How to measure marketing effectiveness

 by Tunde Awe, Vice Chair - Partnerships, CIM South West region

In this edition, I’d like to share insights from the Exeter Chamber CIM Marketing Clinic – the collaboration event that took place on February 21 at Sandy Park in Exeter. The Chair for CIM Wales Regional Board, Sameer Rahman – whom is also the Data Science Director at Edit – is rightly qualified to speak on the topic: How to measure marketing effectiveness (ROI)? To compress his speech on such a vast topic into the time allowed, Sameer delivered his task in six chunks as follows.

Image: Sameer Rahman speaking at the Exeter Chamber CIM Marketing Clinic

• Analysis and measurement maturity: After a brief history, Sameer explained the 5-stage maturity model and pointed out that most businesses, in his experience, are at the cross over from ‘Diagnostic’ to ‘Predictive’ measurement. The example that brought out ‘Predictive’ measurement for most people in the audience was Netflix and Amazon’s capability to suggest service or product in line with customer’s profile and previous activities on their respective platform. As a starting point to improving marketing effectiveness, Sameer asked participants to identify where their business is on the Data Science Maturity model. To appreciate the maturity model, see snapshot below.

Image: Data Science Maturity Model

• Measuring the right KPIs: Sameer advocated a departure from the common practise where the lower ranks and the executive team in organisations track different and unconnected KPIs to one in which KPIs tracked at various level of the organisation is connected in a seamless KPI tree. Rather than just adopting the latest measurement technology or software, he suggested a joined up process of adopting measurement technology or software that’s compatible with organisation strategy, data requirement and reporting needs with a view to enable that age-old cycle of Measure, Review, Analyse and Act. My favourite part here though was his assertion that people and partnership are key and that KPIs must drive action.

• Measuring customer experience: He dipped into traditional Customer Experience metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), Customer Effort Score (CES), Customer Churn Rate, First Response and Average Handling time before touching on future customer experience measurement possibilities like conversational interfaces (e.g. chatbots), Text Analysis and Natural Language processing and real-time analytics. The flash point here though was the possibility to use modelling to measure customer experience at every point in the customer journey.

Image: Using Modelling to Measure Customer Experience

• Measuring media performance: On the back of proliferation of interactive, digital, social and multimedia media touch points, Sameer alluded that our media performance measurements must answer business-critical questions like ‘How is media consumed?’, ‘How do different channels interact with each other?’, ‘Where in the path to conversion does a specific channel contribute?’, ‘What is the optimum budget for each Media and campaign?’, ‘How to use the marketing budget to optimise each and every media and the overall ROI?’ and ‘What is the ‘true’ ROl?’. Subsequently, he explained the principle of attribution modelling nicely illustrated using Jamaica’s gold medal-winning 4 x 100m men’s relay team at London 2012 Olympics: Did the team win because Usain Bolt ran the last lap or because team member contributed to victory?!

Image: Data-driven attribution

• Measuring the value of your brand: Sameer’s starting point was that, of a necessity, Brand Metrics must be related to business outcomes. He then grouped all the associated interests with his three pillars of brand valuation before sharing examples to illustrate how marketing creates commercial value – Yes, it does! In line with one of the key findings from The Value of Marketing (CIM Report, August 2017) that reporting ROMI requires more focus because it’s becoming more important for Marketing and for Marketers especially in the CFO vs CMO tussle, as Sameer described it, one of the event attendees commented that ‘Hopefully, as a Finance Director I have a little more understanding of the Marketing challenges’. This feedback underscores why marketers need thorough grasp of marketing effectiveness in order to win more advocates among CFOs, Finance Directors and ultimately other Board members.

Image: Three Pillars of Brand Valuation

• Establishing a ‘Test and Learn’ culture: Sameer admonished participants not to expect to find one big ‘golden nugget’ for business breakthrough but rather small, incremental gains. He added that learning and continuous improvement is the real mission of marketing effectiveness and that this should be driven by business leadership. Finally, he claimed that marketing data allows each business to disrupt itself from within rather than being disrupted by a competitor.

In the true spirit of marketing measurement, it was delightful when Exeter Chamber Director that chaired the event, Julie Hawker, expressed gratitude to CIM for its partnership towards membership development. That appreciation was echoed by a participant whom commended that it’s ‘Excellent that Exeter Chamber is driving Expertise and Growth like this’. No wonder almost 9 in 10 of the 52 participants at the event claimed they would recommend Exeter Chamber CIM Marketing Clinic to colleagues.

Left to right – Brian Dodge (Chair, CIM South West Regional Board), Sameer Rahman (Chair, CIM Wales Regional Board), Julie Hawker (Director, Exeter Chamber of Commerce and Industry) and Tunde Awe (Vice Chair_Partnerships, CIM South West Regional Board) at Exeter Chamber CIM Marketing Clinic

As always, for help with relevant marketing skills and networking opportunities in the South West, you are invited to any of our South West events listed here or for broader menu of CIM training possibilities, see our training website. We’ll be happy to hear about your experience regarding ‘How to Measure Marketing Effectiveness’ via CIM Community South West LinkedIn Group.

Credit: Thanks to Sameer Rahman of CIM Wales Regional Board for speaking at the event and for sharing his experience with us.