How to Craft a Winning Business Case for Your Marketing Initiative

Presenter: Pat LaPointe
Broadcast on Thursday, April 16, 2009
Duration: 90 minutes
Cost: $129

   

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You know you have great ideas for how to help the business. But you can’t prove they’ll work, and without absolute certainty, you can’t convince others that they are worth implementing. This seminar will help you answer the following key questions:

• How can I define the benefits of proposed actions in a more financially astute manner?
• How can I credibly assess risks and uncertain paybacks when I have so little data or history to work with?
• How do I build a business case that gets respect for its thoughtfulness and discipline, even if it doesn’t get funded?

This seminar will introduce you to a better approach for building business cases that even the finance department will respect — one that illuminates the real value in your proposals, while ensuring a comprehensive and conservative evaluation. And that will bring enhanced credibility to all your recommendations.

You Will Learn

• Why most business cases get rejected
• Six key ingredients of a strong business case
• The right time to get stakeholders involved
• A seven-step process for building a credible case
• How to weigh the impact of proposed spending changes

You will leave this seminar with a successful approach for building and communicating business cases for all of your marketing programs.

Who Should Attend

• Marketing managers who have proposals and ideas they need business cases for.
• Marketing executives who have to evaluate the merit of one proposal versus another.
• Finance managers who need to evaluate business cases from marketers.

About The Presenter

Pat LaPointe is the Managing Partner at MarketingNPV, a highly specialized consulting firm that builds marketing measurement processes, tools, and skills to determine the financial return from marketing investments. Pat directs the development of client solutions for CMOs in the areas of marketing metrics, dashboards, marketing ROI/analytical frameworks, and budgeting and resource allocation processes which measure the creation of economic and strategic value for both the short and long term.

He is the Editor-in-Chief of MarketingNPV Journal and author of the recent book, Marketing by the Dashboard Light: How to Get More Insight, Foresight, and Accountability from Your Marketing Investments, which has been recognized as a pioneering work on the topic of marketing dashboard development. Pat is a frequent keynote speaker for organizations like the Association of National Advertisers; the American Marketing Association; the Marketing Leadership Council; and Forrester’s Marketing Leadership Board. He is also a guest lecturer at Wharton, MIT, Dartmouth, Columbia, and other leading business schools.

Prior to launching MarketingNPV, Pat was an equity partner and senior vice president at Frequency Marketing Inc., a consulting and software company known for design and operation of large-scale customer retention and loyalty programs. Pat also directed the operation of a marketing and sales department at Bell Atlantic (now Verizon), creating and implementing customer acquisition and development programs for B2B in both SMB and enterprise markets. He started his career in advertising in the Y&R network and at Ketchum, where he managed large client portfolios in all aspects of marketing strategy and communications. Pat is an MBA graduate of Stern School at NYU and holds a B.Comm. from McGill University in Montreal.

What Participants Said

Of the participants who evaluated this seminar, 70% would recommend it to a colleague. Some of their comments:

"Pat has some good ideas on how to show how your business case proposed funds can directly and indirectly impact your business."

"This is the best quick explaination of how a normal business manager can show value to marketing without having a doctorate in finance. Very easy to understand."

"When we start our budget planning this summer, this would be a really intense way of determining whether or not we should go forward with proposed promotions."

"It would have helped to have a very specific case to go through."

"This got to be way over my head."

"I almost closed early in the Q&A since I couldn't hear the questions. Thank you, Megan, for stepping in!"

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