This month we are hanging over the balcony with Acquia CMO Lynne Capozzi, who nominated “marketing can’t be measured” for the drop from the penthouse to splashdown into the portal to our special place in marketing hell for the all the snake oil, bullshit and bad advice that is peddled in our industry.
One of our favorite questions in our Backstage series, when we get to hang with some fabulous marketers, is to ask them what in marketing today they would throw from their hotel window into the Rockstar CMO Swimming pool, the portal to a special place in marketing hell from where we hope they will never return.
When we went backstage with Acquia CMO Lynne Capozzi, her pet marketing peeve was this:
“The old adage that marketing can’t be measured – it is so not true! Success and marketing can be measured, and should be on a consistent basis“
Sometimes there is some debate about what one marketer wants to throw away and what another wants to keep, but for the sake of our industry this one has to go.
Sure, there are some folks that style themselves in the Don Draper mould and feel that they can pull random acts of relevant, engaging, persuasive stories and content from the creative ether with little more prep than an Old-Fashioned and a nap, that the measurement of success lies in “doing great work”, the adulation of their peers and an invite to Cannes.
But, today, we live in a data age that not only informs our creative decisions but provides us with the insight that ensures that what we are doing is both relevant to our audience and is delivering against our business objectives.
This alignment with the business is essential, you can barely go a week without a story about the changing role of the CMO or that another brand has dropped the CMO role altogether. Growth is now the watch word and CMOs need to re-establish themselves at the top table as providing this.
The key for marketing to be relevant and listened to is measurement, not just any measurement, like the vanity metrics of hits, followers and likes, but the impact all of this is having on the metric the CEO cares about: Growth.
So.. yes, we will throw “marketing can’t be measured” into the Rockstar CMO Swimming pool, because if we don’t measure, I suspect it’ll the role of the CMO that will be next in there.
Ready to rock?
Fancy a chat about this? Or maybe we can help with our advisory services or get in touch!
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