Comments on: New way to measure marcom and PR? http://blog.foghound.com/81/ News and views about marketing and communications Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:55:42 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.1 By: Lois Kelly http://blog.foghound.com/81/#comment-33 Lois Kelly Sun, 11 Feb 2007 17:02:46 +0000 http://foghound.com/blog/?p=81#comment-33 <p>Rob:</p> <p>After thinking about the post, I agree that it's too soft.  I'm intrigued that more and more companies are buying into Fred Reicheld's one question — "Would you recommend this product/company to others?" as a measure of customer loyalty. Simple. Powerful. What then, could be an equally simple and powerful one question measure to assess all the marketing and sales activities designed for customer acquisition?  Maybe that's still being too simplistic.</p> But I like measuring outcomes or behaviors that connect to business drivers more than measures like clicks, downloads, awareness, etc. <br /><br />One of Foghound's goals for 2007 is to develop more predictive and valuable ways to measure conversational marketing. If it doesn't connect to the business agenda, there's no reason for businesses to adopt this approach.<br />Lois Rob:

After thinking about the post, I agree that it’s too soft.  I’m intrigued that more and more companies are buying into Fred Reicheld’s one question — "Would you recommend this product/company to others?" as a measure of customer loyalty. Simple. Powerful. What then, could be an equally simple and powerful one question measure to assess all the marketing and sales activities designed for customer acquisition?  Maybe that’s still being too simplistic.

But I like measuring outcomes or behaviors that connect to business drivers more than measures like clicks, downloads, awareness, etc.

One of Foghound’s goals for 2007 is to develop more predictive and valuable ways to measure conversational marketing. If it doesn’t connect to the business agenda, there’s no reason for businesses to adopt this approach.
Lois

]]> By: Rob Leavitt http://blog.foghound.com/81/#comment-32 Rob Leavitt Tue, 06 Feb 2007 23:47:00 +0000 http://foghound.com/blog/?p=81#comment-32 <p>Interesting idea, Lois. Measurement is of course endlessly frustrating for marketing and PR. Partly, as you suggest, this is because there is so much 'stuff' to measure but much less clarity on what really matters, and partly it's because there remains an even larger disconnect on what marketers might think is important and what the CEO and other top business execs really care about. Your two questions fit nicely with the move to more conversational and pull marketing, and the understanding that we're often dealing with a long, deliberative sales cycle which requires marketers to carefully cultivate buyer interest over time. It might even be a more compelling approach for the CEO!<br /></p> <p>Even with your suggestion, though, there would remain the sticky question of how exactly to do the measurement. You could rely on surveys of customers and other influencers, although that's a difficult and potentially expensive approach to do well. I suppose you could come up with proxies for the second question to measure if the marcom initiative stimulated interest, but then you're right back to looking at web hits, downloads, etc.</p> <br /> <p>So, I like the approach, but we may need some more work on how to make it practical. What do you think?</p> Interesting idea, Lois. Measurement is of course endlessly frustrating for marketing and PR. Partly, as you suggest, this is because there is so much ’stuff’ to measure but much less clarity on what really matters, and partly it’s because there remains an even larger disconnect on what marketers might think is important and what the CEO and other top business execs really care about. Your two questions fit nicely with the move to more conversational and pull marketing, and the understanding that we’re often dealing with a long, deliberative sales cycle which requires marketers to carefully cultivate buyer interest over time. It might even be a more compelling approach for the CEO!

Even with your suggestion, though, there would remain the sticky question of how exactly to do the measurement. You could rely on surveys of customers and other influencers, although that’s a difficult and potentially expensive approach to do well. I suppose you could come up with proxies for the second question to measure if the marcom initiative stimulated interest, but then you’re right back to looking at web hits, downloads, etc.

So, I like the approach, but we may need some more work on how to make it practical. What do you think?

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