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Key Marketing Metrics?
Posted By: rennerg* on 5/12/2005 11:21 PM (CST) 250 Points
I am going to evaluate a national business that has been operating for 40 years. In assessing the current status of the business, what are the key fundamental marketing metrics needed to be measured?

What are they key metrics to watch on an ongoing basis?

Posted by: ambrose* Accepted Answer
5/13/2005 2:01 AM (CST)
Depending on the nature of the business, the branding and positioning of the company and its products must be measured. If this company has been around for 40 years, I'm assuming that many people have heard of its business and products.

For example;
1) What do people think of when they see your ad? Reliability? Responsibility? Quality? Value?
2) If you have a tag line, can consumers remember it?
3) What's the first product / service that comes to mind when the company is mentioned?
4) How differently do the youth think of your company compared to the older folks?

If the above research is conducted and you get drasatically varied answers and responses, it means there is no consistency and the marketing team has not done too good a job. It also reflects what people think versus what the company is trying to achieve. Both should be somewhat close.

In a nutshell, this is where I think you should start to access the marketing metrics of the business.
 
Posted by: mgoodman Accepted Answer
5/14/2005 9:46 PM (CST)
Key metrics:

1. Unaided and aided awareness of the brand/company.
2. Playback of the positioning statement.
3. Market share, sales trends, geographic/regional strengths (and reasons for same, if possible)
4. Specific measures for each marketing mix element -- packaging, promotion, advertising, publicity, pricing, product line, sales/distribution
5. Total marketing spending ... current and recent past
6. Sales force/distribution network performance ... in the absolute and compared to competition

That's a good start. I suspect there are a few more.
 
Posted by: DWomack Accepted Answer
5/18/2005 5:01 PM (CST)
Hi rennerg.

Consider focusing on measures that you can tie directly or closely to the bottom line. ROI and cusotmer LTV are good starts (I think you'll find many artilces here and other places to help with these).

While I believe strongly in the value of brand and tracking some of the brand/advertising measures (awareness, association with brand, etc.), I think marketers need to more frequenlty combine these with metrics that track closely to production.

Loyalty would be another possibility--especially if you can compare to your client's competitors. Loyalty is also covered in detail elsewhere, but key measures should be both attitudinal and behavioral. Attitudinal should include things such as reported likelihood to do repeat business and likelihood to recommend to a friend. Behavior measures might include incidence of repeat customers and cross sell activity.

Good luck,

Dan
 
Posted by: solut Accepted Answer
5/21/2005 10:24 AM (CST)
To the other metrics mentioned, I would add an accounting of awareness, trial, usage and loyalty of the firm's products.

Is the primary objective to build awareness, encourage trial, re-patriate past users, turn around trial rejecters, increase usage or enhance loyalty? With whom?

The answers to these questions are a critical first step to setting your marketing strategy.
 
Posted by: NoStressXpress Accepted Answer
5/27/2005 12:04 PM (CST)
I believe that none of the experts can adequately answer your question unless you reveal to us what the purpose of the evaluation is and what the evaluation criterias are. This probably sounds too simplistic but there are literally hundreds of ways that a business can be evaluated. The critical elements that are needed are the evaluation criteria and the types of performance data that the business maintains in its database.

Once you have identified the evaluation criterias and the grading system you are going to employ then you will, in the process of doing this, essentially identify the key metrics. Then it will just be a matter of sifting through the pertinent empirical data that you need to construct and support your evaluation. You will discover that not ALL of these key metrics have anything to do with marketing.

I hope this makes sense and helps.

Conrad

Conrad
 
Posted by: Mushfique Manzoor Accepted Answer
5/28/2005 3:22 AM (CST)
hi rennerg

great response from the experts.

developing the metrics for evaluating the marketing of a 40 yr company depends on the nature of the business of the company. you have given almost no information on the nature of business. metric for a FMCG company will vary significantly from a Industrial product producing company. pls provide us more information on the nature of your business and share with us your matrix.

anyway, IMHO, the following factors needs to be considered in developing the marketing matrix

1. market position of brands in segemts
2. brand recall by consumers/ customers
3. historical market share and trends
4. brand awareness (aided and unaided)
5. Historical sales trends
6. comparative performance measurement of each marketing element (the 4Ps) i.e. product positiong, packaging, promotion against competition etc.
7. distribution network parameters and performance trends.
8. consumer loyalty
9. current status of Brand/Product Life Cycle

hope this helps.

cheers!!
 
Posted by: carrie77 Moderator Response
5/28/2005 3:05 PM (CST)
Hello all. I am closing this question since it's more than 2 weeks old. We do this to reward the contributions of participants in a timely manner + to give increased visibility to the newer questions.

Thanks for participating!
Carrie (Production Editor)
 


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