Hilary Hinton Ziglar, born in 1926, was an American motivational speaker, author, and salesman. He once said, “You can’t spend too much time chopping the wood before sharpening the ax.”
Marketers should take note of this important advice
It is easy to get caught up in daily activity: website updates, email campaigns, tradeshows, events, the care and feeding of social networking platforms, and new product launches.
Despite your best efforts, your to-do lists never seem to shrink. This mindset, however, keeps you concentrating on the task of chopping wood when, as Zig points out, it would be much easier to chop the wood if your ax was sharper. The quality of the ax would determine the amount of “wood,” not the number of swings.
Value creators who understand and apply this concept can improve and prove their marketing efforts by following the steps below.
1. Focus on impact rather than activity
There will never be enough time or money to do everything. Focus on the areas where you can have the biggest impact. You’re not sure which efforts will have the biggest impact? You can ask yourself the following questions:
- What business outcomes does this activity support
- Are you aware of the expected business outcomes from this activity?
- How can you tell if the activity has had the desired effect?
Stop chopping if you do not know the answers.
Over the last decade, research has revealed that Marketing’s impact and value are directly related to its alignment with the business. Some marketing programs are isolated, while others support the sales force. Many marketing organizations, even those that adhere to and create a marketing strategy, lack alignment. Even if you believe that your marketing plan is aligned, we have seen plans from all types of companies in all industries, and only 10% can make this claim.
Marketers are doomed to failure if they create plans without having access to an organization’s business or strategic plan. You need to know the needles you want to move. Not the overall revenue goal but what bets or plays the organization must make to reach the revenue goal.
When you are able to answer these three questions, you will know that you have achieved alignment.
2. Make Metrics Count
It can be not easy to choose which things are important when you can measure so much.
The metrics that you report to executives should answer the “So What?” questions. Marketing metrics must capture Marketing’s contribution and impact in the following areas: customer acquisition and retention, brand equity, competitive positioning, operational efficiency and financials, and customer/brand equity.
Only IF you can answer these questions in the C-Suite will your metrics be right.
- What is the impact of Marketing on your business, and how does it contribute to its success?
- What works and what doesn’t?
- Can the data be used to adjust the course?
If you don’t have the answers to these “So What?” questions, do not move forward; return to your drawing board.
It’s possible that you have invested a lot of money in tools, thinking they would produce the metrics and dashboards you need. But holding onto what is familiar, easy, or a sunk cost may not get you where you need to be.
The best way to gain respect and more resources is to select the right metrics that demonstrate your Marketing impact and value.
Some marketers think that ROI or impact can’t really be measured. It would be best if you dispelled this myth, whether it’s because they are afraid of being measured or haven’t personally experienced or seen the results. What one man can achieve, so can another. Many have measured ROI successfully.
It will not be easy. You may need to learn new skills and use tools or processes. Or even get external help. However, you can and should measure the value and impact of marketing.
You can use the alignment work to develop a data chain to identify how marketing objectives, tactics, and outcomes are related, which data elements you’ll need, and what analytics, if any, will be needed. After you have these elements, you can choose the relevant metrics. Together with your team, determine the best way to measure each metric. Capture data from programs designed to influence them and report on it.
3. Embrace insights
Analyzing and synthesizing data is not the same as simply having it. Data is a challenge we all face. Data is everywhere!
You can begin to recognize patterns when you start a synthesis. You want to reveal the patterns and trends in your data and bring them to life so that your leadership team can make key decisions based on the information.
You can effectively transform data into insights by following these steps:
- Identify your needs and goals and then collect and analyze data to answer them.
- Create a data infrastructure. The data infrastructure consists of three main ingredients: people with the appropriate analytical skills, tools for storing data, and technology to store data.
- Develop a data-driven marketing organization. Implement an ongoing process of data collection and analysis. To do this, you will need to develop and maintain a process that supports ongoing data collection, cleansing, and analysis.
Data is not a problem for most marketing organizations. You may even be drowning in information. Focus on specific data types that will allow you to demonstrate and improve the organization’s marketing value.
4. Run marketing like a business
Many organizations use marketing operations to help their CMOs run marketing as a business and transform and maintain Marketing. Marketing operations are an investment made by organizations to…
- Make sure marketing strategies are implemented seamlessly
- Create, manage, and track marketing processes
- Develop metrics for improving effectiveness and reducing inefficiencies
A strategy roadmap will help you create a high-performance marketing operations function. This road map will address the processes, data, and resources needed by the marketing operations function to make Marketing a fully accountable component of the company. Your marketing ops roadmap should clearly communicate the marketing ops’s overall priorities and direction. The road map for operations strategy should align with specific business objectives, leverage the strengths of the organization, and offer a blueprint for future capabilities.
The following are the basic components of the road map for marketing operations:
- Technology systems and tools. These technologies, systems, or tools are key enablers in creating performance-driven marketing organizations. Marketing operations are responsible for identifying, implementing, and deploying these enablers.
- Workforce. The marketing operations department is responsible for training and educating the marketing staff and ensuring they have the necessary skills to be held accountable for their job.
- Processes/process improvements. One of the main responsibilities of marketing operations is improving processes. Key processes must be defined, monitored, and repeatable, and they should also be evaluated regularly.
- Measures of performance. One of the main responsibilities of marketing operations includes defining the standards and the timelines for the definition and deployment of new metrics.
- Capital allocation/requirements. This section should identify the capital investments and the timing needed to execute the operations strategy.
- Supplier Management. The majority of marketing operations organizations rely on third-party expertise. Document the types of suppliers needed, their timing, and how they support the road map.