Advertising Results Should Matter

Most readers of this Blog will agree that measurable marketing is growing and that measurement is critical in the client-ad agency relationship. But it’s hard to get advertising and marketing firms to change their ways. This was brought to my attention by a recent Adweek article on the lack of incentives for performance based marketing.

The web, microsites, email, direct mail, SEO, banners/links/placements, mobile, word-of-mouth, social media, even traditional media and PR can be measured, albeit not perfectly. Marketing today is and should be about accountability and relevancy to the customer/prospect. The problem, I think, is that most traditional shops still try and sell their killer creative and treat the web and other emerging channels separately and want to cling to the past. They fail to understand that marketing is changing.

Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts was interviewed in Business Week and he still sells and believes in the killer creative that does not work nearly as effectively as in the past. While I admire his conviction, the article goes on to talk about the shift in marketing to those who understand and practice measurable marketing. Both articles are worth the read.

Grant A. Johnson

Johnson Direct LLC

1-800-710-2750

Direct Marketing ROI Projected for 2008

To see the way the Direct Marketing Association is projecting things, we all ought to get into e-mail marketing as our primary method of communicating … fast!  I’m not so sure that’s really true, but the DMA did put out some interesting projections, recently, as reported in the Oct. 18 edition of PROMO Magazine.

In that report, the DMA projects return on investment for commercial e-mail to more than double the ROI of other direct marketing tactics in 2008.  The DMA states that for each dollar spent, commercial e-mail will return $47.65, with non-e-mail online marketing a distant second at $20.19.

Others on the list of select direct marketing tactics are:

  • Direct response newspaper ads, $16.86
  • Non-catalog direct mail, $15.60
  •  Telemarketing, $8.61

Pretty impressive.

Then, again, we need to cast a somewhat jaundiced eye at the report, given its origins.  Let’s face it; DMA has a vested interest in marketers jumping on the DM bandwagon.  At the same time, smart marketers realize that direct marketing’s dominant position in advertising spends is due to the simple fact that it works!

I think measurable marketers overall do a better job than branders in understanding relevancy from the target market (s) perspective and, in this day of over-communication, that approach resonates with busy people.

So, I put it out here for your review and discussion.  Where do you stand?  Please give me your thoughts.

Grant Johnson

Johnson Direct LLC

800-710-2750