Know-How Exchange : Other

These kind of initiatives seem so reasonable on their face, but I always (sometimes with good reason) suspect that senior management has already decided that marketing just isn't worth the expense, and is looking for my help in adjusting the noose and the length of the rope.

The bottom line is always what makes any business activity "R" (relevant)-- so first I would look broadly, not SMARTly (not yet) at sales. Can you track sales back to specific marketing activities in any way, even if it's not specific? If after a cold, hard look, you're confident that your marketing activities do eventually lead to sales, then ask yourself (or them, if you trust them), does the sales department believe that your marketing efforts lead to sales? If they don't, then you are in trouble!

If you think it's worth fighting on, then you have to break down the sales cycle into small, but logically connected steps, and measure those. (Sales cycles differ in different industries and environments, so adjust for your circumstances.) For example, for the auto industry, even before brand awareness comes the customer need-- dying old car, or teen entering the market, or the Joneses have a new car. Then there's the consideration of multiple solutions -- fix the old one, or buy a used or new one. Then comes customer research into benefits, and here's where brand awareness slots in, and only then do the dealers start pushing price and convenience. All along the way, of course, word-of-mouth, thought leadership, positive sentiment in social media and post-purchase customer service are affecting people's consideration of various solutions.

In general, the way to measure something subjective is with baseline and post-event surveys and a scale. In other words, ask the customer/prospect base what brands they can think of, and then what they think of each brand (including yours).

One of the best is the Net Promoter Score, but there's also unaided Top of Mind Awareness ("When you think of plumbers, what names come to mind?"). You can also ask more specific questions about the subjective qualities that you think are important to the buying decision:

Which factors influence your decision? Select all that apply.
1. Thought leadership
2. Innovation
3. Reliability
4. Price
etc.
Now rank the brands in order in each of those categories.

That's rough but will give you an idea of how to construct the questions.

You can get more detailed:
For Thought Leadership, what influenced your choice of X brand?
White papers
Speakers at conferences
Blog mentions
Trade Magazine articles
Forrester Wave report (or other industry analysts)
etc.

Then you look for a trend - hopefully an upward rising line.

Surveys cost something, but these days with Surveymonkey and the like, not that much.

In the past when I've had to create an MBO for a subjective/creative deliverable, I've worded it like this:

"Deliver a detailed proposal for a new approach to increasing brand awareness by April 15. Proposal will include cost, rationale and specific next steps."

That meets the SMART criteria.

Another approach is to promise "at least two viable approaches to increase brand awareness by year-end, along with a plan to test/implement each of them."

Your objective is to deliver the proposal(s), not to guarantee that everything you do will work perfectly and/or be enthusiastically supported by the whole organization.

FWIW, in my case the MBO was accepted, I delivered, and -- as luck would have it -- the plan worked! (New product advertising was developed in time for an anticipated test market. And although the test market itself was delayed for other reasons, it eventually happened and the advertising worked extremely well. Product was a success, is now a blockbuster national brand in the US and Canada.)