SAP’s SVP, Worldwide Marketing Regions Marcus Starke recently did an interview with B2B Marketing Insider on the future of marketing in which he predicts that the science of marketing will play a significant role as technologies enable companies to better analyse their data. And by science of marketing, he means technology and measurement.
According to Marketing Sherpa’s 2013 Benchmark Report, 65% of marketers have an average to significant amount of data gathered from analytics tools, but only 37% say they routinely and efficiently gain insight from their analytics. However, the majority of those surveyed said that they expected their investment in analytics to increase in 2013.
What are some of the trends we expect to see in 2013?
- Revenue-focused ad campaigns
Google recently launched a tool to help B2B marketers automatically measure ad program ROI across digital channels, and marketing automation software is continuously improving its users’ ability to tie their marketing efforts to the bottom line. It’s called the Cost Data Import tool, and according to Google it “allows Google Analytics users to import their cost data from any digital source - such as paid search providers, display providers, affiliates, email, social and even organic traffic.” - Better conversion rate optimisation
Blue Fountain Media heralded conversion rate optimisation as the “single most powerful way to increase your online marketing ROI,” and predicts dramatic adoption of optimisation processes for 2013. One example is A/B testing - a simple, data-driven way to measure the impact of minor changes to a slew of marketing variables - including email subject lines, landing page layouts, images and more. Low-cost tools like Optimizely and Visual Website Optimizer make it possible to test options without having to deal with any fancy coding or HTML, and marketing automation software provider Hubspot offers testing options build right into their email, landing page and call to action creation tools. - Marketers will look to more revenue-oriented KPIs
According over 1200 interviews conducted by The Fournaise Marketing Group during its 2012 Global Marketing Effectiveness Program, “80% of CEOs admit they do not really trust and are not very impressed by the work done by Marketers – while in comparison, 90% of the same CEOs do trust and value the opinion and work of CFOs and CIOs." They say this is because CMOs aren’t 100% ROI-focused like CFOs and CIOs - they’re concentrating on the wrong KPIs. While marketers have historically focused more heavily on engagement metrics than revenue metrics, this may be shifting as it becomes easier to measure the way interactions convert into dollars. The benefits are significant—more compelling data to harness C-suite support, an enhanced ability to manage marketing funnel activities proactively, and the ability to demonstrate the achievement of revenue goals.
There is now more technology available to execute measurable marketing programs than ever before. Marketers must prove their value by talking in revenue metrics and measuring their contribution to the overall achievement of the company's revenue goals.
