Question

Topic: Research/Metrics

Marketing Trends Reporting

Posted by Anonymous on 11/16/2009 at 3:39 PM ET 250 Points
I was asked to create a monthly marketing trends report to present to senior management. Not exactly sure where to start...

We use SalesForce.com as a CRM and HubSpot for web analytics. What reports should I run, where can I find trends? I know that trends are specific to my company, just not sure what is the first step to identifying them.

Appreciate any help you can provide!
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RESPONSES

  • Posted on 11/16/2009 at 7:12 PM Moderator
    What are the metrics for success in marketing in your company? Those are the things you should be reporting.
  • Posted by SteveByrneMarketing on 11/16/2009 at 8:04 PM Member
    I agree with Michael. And will add, it seems "senior management" asked you for a report when, if they were really all that senior, they should have asked you to create a plan, there is a difference.

    Steve
  • Posted by BizConsult on 11/17/2009 at 12:11 AM Accepted
    Without more clarification, I'd start with the following levels of reporting:

    Marketing Spending (by medium, campaign, messaging focus, target, etc. as pertinent).

    Marketing returns (awareness, engagement, purchase intent and behavior, etc. as demonstrated/measured in marketing research, through website metrics, sales, other contact points, etc.).

    Look at metrics versus goals, incoming trends and/or year ago. Look at market share and your company's cost-pers (lead, visitor, shopper, buyer, sales $ and the like) and how they're changing over time. Don't do it in a vacuum though -- compare to competition/industry data, as available, to determine share/relative trend status.

    If you can provide more direction as to what your objectives are, the industry you're in, what/how you sell, how you market, and so on, we can be of more assistance!

    -Steve Udell
  • Posted by koen.h.pauwels on 11/17/2009 at 11:24 AM Accepted
    Agreed with Michael - and with Steve: in my experience, the best way is the 'tailored' approach of measuring what is relevant to your company and its strategy. In the absence of that information though (and many marketing departments are (left) in the dark), Steve's metrics are a great start. A good discussion of what to track and on the benefits of the tailored versus the 'general' approach are in recent books such as:

    Tim Ambler (2003) Marketing and the Bottom Line
    Pat Lapointe (2005) Marketing by the Dashboard Light
  • Posted by Chris Blackman on 11/21/2009 at 7:54 PM Accepted
    You need to look through the corporate strategic plan to understand what KPIs were set for marketing, then report on those and on how your organisation's performance varies over time with respect to those.

    If there are no marketing KPIs in the organisational plan, ask for the marketing plan,.

    If there is no written marketing plan, that's the first thing you should report!
  • Posted by steven.alker on 11/26/2009 at 11:10 AM Member
    Dear Christina

    I’m afraid that I missed this when the question was live - as the subject areas are our specialities and there are some gold standards which are worth looking at, please feel free to drop me an email if you'd like some specifics.

    We work on the basis that with CRM systems and Reporting or Analytics, particularly in Forecasting that there is nothing worth demonstrating until we've worked out a reason why a company should do it and problem is solves or what pain it salves!

    That applies to internal reporting and will save you a lot of time and no small amount of grief if you follow these guidelines. Remember - once you start reporting something, you can't un-report it (Genies and bottles) and if the value of a report isn't immediately obvious to management, then you have to prepare them for the value it contains otherwise they will miss it!

    Steve Alker
    Xspirt
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