How well is marketing working for you? Can you know for sure?
This question has troubled many marketers since marketing emerged as a specialized field in the 19th century. And it continues to do so today.
In early days of evolution, marketing was largely based on thumb rules, with very little or no information gathering and analysis. Little attention must have been paid to practices that are in use today, such as understanding customer behavior and market trends.
Over the years, however, this has changed. Specific marketing objectives, not limited to only sales growth, have been identified and are collectively known as business development. And the advancement in information technology and the emergence of new media platforms is making marketing increasingly measurable.
Does that mean all marketers today know how well their marketing efforts are working?
I would say most do not. Most marketers put little effort in market intelligence and customer engagement, especially when business is booming. And when there is a slowdown, many just stop marketing completely. I say not because it is worthless to spend on marketing in a slowdown, but because they don’t know how or what of marketing helps in a slowdown. Studies have shown that companies that continue some marketing efforts during a slowdown, have better chances of a quick recovery in the turnaround.
You go to the west, especially United States, and you will find marketers spending considerable efforts on market research, gathering consumer insights and ‘marketing analytics’.
Marketing analytics is fast becoming integral to marketing planning and management in today’s information driven business environment. However, opinions differ as there are those who argue that marketing analytics applies mathematics to understand human behavior, which can’t be accurate.
So what is marketing analytics?
Simply put, it is a system of understanding what you are doing and how well you are doing it.
The origins of marketing analytics can be traced to Web Analytics. Tools such as Google Analytics help track usage of a company’s website such as which pages are visited, how much time is spent on the site etc. Other tools track performance of online marketing such as email or banner campaigns with statistics on how many mails are opened, click through rates, etc.
Google captures a huge amount of data on how users use their search engine. They developed tools to give them various behavioral statistics about their users such as which content was most searched for, where are majority of their users located, what are the most popular search terms and so on. This helps them optimize their advertising revenue. It has worked for them, proof is in the fact that Google continues to grow and even pay heavy employee bonuses while the world struggles to get back on its feet.
These technologies and underlying theories are now being implemented across the board for marketers to understand overall marketing effectiveness. What marketing activities are working? Which markets are they working in? What is your product’s perceived value? Is it priced appropriately? Are you targeting the right market segments? Are you spending too much or too less? These are some of the questions that marketing analytics can answer. And these are important questions that businesses need to ask themselves from time to time.
How do you go about answering them?
Marketing often becomes challenging for businesses, especially small businesses, to understand and evaluate in entirety. Many businesses are happy to know if sales grew after an advertising or promotion campaign. There is little or no information to evaluate the underlying marketing strategies and plans.
This is changing as technology firms now offer a range of marketing analytics technologies to decipher market data. Relevant solutions can be identified depending on your business requirement.
Then there are consulting firms that are developing analytical services. For instance, Clearwater Consulting is working on developing models that can evaluate performance of activities for lead generation and advertising and further to evaluate return on marketing investment. Many marketers are and will be looking at ways to understand crucial long term implications on identity and lifespan of a brand.
Marketing analytics can give a holistic picture for sustainability of your brand and business development; however, what to read is always up to the marketer!
