Marketing effectiveness - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Marketing effectiveness is the quality of how marketers go to market

Go to market

In Marketing Management, the term Go-To-Market strategy refers to the channels a company will use to connect with its customers/business and the organizational processes it develops to guide customer interactions from initial contact through fulfillment.A firm's Go-To-Market strategy is the...

with the goal of optimizing their spending to achieve good results for both the short-term and long-term. It is also related to Marketing ROI and Return on Marketing Investment

Return on marketing investment

Return on marketing investment is the contribution attributable to marketing , divided by the marketing “invested” or risked. ROMI is a relatively new metric. It is not like the other “return-on-investment” metrics because marketing is not the same kind of investment...

(ROMI).
Marketing expert Tony Lennon believes marketing effectiveness is quintessential to marketing, going so far as to say It's not marketing if it's not measured. The concept of marketing effectiveness first came to prominence in the 1990s with the publication of Improving Marketing Effectiveness Shaw,R

Robert Shaw (Marketing)

Robert Shaw is a business author and consultant on the field of marketing, particularly Marketing performance measurement and management and Database marketing.- Life and career :...

which won the 1998 Business Management Book of the Year Award.

Introduction

Marketing effectiveness has four dimensions:

Corporate – Each company operates within different bounds. These are determined by their size, their budget and their ability to make organizational change. Within these bounds marketers operate along the five factors described below.
Competitive – Each company in a category operates within a similar framework as described below. In an ideal world, marketers would have perfect information on how they act as well as how their competitors act. In reality, in many categories have reasonably good information through sources, such as, IRI or Nielsen. In many industries, competitive marketing information is hard to come by.
Customer
Customer
A customer is usually used to refer to a current or potential buyer or user of the products of an individual or organization, called the supplier, seller, or vendor. This is typically through purchasing or renting goods or services...

s/Consumer
Consumer
Consumer is a broad label for any individuals or households that use goods generated within the economy. The concept of a consumer occurs in different contexts, so that the usage and significance of the term may vary.-Economics and marketing:...

s – Understanding and taking advantage of how customers make purchasing decisions can help marketers improve their marketing effectiveness. Groups of consumers act in similar ways leading to the need to segment them. Based on these segments, they make choices based on how they value the attributes of a product and the brand, in return for price paid for the product. Consumers build brand value through information. Information is received through many sources, such as, advertising, word-of-mouth and in the (distribution) channel often characterized with the purchase funnel
Purchase funnel
The purchase or purchasing funnel is a consumer focused marketing model which illustrates the theoretical customer journey towards the purchase of a product or service....

, a McKinsey & Company
McKinsey & Company
McKinsey & Company, Inc. is a global management consulting firm that focuses on solving issues of concern to senior management. McKinsey serves as an adviser to many businesses, governments, and institutions...

concept. Lastly, consumers consume and make purchase decisions in certain ways.
Exogenous Factors – There are many factors outside of our immediate control that can impact the effectiveness of our marketing activities. These can include the weather, interest rates, government regulations and many others. Understanding the impact these factors can have on our consumers can help us to design programs that can take advantage of these factors or mitigate the risk of these factors if they take place in the middle of our marketing campaigns.

There are five factors driving the level of marketing effectiveness that marketers can achieve:

Marketing Strategy
Marketing strategy
Marketing strategy is a process that can allow an organization to concentrate its limited resources on the greatest opportunities to increase sales and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage.-Developing a marketing strategy:...

– Improving marketing effectiveness can be achieved by employing a superior marketing strategy. By positioning the product or brand correctly, the product/brand will be more successful in the market than competitors’ products/brands. Even with the best strategy, marketers must execute their programs properly to achieve extraordinary results.
Marketing Creative – Even without a change in strategy, better creative can improve results. Without a change in strategy, AFLAC
Aflac
Aflac Incorporated is the largest provider of supplemental insurance in the United States, founded in 1955 and based in Columbus, Georgia. In the United States, Aflac underwrites a wide range of insurance policies, but is perhaps more known for its payroll deduction insurance coverage, which pays...

was able to achieve stunning results with its introduction of the Duck (AFLAC
Aflac
Aflac Incorporated is the largest provider of supplemental insurance in the United States, founded in 1955 and based in Columbus, Georgia. In the United States, Aflac underwrites a wide range of insurance policies, but is perhaps more known for its payroll deduction insurance coverage, which pays...

) campaign. With the introduction of this new creative concept, the company growth rate soared from 12% prior to the campaign to 28% following it. (See references below, Bang)
Marketing Execution – By improving how marketers go to market, they can achieve significantly greater results without changing their strategy or their creative execution. At the marketing mix level, marketers can improve their execution by making small changes in any or all of the 4-Ps (Product, Price, Place and Promotion) (Marketing
Marketing
Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...

) without making changes to the strategic position or the creative execution marketers can improve their effectiveness and deliver increased revenue. At the program level marketers can improve their effectiveness by managing and executing each of their marketing campaigns better. It's commonly known that consistency of a Marketing Creative strategy across various media (e.g. TV, Radio, Print and Online), not just within each individual media message, can amplify and enhance impact of the overall marketing campaign effort. Additional examples would be improving direct mail through a better call-to-action or editing web site content to improve its organic search results, marketers can improve their marketing effectiveness for each type of program. A growing area of interest within (Marketing Strategy
Marketing strategy
Marketing strategy is a process that can allow an organization to concentrate its limited resources on the greatest opportunities to increase sales and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage.-Developing a marketing strategy:...

) and Execution are the more recent interaction dynamics of traditional marketing (e.g. TV or Events) with online consumer activity (e.g. Social Media). (See references below, Brand Ecosystems) Not only direct product experience, but also any stimulus provided by traditional marketing, can become a catalyst for a consumer brand "groundswell" online as outlined in the book Groundswell
Groundswell (book)
Groundswell is a book by Forrester Research executives Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff that focuses on how companies can take advantage of emerging social technologies.It was published in 2008 by Harvard Business Press...

.
Marketing Infrastructure (also known as Marketing Management
Marketing management
Marketing management is a business discipline which is focused on the practical application of marketing techniques and the management of a firm's marketing resources and activities...

) – Improving the business of marketing can lead to significant gains for the company. Management of agencies, budgeting, motivation and coordination of marketing activities can lead to improved competitiveness and improved results. The overall accountability for brand leadership and business results is often reflected in an organization under a title within a (Brand management
Brand management
Brand management is the application of marketing techniques to a specific product, product line, or brand.The discipline of brand management was started at Procter & Gamble as a result of a famous memo by Neil H...

) department.
Exogenous Factors - Generally out of the control of marketers, external or exogenous factors also influence how marketers can improve their results. Taking advantage of seasonality, interests or the regulatory environment can help marketers improve their marketing effectiveness.

Introduction

See also

Further reading