News & Events

The Biggest Challenge with Measurable Marketing

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One of the biggest challenges I face as a measurable marketing professional isn’t, believe it or not, getting qualified prospects and clients alike to spend money. Rather, it’s convincing them to invest their marketing spend so it has a more meaningful — testable and measurable outcome. Yes, you read that correctly. It’s a topic I touch on in a recent piece I did for Direct Magazine.

While things are tight almost ubiquitously, marketing HAS to prove a positive ROI; that means forsaking some of the more “sexy” media like TV and sports sponsorships and tying ALL marketing communication efforts back to a response, one that can be tracked, measured and improved upon. It also means measuring the right things — like sales — as opposed to clicks on a website, microsite or social media outlet. PR is a very powerful tool when tied back to measurement. Trust me, I know from real life case studies I’ve done — experience.

It’s a shame, and an incredible waste of money, to do advertising and marketing communications that does not produce measurable results — sales that impact your bottom line and move it North. Relevancy is critical in this tough economy and I’m sad to say that too much advertising & marketing is still spent not understanding that it’s about the customer, not the company. Burger King, prime example. I actually saw a blog post lauding their advertising. I was going to chime in, but figured they guy who wrote the post is a lost cause and didn’t bother. What about the new Gatorade campaign. Or the new BMW diesel campaign. How about, well, you get the point. Have a success story or great marketing story to share? Let’s hear it.

Grant A. Johnson
Johnson Direct LLC
1-800-710-2750

2009 Marketing Predictions

In Multichannel & Integrated, News & Events, Public Relations
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Annually I try and predict what the new year will bring in terms of marketing. I base my insights on lots of things, and I believe I am more often right than wrong. So, here’s what I think 2009 has in store:
1.) Retail will falter, except low end providers like Wal-Mart and Dollar Tree ( when I started in this game in the 80’s everyone was crying retails’ death and it came back strong). Others will lose margin to survive.
2.) Healthcare, Education, Government and Utilities will grow and be viable. So will software providers who can prove increased productivity with their products. ( consider marketing to these groups)
3.) B-to-B marketers will become much better at measurable marketing. The ones that do will prosper, grow and end up buying their competitors.
4.) Non-profits will find it harder to raise funds from newer donors, but will prosper if they “mine” their current donor files correctly.
5.) There will be even more interest in emerging media:Social Media, E-mail, Blogs, YouTube, Microblogs, Pod & Videocasts and TV-like commercials produced specifically for the web and key segments will flourish.
6.) Mobile marketing will NOT take off in North America.
7.) PR, and the ability to track it, will be more critical than ever — especially in the emerging channels.
8.) Story-selling will emerge as a key marketing discipline that, combined with the right offer, to the right audience at the correct time will work very profitably.
9.) Direct Marketing thinking will become critical to an organization’s marketing success.

I have more, but that’s a good start.

Finally, marketing accountability and a shift from large to mid-sized ad agencies will rule the day. (Yes, I am biased as I own one). If you can’t measure the right metrics, you will fail. If you can and can learn, you can market smarter and will gain market share (really).

Grant A. Johnson
Johnson Direct LLC
1-800-710-2750