Walking Naked In Times Square
23 November 2009
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I was sitting in a 2010 planning meeting recently listening to the marketing team describe their objectives, strategies, and thoughts on tactics they were planning to deploy. Their question to me was “how should we measure the payback on this strategy”?
My response was: “compared to what? Walking naked through Times Square?” I was being asked to evaluate a proposed strategy without any sense of what the alternatives were.
Sure, I can come up with a means of estimating and tracking the ROI on almost anything. But if that ROI comes to 142%, so what? Is there a plan that might get us to 1000% (without just cutting cost and manipulating the formula)?
As I thought back on the hundreds of planning meetings I’ve been in over the last 10 years, it occurred to me that we marketers are not so good at identifying alternative ways of achieving objectives and systematically weighing the options to ensure we’re selecting the paths that best meet the organization’s needs strategically, financially, and otherwise.
On a relative basis, we spend far too much of our time measuring the tactical/executional performance of the things we have decided to do, and far too little measuring the comparative value of things we might decide to do. Scenario planning; options analysis; decision frameworks. You get the idea.
The importance of this up-front effort isn’t just in getting to better strategies, but in building further credibility throughout the organization. Finance, sales, and operations all see marketing investments as inherently risky due to A) the size of the expenditures; and B) the uncertain nature of the returns as compared to many of the things those other functions tend to spend money on. Impressing them with our thorough exploration of the landscape of options goes a long way to demonstrating that we’re considered risk (albeit implicitly) in our recommendations, and have done all the necessary homework to arrive at a reasonable conclusion. NOT necessarily producing a 50 page deck, but rather simply stating which alternatives were considered, what the decision framework was, and how the ultimate selection was made. (This also builds trust through transparency).
From a measurement perspective, we can then consider the relative potential value of doing A versus B versus C, and in the process raise the level of confidence that we are spending the company’s money wisely. We can then turn our attention to measuring the quality of the execution of the chosen path with confidence that we’re not just randomly measuring the trees while wandering in the forest.
I’m not sure how many businesses might get a high ROI on walking naked through Times Square, but imagining that option certainly helps fuel creativity and underscores the importance of measuring strategic relevance, not just tactical performance.
Got any good stories about wandering naked?
Local Marketing Superhero Lee Odden Saves the Day
16 November 2009
Life happens and you adapt.
BMA-Minnesota Exploding into 2010
5 November 2009
- President Chris Schermer, Schermer Kuehl,
- Executive Vice President Andrea Eidsness, Kroll
- Secretary Victor Hallberg, Brand Consultant,
- Treasurer Steve Bunnell, ThermoFisher Scientific,
- Professional Development Vice President Heidi Wight, Padilla Speer Beardsley
- Communications Vice President Eva Keiser, Risdall McKinney Public Relations
- Membership Vice President Tim Lebens, OpenWater Inc.
- Partnerships Director Amy Hubler, Delta Airlines
- Membership Director Anne McGuire, 3M
- Directors: Michelle Siebert, Compellent; John McPhee, Toro;Megan Effertz, Archway Marketing Services;Jane Payfer, Ergotron;Jennifer Roth, JKR Consulting; andNick Wassenberg, EG Insights.
Power of People: Toro’s Perspective on multi-dimensional relationships
2 November 2009
On October 28, BMA-Minnesota was very fortunate to have one of Minnesota’s leading brands — The Toro Company — take us “behind the curtain” to get a glimpse of the secret to their success.
Michael Happe, V.P. and General Manager of Toro’s Commercial Division, shared how Toro leverages the breadth and depth of the company’s industry relationships that drive innovation and customer loyalty. As a follow-up to his presentation, Happe graciously agreed to bring the discussion to the B2B Backroom blog.
Every company understands that “people” are one of the key ingredients to their ability to succeed in their marketplace. Most companies refer to their people as their most valuable resources, but employees are only one of the relationship dimensions (i.e. groups of people) that impact the decisions that get made in the marketplace.
At Toro, we might argue that the collective strength of your relationships with Employees, Channel Partners, Customers, Vendors, Industry Experts, Media, and other groups vis-a-vie your competition is strongly correlated to your ability to innovate, to command a price premium and to maintain high levels of customer loyalty. We believe that it is these strong relationships that have allowed The Toro Company to build and hold high market share positions in most of our served markets. Moreover, strong relationships have a less tangible, yet equally important impact in terms of word-of-mouth advocacy for future sales.
Multi-dimensional relationships are critical to every businesses success, but few companies take a strategic or methodical approach to how their investments in both time and money are deployed in support of ongoing relationship development.
By analyzing who the primary decision makers are for your business and by mapping out who they listen to when making their purchase decisions, you can quickly see where relevant relationships need to be funded, nurtured, and measured. As the strength and breadth of these relationships grow over time, so – too – will your business successes (assuming that you’re selling a good, high quality product or service). You will have deeper customer insight, learn about trends and key issues faster, and be better positioned for every sale!
For many businesses, it is very difficult to justify spending valuable marketing resources on the many buyer groups that have a direct influence on your sale. It is even more challenging to fund initiatives with groups of people who may never purchase your product, yet, it is often these indirect relationships that have the most impact on, and credibility with, the buyers.
Strong relationships do not happen over night. The multi-dimensional relationship business model must always be active to build a strong “social network” of advocates that touch your customers. With that said, this investment is, perhaps, the most difficult thing for any competitor to replicate. In short, healthy multi-dimensional relationships can be the biggest barrier to entry that you or your customers face! Easy to say, hard to do!
Based on our experience, we would certainly encourage other companies (other than our competitors) to take investment in these multi-dimensional relationships seriously. Start with your own organization and build an environment of mutual respect. Invest first in the relationships that are most closely coupled to your customers and continue to extend your relationship reach (social network) to other key influencers. Invest both time and money in these relationships. Any competitor can write a check to sponsor some advocacy group but only the market leader will invest both money and their time (and passion) into long term relationships that will continue to pay dividends for years to come.
Michael Happe
V.P. and General Manager - Commercial Division
Toro Company
