TLC for the CFO

As B2B budgets tighten, CFOs are becoming more demanding. Show me the results! Justify the expense! What more can a CMO do? In a recent post at the Marketing Interactions blog, Ardath Albee offers some words of advice on producing the cold, hard facts that CFOs are desperate to see these days. Among her tips:

Define your KPIs. Before you launch your next B2B marketing effort, define what key performance indicators will measure your results. Example: "If one goal is to increase reach into prospect companies to create additional access points, then you should be able to show how much depth your campaign produced in the short term, and follow that up with the longer-term business impact."

Tie marketing outcomes to business priorities. Look at sales goals and clearly demonstrate how your marketing initiatives support them. Example: If you've increased contact depth at prospect companies, show how "salespeople are setting more meetings and demo requests are increasing."

The key is digging deeper to define specific results, and tying them in to the Big Picture. "It's not enough to say that your new marketing program generated 75% more clicks than your last one," Albee explains. "You've got to reach farther than that to demonstrate cause-and-effect that moves the business closer to defined goals."

The Po!nt: Nit-pick. Don't just summarize your B2B ROI, Albee says. It's time to dig down to the finest details to show what's really working, and why.

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