Demonstrating the value of marketing, winning as a company, and as a marketer.

This topic is close to our hearts. We see that companies are missing out on opportunities by not using certain resources simply because they can’t prove what it yields. A waste.

More marketing techniques and channels lead to complexity

We come from a much simpler time: impressions. Through radio, TV, and ads in magazines or newspapers, impressions could be bought, and at trade shows, we collected business cards. The result was displayed on one PowerPoint slide. More money often led to more impressions or cards (leads). In a world of social media marketing, content marketing, SEO, and influencer marketing, it’s not that simple anymore. The value of an impression varies, and you don’t collect business cards anymore or only very late in the customer journey. Marketers collect all that data faithfully and create complex presentations to make their results understandable. The result is that the management and other departments drop out: too complex.

Value of marketing: essential questions

That complexity is understandable, BCG says, as marketers don’t answer the right questions. Fortunately, the right questions are not the most difficult:

1. Are we measuring and tracking both short-term and long-term marketing value?
2. Does this provide answers and insights that can lead to action (or can lead to action)?
3. Are these understandable and credible for the CEO, CFO, and the rest of the organization?

If the answer to any of these is no, then you need to go back to the drawing board.

Complexity is the enemy

Back to the amount of data and tools; which ones do you really need? Likely, from the essential questions, you’ve derived a set of KPIs that represent the value of marketing for the organization precisely. Select the data and tools needed to make these visible and use them in the reporting. Scrub the rest:

“… marketing leadership should avoid the temptation to aim for perfection rather than confidence. That is, instead of striving for the ideal, it is far more effective and practical to apply the necessary ­resources to develop and build consensus around a simple set of metrics and tools that do the job well and that will consistently demonstrate value and improvement.” – BCG, 2017

4 rules to connect the value of marketing with actual results:

1. Don’t Check Your Own Homework
As an organization, establish the data against which marketing will be evaluated. This prevents getting bogged down in metrics that only marketing understands from tools that nobody trusts.

2. Establish a “Measurement and Decision Architecture”
Determine how to measure and what decisions will be made based on that data. This ensures uniformity and clarity, reducing much of the discussion.

3. Explicitly Choose Metrics and Tools
Which figures and tools do you use to gain the necessary insights? This reinforces the point we made earlier: less is more.

4. Think Long-Term
Even with simple KPIs and measurement methods, it will take some time for the organization to get used to them, so make sure not to change them annually. This forces you to choose KPIs that are channel- or content-independent, which is more challenging but not impossible.

Value of marketing: the goal

Measuring and justifying are not goals in themselves; ultimately, it’s about contributing to the organization’s performance. By making the value of marketing visible, other departments understand the contribution/value that marketing provides and are more likely to use it holistically. This increases the return on marketing efforts. It also ensures that the various departments pursue the same goal, known as “alignment” in English.

For you as a marketer, this means more understanding, room, and opportunities for innovation. A new channel that is excellent for improving a specific KPI? Now you can explain it much more easily.

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