the buy-in from the rest of their C-suite. The vision has to come from the top-down, and that can't come from Marketing alone.

It turns out, many C-level executives know there's a shift taking place, it's just not clear in exactly what -- which is why it's even more important than ever for the marketing executives to possess a crystal clear understanding of it.

The CMOs that can convince their C-Suite that the leap of faith is worth it will still encounter resistance on practical matters, like the headcount and resources necessary to make the shift. The Inbound CMO will have an advantage, getting access to data quickly that can justify these investments. 41% of marketers, for example, secured more budget for more inbound marketing initiatives because of the ability to prove past ROI. Additionally, CMOs report that they plan to allocate 10% of their budget to Big Data -- up from 6% -- over the next three years. This investment in gaining insights around the ROI of their marketing activities will help make the case for inbound to their C-Suite even smoother.