We all love statistics and reviewing marketing metrics can get kind of addictive or maybe that's just me? The balance of the science and the art thing is what makes marketing such an interesting, diverse and challenging profession.
Marketing is a spending department and as we all know in business you need to spend money to make money. In 2016 more so than previous years, marketers are being asked to justify their spending with even more scrutiny, to ensure that all funded programs make a return.
Therefore, marketing is now more than ever more of a science than an art. The focus is on data, metrics and analytics, while the art of marketing that is focused solely on the creativity and 'Ego Marketing' is a thing of the past.
So why has the marketing remit become so disciplined and metrics driven?
It has been heading in that direction for many years. It could be a number of factors: tighter control of spending within organisations, more savvy end users, more channels to market, more content, more competition and therefore more choice.
But the most obvious reason is we now have the ability to measure every element of a marketing campaign in real time, through various analytical tools.
Metrics, analytics' and measurement has made the art and science of marketing more transparent. Therefore, marketers must plan activities, campaigns or programs with an overall objective for a decent ROI as top of mind.
A marketer cannot account for all of their marketing budget being tracked and verified but they can plan and account for over 90% of the budget. A marketing plan is an essential for success. You don't see the England rugby team come out to play without a plan or a strategy for every different opponent in the Six Nations, so why invest in marketing without a plan and/or objective.
A marketing campaign with no objective or call to action has no place in marketing today. Creating awareness is fine but the marketing must impact awareness directly to move the audience onto consideration and action. Spending budget on the same old awareness only activities is just not going to cut it anymore.
Business leaders need to turn to the marketing department.
The marketing department has always been a dependable and reliable department but the business requirements have changed to how much immediate impact can be created by the marketing campaigns in the next day, week or month not in the next 12 months.
Accurate real time measurement allows business leaders to understand and interpret marketing campaigns like never before to see how they will positively impact the business.
If you would like to learn more about Data Driven Marketing, then check out the IDM's Data Driven Marketing course and discover the key metrics to help measure your campaigns.
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