The best way to approach decision making re: marketing planning and investments?

The Harvard Business Review blog recently asked this question relative to assessing a CMO candidate’s technology and analytical “IQ” in addition to marketing savvy.

Decision making in an ideal world is based on facts / data points and insights aligned with clearly stated and measurable business objectives: Revenue targets, share of market gains, and new product / service launches come to mind.

A blinding-glimpse-of-the-obvious is to avoid marketing initiatives in support of an inferior products or bad idea.  I’ve seen way too many fancy graphs and marketing hypotheses in support of a selling proposition that made no sense at all, but no one wanted to speak up and just say “I really don’t get this.”

"What's fun about a building that turns into a robot?"

Well-defined business and marketing objectives are measurable and quantifiable. Duh. But how many times have we sat in meetings when senior management said “we simply need to grow our market share and top-line revenues…”

Sound objectives should have a time frame, often stated by quarter or by year. They should also be attainable – in the context of your offering, sales / distribution / service organization and considering current and future competition. Globalization and fast emerging technologies have thrown a wrench in this area.

Avoid well intended graphs that make no sense.

Both objectives and investment should be measured on marketing metrics that makes sense: B2B situations might dictate cost-per-inquiry / cost-per-qualified lead / customer acquisition cost (CAC) and even calculations for estimated lifetime value so more profitable segments can be identified and targeted.

Well designed marketing dashboards that  attribute the above metrics to a marketing channel / promotional venue  can inform spending decisions in the context of optimization models – that direct spend to the most efficient and effective marketing initiatives, helping increase return on investment.

I learned an old axiom in the world of direct mail marketing that is more relevant than ever in today’s data-driven world. This is Test -> Learn -> Apply. Take the classic champion-challenger approach to as many marketing variables as possible: challenging convention, testing new offers, trying different targets using different ad media, promotional and engagement channels.

This leads to an environment of accountability, and the willingness and ability to try new things, and learn from them even if they fail. This will help reduce the opportunity cost of trying nothing new at all to avoid looking bad. This behavior is a paralysis that grips many large and small companies alike, and limits their ability to find a path to long-term profitable growth.