Where the Rubber Hits the Road

July 11, 2016 By Rick Shea Leave a Comment

Indy CarWhile walking east along the south side of Bloor Street in mid-town Toronto with my colleague Bob, I saw something quite unusual. Hovering above a large wooden table on the sidewalk in front of William Ashley’s store at 55 Bloor Street West was a full sized Indy race car. I don’t know a lot about racing, but I do know that cars and their tires are supposed to be on the road, so I was intrigued.

On closer inspection, I discovered the 1,400 pound replica car wasn’t hovering but was sitting on four delicate looking bone china tea cups, one under each tire. The tea cups themselves were part of an elegant table setting featuring William Ashley’s finest.

A little online snooping uncovered that William Ashley launched the display in 2011, 25 days before the 25th anniversary of the Honda Indy race in Toronto. The race organizers had approached William Ashley, a long-time sponsor of Toronto’s annual Indy race, with this outdoor display idea to jointly promote the race and the store, along with the superior strength, durability and performance of bone china.

As we discussed the uniqueness of this marketing idea, Bob turned to me and asked the question I get asked the most. “So, how would you measure that marketing program?”

Without flinching, I replied with my favourite answer, “It depends”. Since I didn’t know William Ashley’s actual planned objectives for creating this display, I couldn’t know exactly how to measure whether or not it worked.

Despite that roadblock, we agreed to speculate on what their objectives might generally have been, and I’ve added some measurement thoughts for each:

  • Objective #1: Create a unique and interesting event to generate press coverage.
  • Measurement #1: In its simplest form, this is a matter of tracking the number of impressions through the various stories and mentions about their launch event through various print, broadcast, digital and social media.
  • Objective #2: Communicate the key attributes of bone china.
  • Measurement #2: While the first objective relates to how much coverage, this one relates to more important issues, such as the quality, accuracy and tone of the coverage. It could get into things like media monitoring, text analytics and sentiment analysis of the various forms of coverage. You could supplement that with before and after surveys and by intercepting people on the street to see if they saw the display and understood the message.
  • Objective #3: Increase store traffic.
  • Measurement #3: Count the customers, of course, but you need to compare the count to something, like how many customers they normally get on Wednesdays in June, or when they’ve created similar displays previously.
  • Objective #4: Increase bone china sales.
  • Measurement #4: It’s easy enough to add up the sales, but it would be helpful to compare the total to an average, or baseline, as with the store traffic example. You’d also have to decide how long that display might affect bone china sales. Seeing that display made me think (and write) about the superior strength, durability and performance of William Ashley’s bone china, and maybe now you’re starting to think about it. I’m not in the market for bone china right now, but maybe in the future and perhaps you will be too!

The key lesson in all of this is that you need to set clear measurable objectives when planning your marketing in order to know what to measure and learn whether you’ve succeeded. In other words, measurement should be directly linked to your planning process. Defining how you will assess whether a marketing program is successful should be an integral part of planning.

Good objectives will define the metric(s) that will be used to measure success, and the specific numerical outcome you want to achieve. For example, it can be a percentage change from a comparable period, or a specific outcome that you’ve determined would be worthwhile relative to the cost of the program.

My four speculated objectives above were purposely vague to highlight the challenges presented by the lack of clarity.  When you set your objectives, be very clear about the outcome you’re looking for. Here’s a better version of Objective #4: “Increase bone china (all brands) sales for June and July by 20% vs. June and July of last year”. That, you can measure.

Without proper objectives, how or what to measure becomes an exercise in guessing, much like Bob and I had to do. To take the guesswork out of your marketing measurement, it needs to begin as part of your planning process. That’s where the rubber hits the road.

 

Filed Under: Approach, Metrics Tagged With: marketing, marketing planning, measurement, Metrics, objectives, ROI

A Chapter About Bruce

July 17, 2014 By Rick Shea Leave a Comment


Introduction

Are the objectives for your marketing programs really just reasons without numbers? Well, with some inspiration from a seed planted by a song I first heard in 1975, I’ll try to help you to fix that problem.

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I’m a long-time Bruce Springsteen fan. My affliction set in the first time I heard Born to Run played on my local FM station. I remember it well. It was the fall of 1975 and I was sitting in the basement of our family home, pretending to do homework.

When I decided several years ago to learn about blogging, I wanted to do so outside of my work world. I chose to blog about Bruce as I had studied him more diligently.

The blog was fun, I learned what I needed to know, but after five years of weekly posts, I lost the enthusiasm to keep going. I stopped posting at the end of 2012, although I have kept the blog site up. I’m happy I did it and the blog opened doors for me that I never anticipated.

Recently, a new door cracked open. I’ve been asked to consider writing a chapter in a book about Bruce that one day will hopefully be published. The asker found me through my blog.

I haven’t made my decision yet but I’m thinking about it and why I might like to do this. That leads me to the point of this story. I want to illustrate the difference between having reasons for doing something and setting proper objectives for doing that something.

Reasons may give you purpose, but proper objectives give you the ability to measure whether you achieved what you set out to accomplish. To measure whether marketing programs achieve their purpose, you need to be able to compare results to objectives.

I have to decide whether to commit my resources to writing this chapter, in the hopes it will be accepted and published. Similarly, you have to decide whether to support and run specific marketing programs, in the hopes they will move your business forward.

Setting Clear Objectives Will Help Us Both

My Decision

Let’s start by looking at my reasons for wanting to do this:

  • Become a published author
  • Improve my writing skills
  • Reach a new audience
  • Have some fun

I think these are good reasons to do it, but they are just that, reasons. To convert them to measurable objectives, I need to challenge them as much as your boss (not that Springsteen guy) would challenge any of your marketing program objectives with some of those “what do you mean by that?” type of questions. More on that later.

By quantifying the outcomes I’d like for each reason, we can begin to find the semblance of a measurable objective:

Become a published author: This is the easiest one. If the book is published and my chapter makes the cut, then mission accomplished. I have to admit, this is my number one objective, and the one I’d weight highest on my scorecard.

Improve my writing skills: Now it gets tougher. How do I measure the change in my writing skills from before until after I write that chapter? I could assemble a panel of writing experts and have them develop a scoring methodology to evaluate my before writing, perhaps a few of my newsletters. They would then have to use the same methodology to evaluate my completed chapter. The difference between the two scores would be my improvement. I could set my objective at a 10% improvement.

Reach a new audience: I need to start by being more specific about who I’m trying to reach. If I want to reach Springsteen fanatics to draw traffic to my dormant blog, my objective could be to increase average weekly unique site visitors by 20%.

If I want my chapter about Bruce to attract prospective clients for Optiv8 Consulting, then I need to define how much new business I’d like to acquire this way. I’ll set the bar for number of clients at one, which is likely overly optimistic. The dollar value objective for that one engagement will remain a confidential matter between my new Springsteen-loving marketer friend and myself. I’ve met many Springsteen-loving marketers over the years so, who knows, this might work!

Have some fun: This one is tough. I’ll know if I’m having fun when I’m doing it, but what could I possibly use as a Key Performance Indicator for my fun? I’m open to any suggestions you’d like to make but I know one thing. I’ll be wearing a massive grin the day my copy of that book arrives and I see my name in the book.

Your Decisions

Since I don’t know which program(s) you’re contemplating running, or what your objectives might be, I’ll suggest a few things for you to consider.

Start by asking if your objectives are just reasons without numbers. If you haven’t done the harder work of quantifying the results you want related to those reasons, you’ve yet to set objectives, and you won’t be able to measure properly when the program is over.

For each objective you set, challenge yourself with a few questions, before your boss hits you with those “What do you mean by that?” questions. These will get you started:

Who are you targeting? Examples: Current customers, prospects, specific market segments, a specific audience.

What do you want them to do? Examples: Follow/like you, subscribe, download, buy or buy more of specific products or services.

When do you want them to do it? Specify a period or a deadline.

How much of that do you need them to do for you to be happy? Pick a number or a percentage growth vs. a benchmark, like same period last year, and don’t sandbag it or your boss will challenge you some more!

The first three of the above questions help you to define the behaviour you want. In the last one, you quantify that behaviour.

In addition to making it possible to measure your marketing, setting proper objectives also sets expectations and defines success. That makes it easier to decide whether to allocate limited resources to a given initiative.

In truth, my decision isn’t too hard and I’ll probably go for it, assuming I can come up with an angle for my chapter. So my consulting work won’t suffer, I’ll re-allocate non-work time that I’ve allocated to other fun things, like to paint my front porch.

As a business executive or owner of a marketing budget, you must optimize your resources and budget by making good choices about which programs to fund. You’ll have your reasons for wanting to support each program, but be sure to challenge your reasons and objectives with some good questions before The Boss beats you to it.

For you Springsteen lovers, the blog is Your Friday Bruce Fix. I couldn’t tell you sooner as I worried you might never come back!

Filed Under: Approach, Effectiveness, objectives Tagged With: Effectiveness, Management, marketing, Measure, measurement, Metrics, objectives, scorecard

Running with Flawed Assumptions

September 19, 2013 By Rick Shea Leave a Comment

Introduction

Have you ever made a flawed assumption? OK, maybe not you, but perhaps that has happened to someone you know.

Those of us who are more fallible than you sometimes make such mistakes. This month’s newsletter relates a story that reminded me of the importance of testing our assumptions to see if they are right, and also how the metrics we use to measure marketing need to be focused on our objectives.

I have to run, but please read on!
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I had lunch with my friend Charlotte the other day. In addition to being a lovely person, Charlotte is an avid runner and cyclist, and is one of several fit friends whose examples inspire me to get exercise.

Earlier this summer, I decided to take my morning walks in Monarch Park to the next level. First, I relocated my walks to the nice new running track at Monarch Park Stadium. Then, I slowly began injecting one-minute intervals of running into my 45-minute walks. I topped that off with a bit of stair climbing in the grandstand, and presto, I was doing interval training!

The first day I ran just four one-minute intervals, with a one minute walk in between. Each day I added a one-minute running interval until I was up to 15 one-minute runs. Then I started the process again but with two-minute running intervals, working up to 10 of those. The idea is to gradually work my way up to a longer total run featuring fewer but longer intervals, perhaps until I can run a marathon, or failing that, at least to the Beer Store and back.

Between bites of my tuna salad sandwich, I bragged to Charlotte about how by that morning I had built up to four 5-minute runs and two 4-minute runs. Charlotte congratulated me and then, I suspect inadvertently, inspired this newsletter by asking me how many minutes in total I was running most days. I guessed around 20 to 25 minutes even though that morning’s math (4 X 5 minutes, plus 2 X 4 minutes) suggested 28 minutes. I guessed low because I suspected my calculation was flawed. Here’s why.

When I started running, I found that the easiest way to keep track of my intervals was to split the track into 4 quarters; run 1/4, walk 1/4, and then repeat. My unit of measurement for how long I ran or walked quickly became track quarters rather than minutes.

Still, I wondered how many minutes I was running. I don’t wear a watch but it felt like each quarter took me about one minute to cover, and so I assumed one full lap took about four minutes.

I’m sure you can see the problem. I run a quarter lap faster than I can walk the same distance, and my internal clock that guessed at one minute is not likely accurate. But, I wasn’t too concerned about that. I don’t really care about my speed or lap times; I’m just trying to get some exercise to improve my overall health.

Without realizing it, while I had chosen a useful metric for keeping track of my intervals (quarters of laps), I was basing all my running time calculations on two casually made but flawed assumptions, namely that:

  • 1/4 lap = 1 minute
  • I run and walk at the same speed

Here are three simple lessons from this about metrics that apply equally to my interval training and marketing measurement.

1) Test Your Assumptions

It’s good to know if your assumptions are wrong. Using the timer on my cell phone the other day, I discovered that my five minute runs (1 1/4 laps) were actually about three minutes long. With that new information, I will probably adjust my training plan a little.

If any of your marketing measurement assumptions are based on poorly gathered or perhaps old data, such as research or analysis done under different market conditions, it may be time to revisit your assumptions.

2) Choose Metrics with Your Objectives in Mind

My specific training objective is to push myself, bit by bit, to work out a little harder each day. I measure my progress by tracking and increasing my distance-based intervals. I also check my heart rate when I’m done.

Make sure you’re clear about the specific objectives for each marketing program and pick metrics that measure the right things. Challenge your choice of metrics by asking yourself if knowing that number will help you to know whether your marketing programs are successful.

3) Align Program Objectives with Overall Objectives

Getting good results against my interval and heart rate objectives should lead to success against my overall objective of better health. One metric for that is my weight. So, I hop on the scale now and then to ensure my weight is heading in the right direction.

Your marketing program objectives should relate to customer activity that leads to better results against overall corporate objectives, such as revenue and profit. Strong results against the right program objectives should translate into hitting your company’s financial objectives.

Running around with flawed assumptions in my head really wasn’t a problem in this case because those assumptions were about an unimportant metric relative to my objectives.

If you’re running a marketing department or managing a marketing budget, a clear focus on your objectives will help you identify the right metrics for your measurement efforts. It’s also healthy to challenge any assumptions about your data and to test those assumptions to help keep your marketing on track.

Filed Under: Approach Tagged With: Alignment, Assumptions, Management, marketing, Measure, Metrics, objectives

Rick’s Theory of Relativity

July 23, 2013 By Rick Shea Leave a Comment

Introduction

Have you ever noticed how time passes too quickly, and seemingly, much faster than when you were a kid? Well, I’ve noticed and I have a theory why that is. As it turns out, my theory also helps us to measure marketing properly. I know, it doesn’t seem possible for one theory to apply to two such different things, but if you’d like to find out how that can be, please read on!
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Last week I spoke by phone with my seven-year-old nephew, Aaron. He was quite excited because he was just a couple of sleeps away from starting his summer vacation in Hilton Head, South Carolina with his mom and dad.

Three summers ago at the age of four, Aaron vacationed in Cape Cod. I flew to Hyannis to join in the fun and to surprise my parents, who were also there. We had a great time and one of the things I enjoyed most was watching Aaron enjoying his vacation.

As I observed and photographed Aaron, I noticed how easily and happily he was able to keep himself occupied. As a four year old with no obvious responsibilities, his main preoccupation was passing the time by entertaining himself, something Aaron did very well.

Do you remember being four years old? I don’t have many specific memories from that age, but I do have some vague recollections of how it felt. I remember how time seemed to stand still and how the summer seemed to last forever.

Now, with a full and busy life, I find that time passes much too quickly. I’ve also noticed how the speed of time’s passing seems to accelerate as I get older. My Theory of Relativity helps to explain why time passes more quickly as we age.

When you’re four years old, one year is 25% of your life. It’s forever. When you’re 50, one year is a mere 2% of your life. Relatively speaking, it’s a blink of an eye.

Whether you are 4 or 50 years old, one year is either 365 or 366 days long. Yet, relative to your current age, a year can seem much shorter or longer than it did or will at other ages.

My Theory of Relativity also informs my approach to marketing measurement. A number on its own is pretty meaningless unless you understand the context in which you’re trying to understand that number.

When you measure marketing, regardless of the specific metric you’re looking at, you want to know exactly how good or bad that number might be. For that, you need context; you need to compare your result to something. That “something” should be an objective.

Setting Good Marketing Objectives

At the risk of stating the obvious, comparing a result to an objective first requires setting an objective. To help you do that well, here are four characteristics of good objectives:

Clear: Well-defined objectives are not easily misunderstood. Identify exactly which key performance indicators (KPI) you are trying to impact with your marketing and by how much. If you want to impact “awareness”, define “who” and “how many” of those you are trying to make aware of “what” about your products or services. If you want to impact “sales”, define “who” you want to buy “how many” units or dollars, of “which” products or services, at “which” price, over “what” period of time.

Measurable: You need to be able to put a precise number to the magnitude of impact you are trying to make on each KPI. Also, make sure you can get the data you need reliably and affordably.

Meaningful: To be meaningful, the KPI you are trying to impact with your marketing should be important to the organization. Success at impacting that KPI should help to create value for the organization. To help identify KPIs, focus on profitable customer behaviour.

Reasonable: This generally means attainable, somewhere between overly conservative (too easy to attain) and overly aggressive (too hard to attain). The level of aggression in your marketing objective setting should be in synch with how aggressive your organization is in setting its overall objectives, as well as with the performance objectives and incentive payment thresholds for its employees and executives.

To measure marketing properly, you need to begin by setting good objectives. Having clear objectives gives you context and a number against which to measure your success. After all, if you’re not clear on where you’re trying to go with your marketing, how will you know when you get there?

Measuring marketing without having clear objectives might be a bit like planning a vacation without a clear destination in mind. Of course, if you do happen to get somewhere and aren’t sure how to pass the time, I know a young consultant who would be happy to advise you!

Filed Under: Approach, objectives Tagged With: Effectiveness, marketing, Measure, measurement, Metrics, objectives

Aligning Interests

June 24, 2013 By Rick Shea Leave a Comment

Introduction

Last week something strange happened in front of my house that knocked out the power to my house. I’m glad it happened on a relatively cool day rather than on a hot, sticky day like today.

While I was inconvenienced for about 12 hours in which I had no power, I’m thankful for the inspiration for this month’s newsletter which talks about the importance of aligning marketing’s interests with those of the whole organization and how doing measurement properly helps to get you there.

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As I opened my front door Wednesday morning to toss a few items into the recycle bin, I quickly realized that something had gone terribly wrong in front of my house.

From my front door, I saw a police officer, two firefighters, three Toronto Hydro linemen, an Atlas Van Lines driver, their respective vehicles, flashing lights, barricades, pylons and a cat. Taking in this scene, it quickly sank in that the large Altas moving van with live hydro wires draped across it, was probably the cause of all the commotion.

Here’s what happened. The van was very tall. The overhead hydro wires, which reach across the street to feed electricity into the houses on my side of the street, hang very low. Tall van + low wires = problem. As the van drove up my street, it snagged and pulled down the wires that feed electricity into MY house, which knocked out my power.

My neighbour Blair saw the whole thing happen. He called 911. The 911 dispatcher called the police, the firefighters and the hydro guys. No one knows who called the cat, or why the cat was there other than to hold the humans in contempt.

Over the next three hours, I had productive conversations with all of the aforementioned, as well as with my insurance agent, the claims adjuster, a contractor and an electrician. All were professional and courteous. But, here’s the thing.

Everyone I talked to had a different agenda, a different boss to answer to, and a different view on how to proceed. I found this both interesting and frustrating, yet not at all unusual. To varying degrees, most organizations experience this.

While this “organization” had been assembled hastily to address the downed power lines situation, it behaved as most organizations behave. That is, the first concerns of the individuals involved were guided by their own self-interests. More importantly, they were able find common ground within those interests and come together around common objectives.

What does this have to do with marketing measurement? I thought you’d never ask! Some of the biggest challenges and benefits of marketing measurement are related to getting everyone on the same page and aligning their interests.

Aligning marketing’s objectives with those of the organization is critical to both the success of marketing measurement efforts and the success of the organization at meeting its overall objectives.

Alignment

Here are three key principles to achieving both types of success:

1. The whole organization must commit to marketing measurement.

Marketing and other parts of the organization need to mobilize around a clearly defined measurement objective, such as finding the best and most effective ways of spending marketing budgets. Marketing can’t and shouldn’t go it alone. It needs support and commitment from the rest of the organization for measurement to work and lead to better spending decisions.

2. The organization and marketing must jointly commit to a measurement methodology.

If marketing unilaterally develops an approach to marketing measurement, others in the organization might think that marketing developed their approach with their own self-interests in mind. That is, they might assume that the methodology is biased towards showing that the marketers in question are brilliant and highly effective.

On the other hand, if marketing involves other elements of the organization that might naturally have competing interests or alternate perspectives on how to measure marketing, then those “competing” interests will bring more balance to the methodology and more acceptance by all of the results.

A joint commitment to a methodology means they must agree on a way to measure marketing’s success. I define success as marketing meeting its objectives and helping the organization to meet its objectives. Objectives-based measurement forces alignment around the objectives themselves.

3. The organization and marketing must jointly decide what to measure.

Focus

Remember that marketing’s purpose is to attract customers who create the most value for the whole organization. That means you need input from each key functional area to know how they each define value, high value customers and profitable customer behaviour. Those definitions will point the way to the key performance indicators that should be included in your measurement.

Including a range of metrics that matter to all aspects of the organization will mean that you will be measuring marketing according to how the whole organization defines success. It will also be easier to get the support and data you need to measure marketing in terms that everyone will understand.

In an organization, everyone has a role to play. Each person has his or her own biases and priorities. At times, it can seem as though different people and parts of the organization have competing interests.

Effective organizations find and focus on the common objectives within those competing interests. One of the most important benefits of measuring marketing based on results vs. objectives is that to do it properly those objectives will need to align with those of the overall organization.

Filed Under: Approach, Metrics, Objectivity Tagged With: Alignment, Effectiveness, Management, marketing, Measure, measurement, Metrics, objectives

Taste of Marketing Measurement

September 21, 2012 By Rick Shea Leave a Comment

Last month I attended ‘Taste of the Danforth‘, my favourite summer event in Toronto. Now in its 19th year, this weekend long event along a 3km stretch of Danforth Avenue typically attracts around 1.3 million people over the weekend. I live nearby, attend almost every year and generally eat too much while I’m there.

I planned to meet a friend on the Danforth Friday evening but when the forecast called for rain, we called off our plans. The forecast turned out to be wrong and as I sat at home on a fairly dry Friday night, I wondered just how many other people didn’t go to Taste of the Danforth due to the threat of rain and how much that might have reduced sales for each restaurant participating in the event.

Marketing Effectiveness

I also thought about how event organizers seemed to have been very effective at creating awareness for the event. I saw a lot of local media coverage and I noticed how Taste of the Danforth was listed in every what’s-going-on-in-Toronto/Ontario listing I saw in print and on-line.

Marketing effectiveness measurement tends to focus on whether specific program objectives were achieved, such as attracting and keeping profitable customers and creating value for the business. Yet, as I was reminded by sitting at home when I should have been out eating too much, marketers can do everything right and still end up with bad results due to factors outside of their control, such as bad weather (or a bad forecast).

Event Objectives

I’m guessing the event’s main marketing objectives are to generate awareness, attendance and trial of both the area and of individual restaurants, and to also increase post-event traffic and revenue for local merchants.

While I sat home that night, I watched a segment of a local newscast about Taste of the Danforth in which a restaurant owner told the interviewer that this event generally makes his year. I imagine that some restaurants might aim to sell enough souvlaki in three days to possibly pay for a renovation or to simply make enough that weekend to stay in business for another year.

Objectives like this point the way towards some of the metrics I would include on a scorecard to measure the effectiveness of the marketing, but there are other factors to consider.

Those Pesky External Factors

For this event, the number one external factor outside of marketing’s control that can impact its success is the weather. I imagine that the event organizers must make the appropriate sacrificial offering (lamb would seem appropriate) to the Greek god (Zeus?) most responsible for weather. A hard rain could severely reduce attendance for an evening or whole weekend.

The Measurement Dilemma

There are three general approaches to choose from regarding external factors.

1. Ignore Them

This option will always be as tempting as all the delicious foods one finds at Taste of the Danforth. I can’t imagine how I’d ever determine how many people didn’t go to Taste the Danforth that Friday night because they thought it might rain, or how many sticks of souvlaki didn’t get sold as a result.

2. Model Them

This option is worth considering when you have a lot of data. If the organizers have 19 years worth of data that would correlate daily attendance with weather forecasts and actual rainfall, then that would be a start. Still, for most marketers, the costs of sophisticated models and analytics can quickly become too high relative to the size of the marketing expense they’re meant to measure.

3. Track Them

I think it is well worth tracking any external factor that could impact results, such as weather, competitive activity and labour disruptions. I arbitrarily score each external factor on a five-point scale, where the low end of the numerical scale corresponds to “very negative” and moves up through “somewhat negative”, “no impact”, “somewhat positive” and “very positive”.

I keep this very unscientific scoring of external factors separate from the rest of the scoring I do on the factors that seem to be within marketing’s control and on the results that can reasonably be attributed to the marketing. I don’t muddy the waters by including the external factors in the calculation of the overall score, but I do note them and score the severity of those factors.

The value of tracking external factors comes when you analyze a group of marketing programs, such as past years of Taste of the Danforth. Imagine looking back and seeing great year to year variations in attendance and not knowing in which years it rained all weekend, or there was a transit strike.

Without tracking external factors, it would be easy to come to the wrong conclusions about the effectiveness of specific marketing programs. It would be hard to decide whether specific programs should be repeated or changed and also to learn which tactics were the most and least effective.

Always track those factors outside of your control and the degree to which they may have helped or hindered your results. That will at least give you a taste of what else might have been going on at the time that may have impacted your results.

Filed Under: Approach, Metrics Tagged With: Effectiveness, External Factors, Management, marketing, Measure, measurement, Metrics

Happy or Not Happy?

June 21, 2012 By Rick Shea Leave a Comment

Last week I spoke on Marketing Measurement at an event called ‘Effective Marketing in a Digital World’. During the pre-event networking, I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen since he and his wife had their first child.

Naturally, our conversation revolved around his daughter and he showed me a photo of her that he keeps on his phone. As I remarked on her beautiful blue eyes (all credit goes to his wife) and how cute she is, he also pointed out what a good baby she is and how she doesn’t cry too much or too loudly.

Then, perhaps influenced by the topic on which I was about to speak, we started joking about how his daughter rates quite highly on two important metrics for measuring baby quality; cuteness and crying volume. We decided one could use these two metrics to categorize all babies into one of four quadrants of a matrix, as follows:

  • Quadrant #1 – Very Cute babies that cry quietly
  • Quadrant #2 – Very Cute babies that cry loudly
  • Quadrant #3 – Not Very Cute babies that cry quietly
  • Quadrant #4 – Not Very Cute babies that cry loudly

Of course, few parents would put their babies into the 3rd or 4th quadrants, but assuming some did, here’s how parents in each quadrant might feel:

#1 – Pleased to have a quiet and very cute baby
#2 – Hoping baby will grow out of this ‘Loud Crying’ phase, but thankful for the cuteness.
#3 – Hoping baby will grow out of this ‘Not Very Cute’ phase, but thankful for the quietness.
#4 – Hoping for improvement on both characteristics.

We laughed about the inappropriateness of categorizing babies this way, agreed to get together soon and continued networking with others.

The next day, as I reflected on the great people I met and the conversations we had, I recalled that silly matrix conversation. Then I remembered how I had once devised a similar matrix to categorize all marketers by their measurement efforts and whether they were happy with those efforts. In this case, the four quadrants were:

  • Quadrant #1 – Companies who measure marketing and are happy with their measurement
  • Quadrant #2 – Companies who don’t measure marketing and are happy they don’t
  • Quadrant #3 – Companies who measure marketing and are not happy with their measurement
  • Quadrant #4 – Companies who don’t measure marketing and are not happy they don’t

Unlike the baby matrix where most parents would say they are in the 1st or 2nd quadrants, I think a lot of companies would say they are in the 3rd or 4th quadrants. This is not surprising as marketing measurement cannot be done perfectly and so there is always a way to improve.

It can be helpful to decide in which quadrant your company sits, and why, as this can lead to improving your marketing measurement.  Let’s look a few key characteristics of companies in each quadrant:

Quadrant #1

  • Spending enough on marketing that they need to evaluate and manage that spending.
  • Learning what they need to know to improve marketing decisions and business results.
  • Spending appropriately on measurement relative to the size of their marketing budget.

Quadrant #2

  • Those with small marketing budgets have little or nothing to measure.
  • Those with larger marketing budgets who don’t measure are either making great instinctive marketing decisions based on limited information, or they may just be unaware of their ineffectiveness and any missed chances for improvement.

Quadrant #3

  • Measuring but not learning enough to improve marketing decisions.
  • Current measurement efforts may be inconsistent or sporadic.
  • May not have a standardized approach, making it difficult to compare individual program results to benchmarks and other programs.
  • Might be overspending on measurement, making it too big a percentage of their marketing budget.

Quadrant #4

  • May not be achieving their business objectives and are feeling pressure to better manage their marketing spending to that end.
  • May not measure due to a shortage of resources, such as time, money, people and expertise.
  • May lack clear, measurable marketing objectives that facilitate effective measurement.
  • Measurement may seem too daunting to undertake, given the increasing complexity of marketing and customer decision-making processes and, possibly, a resulting perception that the only suitable approach to measurement must also be complex and therefore too costly.

Where Are You Now and Where Do You Want To Be?

I know, that’s a little vague. I’m not looking for answers like “I’m at the office and I want to be at the cottage”, although that is a very good answer. I’m wondering which quadrant your company is in currently, and whether that’s good enough for you.

If you’re already happily in Quadrant #1, congratulations, you can leave now for the cottage! However, if you’re in one of the other quadrants and you’re spending a significant amount of money on marketing, you may still have some work to do before you pack your SUV, particularly if you’re not achieving your business objectives.

One of the points I made in my presentation is that to be effective at marketing, you have to do four things well:

  1. Research: Insights about markets, competitors, customers, etc.
  2. Strategy: For the business, your brands and how you will go to market
  3. Execution: The marketing programs that help you find, develop and keep profitable customers
  4. Measurement: To know if your strategies and executions are delivering

One of the main benefits of measurement is the ability it gives you to make improvements to your strategies and executions. If you are not measuring, or if you are not happy with your current measurement efforts, there is a solution, and that is to build an effective measurement process. If you need my help, I’ll be at the cottage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Approach Tagged With: Effectiveness, marketing, Measure, measurement, Metrics, objectives

Inputs & Outputs

May 17, 2012 By Rick Shea Leave a Comment

One of the challenges in writing a monthly newsletter is writer’s block. It generally hits me in one of two ways. Either I have no idea what to write about, or I have an idea, but no story or setting for the idea.

I have two approaches to deal with writer’s block. I find that going for a walk in nearby Monarch Park is a great way to clear my head and then somehow the ideas come to me. Finding a story or a setting for my idea can be harder. Something has to happen so I can connect the idea to a story. Usually, I need to read something or get out and do something. Through interacting with a new person or situation, a story sometimes emerges.

Monday evening, faced with neither an idea nor a story for this newsletter, I ventured out to a McGill Alumni event at the Carlu where I could mingle and meet people. Among those I met were two relatively recent graduates (relative to me, that is) with whom I had a very enjoyable, wide ranging conversation. Unfortunately, nothing in our conversation triggered an idea or a story for this month’s newsletter, although I was happy to learn about “The Undercover Economist” Tim Harford, whose writing I’m already enjoying.

On my way home, I thought about other people I’d met lately and then the idea came to me. I realized how a discussion a couple of weeks ago with a highly skilled and experienced market researcher related to how marketing scorecards are an effective way to organize diverse types of data.

We discussed how the various things that can be measured about marketing are either inputs, the things that influence the desired customer behaviour, or outputs, the results of that customer behaviour. This concept can be very helpful in determining how to organize the marketing metrics on your scorecard, and in deciding how to weight them within your overall scoring system. Let’s look at some examples.

Marketing Input Metrics

First of all, there are two broad categories of inputs; those you control and those you don’t. Inputs under your control are generally related to how well you execute the program you are measuring. Examples could include:

  • The percentage of the in-store displays or signs you printed and distributed that were actually and properly put up in store
  • The percentage of all the promotional labels or neck tags your merchandizing partner actually affixed to your products
  • The number of and cost per impression of all your on and off-line marketing communications related to this program

Inputs outside of your control that might impact the success of your program could include:

  • Competitive activity – they dropped or increased their price, promoted heavily while your program was in market, had a PR disaster on Twitter, etc.
  • Weather – no one showed up at your well promoted event because of a massive snow storm

Marketing Output Metrics

There are also two types of outputs, but they are defined a little differently. The first are those outputs or results that are directly attributable to your marketing program. Examples might include:

  • Number of unique visitors to a landing page on your website built for this program
  • Click through rate from your landing page to the buying page
  • Number of new customers who bought using your promotion codes

The other type of outputs are those that are potentially but not definitely or entirely attributable to your program.  These are typically key business performance metrics that can be influenced by a variety of inputs. Examples might include:

  • Revenue for the brand being promoted
  • Market share of that brand
  • Average price per unit sold during the program

Grouping your metrics in this logical fashion on your scorecard can make it easier for you to select your metrics and make decisions about how to weight them by group. Inputs directly under your control and outputs directly attributable to your program should be more heavily weighted than outputs potentially attributable to your program. This is especially true if you tend to have a lot of programs in the market simultaneously. Whatever weightings you use, be consistent over time to ensure you can meaningfully compare programs to each other.

Exclude those inputs outside of your control from your overall calculations. It would be very hard to set objectives and to score against those objectives, or to know how much of an impact they really had. We know that a blizzard of the century will keep more people home than a light dusting of snow, but the amount of snow that makes people decided to stay home is different for everyone. Still, note whether you think external factors significantly impacted your results.

As I wrote this, I realized my opening story does connect to the idea for this newsletter, after all. My story was about an input, an activity under my control, in this case networking and meeting people. That created an output that was at least partially attributable to my networking efforts. I may have still come up with the idea without going to the Carlu, but I might not have found my story!


Filed Under: Approach, Metrics Tagged With: Effectiveness, marketing, Measure, measurement, Metrics, ROI, scorecard

What Problem do you Want to Solve?

April 19, 2012 By Rick Shea Leave a Comment

Earlier this week, I did a little light reading on big data. I’ve been hearing a lot about big data lately so I thought I’d investigate.

Truthfully, reading about big data is hardly light reading. Big data presents a big challenge and is emerging as a hot topic in marketing and general business management circles.

What is big data? Well, it’s not about presenting numbers in larger fonts to make it easier for people over 40 years old to read, although I’d probably appreciate something like that. Big data relates to the fact that businesses (and not-for-profits, and governments, etc.) operate in a data rich environment featuring increasingly voluminous, complex and diverse data.

For many organizations, there is more data coming at them than they can handle. The data is evolving rapidly and outgrowing their ability to analyze and glean the insights they need from the data to make better business decisions.

I liked the closing section in this article from which I’ll paraphrase advice from Christer Johnson, IBM’s head of advanced analytics in North America. To get started in tackling big data, first decide what problem you want to solve. That’s great advice in many aspects in life, including big data and it certainly applies to marketing measurement.

I’m reminded of the oft-quoted John Wannamaker, a pioneer of the department store concept in Philadelphia in the 1860s, who famously said:

“I know that half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

I think of John Wannamaker as one of the founders of the discipline of marketing measurement, as he may have been the first one to define the problem. I’m not convinced he ever solved the problem, but at least he knew what he needed to know. Here’s my take on the problem he was trying to solve.

For context, John’s quote comes from a time with a much less complex marketing environment, before there were any broadcast, internet or mobile media. John’s choice of advertising tactics was probably limited to a few simple options such as:

  • newspaper ads
  • flyers handed out to passers by
  • outdoor signs
  • a guy with a sandwich board on the sidewalk in front of the store
  • a boy cycling around the store, yelling out this week’s specials (a very primitive form of Tweeting)

Yet, in that simple world, John Wanamaker didn’t know which half was wasted. If John were alive today, he’d probably admit that he didn’t even know if it was half, or one quarter or two thirds that was wasted. All he really knew was that some forms of his advertising were more effective than others, and he wanted to know which they were.

With all due respect to John Wannamaker, I’d like to restate his well-known quotation as:

“I know that some of my advertising programs are more effective than others; the trouble is I don’t know which ones. Mostly, I just want to know the best way to spend my money.”

We can modernize this problem statement by substituting the word “advertising” with “marketing” and then it can serve as a starting point for most companies’ marketing measurement efforts. Like John, all managers with a marketing budget need to determine how to optimize that budget to meet or exceed their business objectives.

In these more complex times, with many more marketing tactics to choose from, there is also a lot more data to analyze and understand. Each program may target different customers, using different tactics with different objectives and performance metrics. Gathering the data for those metrics can involve a variety of sources, analytics tools and research techniques.

All that diverse data, big or otherwise, can certainly be a big mess if you don’t have a way to organize and analyze it. The analysis needs to happen in a way that enables comparing each program’s outcomes to the others, so you can identify the best ways to spend your marketing budgets.

A well-designed marketing scorecard can solve this problem. The key is to design your scorecard in a way that makes comparisons between diverse programs meaningful, and helps you to solve the same problem John Wannamaker was trying to solve all those years ago, to find the most effective ways to spend his money.


Filed Under: Approach Tagged With: Management, marketing, Measure, measurement, Metrics, ROI, scorecard

Emissions Test

December 15, 2011 By Rick Shea Leave a Comment

My car is getting old. Like me, it doesn’t always feel its age, but the reality is that by most measures it is getting old. One measure of its advancing age is that in order to renew my vehicle licence recently, my car first had to pass an emissions test.

In Ontario, when the Ministry of Transportation sends you your vehicle licence renewal application, they indicate if your car needs to be emissions tested.  This time around, my middle aged car was due for a test.

The Ministry requires the test be performed at one of the accredited Drive Clean facilities listed on their website.  I found a local facility and within 15 minutes of arriving, I drove out of there with the clean bill of health for my car that I would need to renew my vehicle licence.

While waiting for my car to be tested, I entertained myself by reading the wall poster and brochure that described the emissions testing procedure. As a guy who cares about good measurement practices, I was impressed by two things:

  1. The Ministry has a consistent and transparent measurement process.
  2. Their process includes a clear and simple scoring system.

Let’s look at how each of these illustrate what a good marketing measurement system needs to do.

Measurement Process

These are the steps that all Drive Clean facilities follow when testing a car:

  1. Perform visual inspection
  2. Drive car onto Dynamometer
  3. Insert probe into tailpipe
  4. Accelerate vehicle to 40 km/hr
  5. Computer analyses emissions and compares to standards for make, model and year
  6. Print test results
  7. If Pass, owner can renew vehicle licence
  8. If Fail, owner must repair car at a Drive Clean Repair facility, then re-test

Here’s what I like about this process, especially as the same things are true of a good marketing measurement process:

  • Its clear steps can be repeated consistently, making the results meaningful and comparable to other results, standards and benchmarks.
  • The process is well supported by documented procedures, such as the 20 page “Drive Clean Guide” that I found on line. The guide is amended and reissued periodically, as needed.  Well documented and updated procedures ensure consistency in measurement and clarify who is responsible for doing what and when.
  • The standards that define passing and failing results are clearly documented.

Scoring System

The scoring system is quite simple.  There are a few metrics for which your car must obtain a passing score.  For example, on Hydrocarbons, as measured in Parts Per Million, my car needed to be at 66 or less in order to pass. Fortunately, my reading was 3 and thus my result on this metric was a “Pass”. (I lobbied for extra points for such a low score, but to no avail!)

The key elements of this simple scoring system that relate to marketing measurement are:

  • Metric: Define the metric (Example – Revenue) and the unit of measurement (Example – for Total Company, for Specific brand, per square foot, per average transaction, etc.).
  • Objective: Define the target result, or limit, or range of acceptable results. (Example – Average revenue per transaction of $50 for Brand X in 1st Quarter of 2012).
  • Result: The actual outcome for the metric and objective as defined.
  • Scoring: You need to score how good the result is as compared to the objective. Will you use a pass/fail, a 10 or 5 point scale, a score out of 100, or some other scale?  Whichever you pick, be sure you can apply it consistently and fairly.

Summary

A properly documented measurement process will provide the consistency needed to make comparisons between programs meaningful.  A clear scoring system gives you a way to convert all your results to a common metric, which also enables comparing programs to each other.  These two essential components of a reliable marketing measurement system support making well informed strategic marketing  decisions, which comes down to making choices between programs, refining your strategies and finding the most effective ways to market your products and services.

Filed Under: Approach Tagged With: Effectiveness, marketing, Measure, measurement, Metrics
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