Each Marketing Dollar Should Prove Its ROI

Return on Investment (ROI) is the most useful and effective marketing measure as it enables businesses to compare the overall investment made in a project with the total returns on investment generated from it. Return on investment can also be customized to represent the significance of short-term and long-term profits for a business during a fiscal period.

A majority of businesses consider ROI measures to be of immense importance in the planning and implementation of effective marketing initiatives. During the planning phase, attention is given to essential considerations such as market conditions, customers’ needs, competitive activities, etc. This helps a business optimize its marketing effectiveness. Here are some important benefits that effective ROI strategies offer businesses:

Executive-level participation – The manifold advantages of a ROI measure extend throughout the various levels of a company.  Despite this fact, active participation at the corporate level is the only sure shot way to maximize profit levels. therefore, by incorporating ROI measures in the budget allocation process, company executives can maximize profit levels. Furthermore, corporate-level participation also encourages the marketing team to set expectations and milestones, define a set of standards. This encourages the team to work on how the right decisions are made.

ROI is one of the most effective marketing measures as it ensures that every penny that a business invests on marketing and advertising campaigns is directly translated into profits. ROI is usually calculated in the form of numbers, which essentially represent a ratio of the amount of money gained by the business in relation to the investment made by the business. Moreover, the simple formula can even be directly applied to compare different types of marketing.

With the threat of downsizing looming around the heads of employees in any basic firm, the whole concept of ‘working smarter’ has become the lifeblood and sustenance of employees in a work place, given the demand of efficiency despite the sparse budget and abysmal headcount.

What are the best tips for Accelerating Sales

There are some ways in which you can efficiently cause accelerating sales which benefit your company and its employees. These include Customer Advisory Boards or Councils and Executive Summits

Customer Advisory Boards (CAB) or Counciils (CAC)

A Customer Advisory Board is a high-return, high-profile event that can heavily influence your company's competitive standing. A successful CAB provides a powerful format that turns customers into true advocates and provides executives with the information needed to align customer programs with company strategy. A formal Customer Advisory Board should be in your marketing and strategic arsenal.

Executive Summits

Executive Summits are one-time centralized or regional events – that bring key decision-makers together to preview a strategy, product or market innovation. Through these focused exchanges, customers become first-to-know, first-to-buy and first to advocate your solution in the marketplace.

Are you responsible for your organization's Customer Advisory Board (CAB) program? If so, you don't want to miss Sean Geehan's session at the Customer Advisory Board.org conference on Thursday, June 7, in San Francisco, CA: 8 Building Blocks of World Class Customer Advisory Boards.

Many companies have tried to launch successful Customer Advisory Board programs but have struggled to realize the potential and value of a World Class Advisory Board.  Sean and his team at the Geehan Group have developed and perfected bullet-proof methodologies to assist project managers and their executive stakeholders in executing World Class Advisory Board programs across multiple industries.

Sean's presentation will cover the key elements for success, from executive involvement, to strategic alignment, to recruiting the right customers, as well as best practices for designing an engaging agenda and providing a great meeting experience, to the right follow-up and communication techniques post-meeting. 

“We never could have imagined the results Geehan helped deliver from day one, which have exponentially increased since.”
Anubhav Saxena, VP & Global Head, Business Marketing, HCL

Sean Geehan is CEO and Founder of Geehan Group, the leader in guiding B2B executives to building sustainable, predictable and profitable growth.  He is also the author of the national best-seller, The B2B Executive Playbook.

As the outsourcing market continues the impressive 15% or greater year over year growth, the focus of most firms is in getting their clients on board and delivering on the promises they’ve made.  Over the last few months, I’ve had the opportunity to discuss the internal Go-To-Market functions with about 20 outsourcing provider firms.  A common challenge I’m seeing in these firms is that the maturity of the business is growing at a faster pace than the maturity of the marketing teams and sales operations – the Go-to-Market functions.

What’s interesting is that for the outsourcing firms – it’s almost counter intuitive to hire and in-source operations and services while they provide outsourced services to their clients.  Couple a lack of resources with a focus on delivering activities can be dangerous and is often be confused with delivering results. 

If you’re struggling with a lack of internal resources to deliver the go to market functions and most importantly – results that exceed the industry average – I recommend a simple formula.

Focus precious resources on the clients, prospects and events that will provide the greatest returns. 

While this sounds like a simple concept, I’m finding firms are struggling on the decisions to invest in areas that will deliver growth.  Poor spend decisions means missed opportunities to drive break-out growth.  Here are three areas to manage the go-to-market spend and drive break-out growth for resource strapped firms:

• Client Engagement:  I start with client engagement because the greatest growth opportunities are often embedded in the existing client base.  Don’t be fooled by the thrill of participating in more and more events or the jacked up adrenalin flow from a new client that will provide a 2% bump in revenues. 

Most outsourcing firms have at least an 80/20 rule with the majority of revenue coming from a few clients.  By focusing your efforts in targeting your top accounts, leveraging your leadership team for relationship building, gaining the confidence and trust of your clients, and spotting the untapped opportunities where you have the inside track to win can easily double client revenues in the short-term.  And retaining these same clients guarantees long-term success.

• Marketing Events:  There are hundreds of IT, industry, partner and other events to participate in.  Over-participating in events means that your resources are focused on the planning and delivering of an “event” – instead of the diligent targeting of prospects attending the event and disciplined outcomes to turn those targets to prospects, and prospects to customers. 

If you find your firm struggling with the resources to support an increasing number of events and becoming event planners rather than business generators, take a step back.  Build a lead generation and follow up process that is executable, determine which events will yield the greatest returns, and focus on quality vs. quantity.  Once you deliver a complete high quality business generation/event process and track the results, you’ll be better positioned to make decisions in the future in continuing to support those events or opting to use your precious resources elsewhere.  You’ll also begin to deliver real business rather than participate in a large volume of events.

• Prospect Acquisition:  I’m seeing more and more firms hire business development managers for prospecting and developing new clients.  This results in responding to an ever increasing number and volume of RFP’s.  While the RFP process can be a necessary evil to secure new business – pause to determine if you’re allocating your resources in places where you really have a chance to win new business. 

Ask three important questions.  Do you have a relationship with the business buyer beyond receiving the RFP?  Do you have a value proposition and capability that exceeds the competition?  Can you price and position to win?  If you can’t answer yes to at least 2 of these 3 questions – you’re probably going to spend a lot of time with little results…

I’m confident these ideas will lead the lean go-to-market firm to break-out growth.

At times, companies can lose sight of the value they gain from Advisory Councils, and for various reasons.  Be on guard—do not let yourself get discouraged to the point where you recommend discontinuing this strategic engagement tool.  Instead, consider an Advisory Council Makeover.

Time for a Reality Check

Assuming you conduct post-meeting surveys with both internal team and council members, what kind of feedback are you receiving? 

• Are your members still getting a high level of value from their invested time?
• Are your stakeholders still getting a high level of value from the insight gained?
• Are overall scores trending downward?  If so, for how long and by how much?

A Makeover is the best alternative, considering a small percentage of top accounts typically contribute the largest percentage of revenue in B2B companies.  They hold the heart of your business in their hands.  And, most of the research-based market insight you acquire is also available to every one of your competitors.  Making strategic decisions based on insight gained from your most important customers is too critical to give up! 

In Part 2 and following, we will address several areas that impact scores and your perception:

       Members:                              

• Overall experience
• Discussions
• Perception of your commitment
• Follow-up
• Willingness to partner further

       Internal Team:

• Pre-meeting preparation
• Overall experience
• Insight gained
• Application
• Between-meeting interaction