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Outsider Insights | You Can't Measure AI ROI If You Can't Measure Marketing ROI
Outsider Insights
Across Chief Outsiders, we talk to hundreds of CEOs every month. In this series, we explore the trends and challenges we’re hearing from these discussions – and what you can do if you’re facing the same issues in your business.
CEOs, Are You Confident in Your Marketing Team’s Ability to Drive Growth?
Mon, Sep 17, 2018 — While most mid-sized companies have invested in dedicated, in-house marketing teams, many executives are not pleased with the return on investment. A survey conducted by The Fournaise Marketing Group revealed that 73 percent of CEOs believe their marketing team is not capable of generating enough growth. An astonishing 80 percent of the CEOs polled don’t trust their marketing teams. There is widespread concern that the marketing function is unable to deliver a positive ROI for the department’s spending. CEOs also doubt marketing’s ability to use data to make informed decisions. You may have some of the same concerns for your marketing organization. Much has changed in marketing over the last several years, but its core purpose has stayed the same. The American Marketing Association defines marketing as the “activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” Despite the challenges of an ambiguous and rapidly evolving business landscape, marketers must drive growth and prove their value to their company. This can be accomplished by focusing on marketing’s core responsibility: delivering value to customers and stakeholders.
Profitable, Recurring Revenue Streams – Part 4
Tue, Aug 15, 2017 — Transitioning Your Business Model to Grow Your Business-as-a-Service More and more companies are realizing that transitioning their businesses to as-a-Service models is the answer to driving higher growth, more profitable, and stable revenue streams. Welcome to the fourth and final part of this series: In Part 1 of this series, you learned how to know if it's time to think about embracing an as-a-Service model In Part 2 we dove deeper into what an as-a-Service model is and discovered how ready your company is to transition to one In Part 3 we touched on how to define strategic goals, position, and create a go-to-market plan that is most relevant to an as-a-Service offering. If you haven’t read the previous parts, you might want to take a quick look before returning here. In this installment, we will discuss the key metrics to track and capabilities to nurture to ensure you execute this transition successfully – along with a few tips and tricks I have learned (often the hard way) over the years.
Profitable, Recurring Revenue Streams - Part 2
Fri, Jul 7, 2017 — Transitioning Your Business Model to Grow Your Business-as-a-Service More and more companies are realizing that transitioning their business to an as-a-Service model is the answer to driving higher growth and more profitable and stable revenue streams. In Part 1 of this article series, you learned how to know if it's time to think about embracing an as-a-Service model.
Driving Toward the Long Game: Is your Business Geared for Lasting Success?
Fri, Jun 9, 2017 — In business, the road to financial success, it can be agreed, isn’t always paved in gold. Whether pocked with potholes, laden with land mines, or strewn with stones, the goal isn’t just to keep all four tires on the highway – instead, it’s to ensure you arrive at the destination. One question that you must continually ask yourself along the way – is your business built to go the distance? Understanding whether you’re playing the long game, or the short game, in business can be the key to weathering the road hazards beneath you, or the storms above.
The CMO is Dead
Wed, Jun 7, 2017 — Long Live the CMO (as a Service)! We all know that the Chief Marketing Office (CMO) role has been under increasing pressure. Average tenures are short (and getting shorter) as CEOs more quickly become impatient when their organizations are not able to achieve their visions for growth. In this era of digital marketing, CMOs are no longer ‘off the hook’ for producing real, measurable results.
Forging a Solid Go to Market Plan – Without the Assumptions
Wed, Sep 14, 2016 — Business owners and entrepreneurs live in a constant state of observation. Equal parts tenacious and curious, they never stop watching, listening, and comparing their product and service offerings to the competition. They ask themselves daily, hourly: “Is the competitor’s product better?” and “Am I really putting an impactful marketing message out there?”-- often secretly wondering if they truly know the answer.
Attention, Company Founders: Keys to Avoiding Colossal Marketing Flops
Mon, Jul 25, 2016 — They’re some of the worst American marketing flops of all time: Smith & Wesson Mountain Bikes, Cosmopolitan Yogurt, and Coors Rocky Mountain Water. These three powerhouses are some of the most well-known brands on the planet – and yet they still hit the skids when their seemingly unique and interesting idea failed to meet customer expectations and gain traction in the market.
Marketing Budget: How much should a CEO spend?
Wed, Jul 17, 2013 — How much sould a CEO spend on a marketing budget? Whether or not it is the first question asked, it is usually one of the first questions a CEO thinks about when discussing his or her marketing efforts: how much should I spend on a marketing budget? Well, the average company spent 10.4% of its revenue on marketing in 2012. And according to Gartner, that marketing budget is scheduled to go up by 6% in 2013. Now this includes salaries of the marketing people, but it doesn’t include things like software licenses or servers for the data. And this spend widely varies for the types of companies from IT at 3.5% to over 12% for media companies.
3 Ways to Drive Innovation – a CEO’s Perspective
Sun, Dec 16, 2012 — What makes some companies more successful than others? And what role does innovation play in this? I have always been fascinated by this topic, especially if the business is facing a turn-around situation.