Oct
12
Written by:
Insights Account
10/12/2009 12:22 PM
By Eric Jones, R2integrated
In a recent meeting with the CFO of one of my clients, he stated, “I always thought marketing was just this thing that we did with all the best intentions in the world, but Eric you keep spouting off numbers to me about lead conversions, cost per lead, source statistics, and all sorts of useful information. Those are numbers I can relate too, thanks.” Well, you are welcome Mr. CFO, now can I get more budget for marketing projects?
It was refreshing to hear that as a marketer I was able to relate to the individual that controlled the budgets for our campaigns. So it sparked a question: What are marketing departments talking about when they pitch for the budgets? As we all know, general marketing spending is down the last couple of years. The economy is partially a factor, but I also think that people are still speculating on the notion of “build it and they will come”. Recent research indicates that Social Networks, which were originally conceived to be an inexpensive marketing tool, are actually only successful when serious dollars are allocated to it. Those dollars are in the form of personnel, promotion, research, content creation, and strategy. Using Social Networks for marketing should be treated no differently than any other campaign that you would launch.
Back to the original thought, what are marketing people saying about leads and conversions? With this particular client, a recruiting agency, we had the fortunate opportunity to be able to track and ultimate hiring of every individual to a specific lead source. We were then able to track the total number of leads back to dollars allocated/actual dollars spent. So I was able to discuss marketing successes and failures as it relates to pure numbers, which for the CFO and ultimately the board was refreshing and enlightening.
If you have a conversation with me, you will soon find that I love the numbers of marketing; page views, conversions rates, click thru rates, unique visitors, etc… I just get giddy. Mainly because it is a tangible item, which in marketing can be difficult. So I am challenging the marketing departments and the specialist and anyone that launches a campaign…. Know the numbers, understand the implications, go back and research and find out what happened and how you can do it better next time, and then present that to a CFO and see if he/she gets it. I guarantee that if they get it, the money for your next successful campaign will be much easier to ask for. If you can’t track those numbers, work with your tech and sales team to make sure that you figure out how to track it. Content may be king on the web, but numbers win in the board room.
As always – open to discuss this post or how we can help you with your next successful campaign.
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