Measuring results
The current economic climate and a consequent desire to reduce costs have focused firms' attention on the return that they derive from their marketing like never before. Finding ways to measure return on marketing investment (ROMI) is probably the hottest topic in town.
For too long, marketers in PSFs have gotten away with justifying their existence based on 'woolly' measures of success: "it's improved our profile"; "lots of people turned up to the seminar"; or, my favourite, "we generated X square inches of coverage from this PR initiative equivalent to £Y of free advertising", the old AVE (Advertising Value Equivalency) argument.
Firms need to be much more focused on those marketing and BD activities which directly generate fees. For starters, only undertake those relationship marketing activities which are proven to be the most effective for lead generation, including writing articles, speaking at seminars and conferences, publishing thought leadership reports and technical updates, and networking at industry events. Of course, all of these need to be followed up with an effective sales effort to be successful.
Firms need to put a range of metrics in place to measure the results of their marketing including: client satisfaction scores; proposals success rates; awareness levels among decision-makers; etc. In addition, ROMI should be measured using the formula [(Value of New Work - Investment) / Investment] x 100, where 'Investment' is both the cash and time invested in the marketing/BD activity.
How we can help
At Wheeler Associates, we provide a range of services to help firms to measure the results of their marketing, including:
- Helping firms to identify those marketing and BD activities which are best at generating fees
- Establishing appropriate marketing metrics for a firm, along with systems for measuring these
- Auditing firms' ROMI and benchmarking against competitor firms