Nike and iPod, a widget and a workout.

This widget let's you view my last 5 runs. I'm a little enamored with this whole Nike Plus thing. Being able to chart my running history and track myself against goals is really motivating. It's got me working out when I really don't feel like it. I think they're just scratching the surface of innovation here. I've read about Nike Plus linking up to other types of excercise equipment to monitor heart rates and calories burned, and they've got the wristband heart monitor. It starts with Nike Plus for running and innovation is going to find ways to report data on other types of exercise. I picture a soccer team reviewing charts of where they ran on the field to track positioning. I can't wait to see what's next.

9% of Marketers are doing their job. What?

I just reviewed the 2007 MARKETING ROI AND MEASUREMENTS STUDY
(Lenskold Group & MarketingProfs Benchmark Report).

In a survey of 759 respondents, when asked to rank their ability to measure the financial returns (ROI) generated across all forms of marketing, 9% of those surveyed as either “a source of real leadership” or “as good as it needs to be”.

WOW. That means 91% are struggling? What the...?

There are a couple of different ways you could look at these statistics.

• The 7% that are "As good as it needs to be" are probably in the most trouble if they get comfortable and cease to innovate. As one of my mentors would say - "If it ain't broke, break it."


• The 91% who suck at their job are making the 9% of us look better.


• The 51% who are "a long way from where it could be" are the ones with the biggest opportunity to make a difference. The farther off base your marketing programs are from where they should be, the more immediate impact and value your company will realize.


• The 40% group "somewhat short of where it could be" is the toughest group to be in. You are providing enough value and justification to keep your job, but you can never quite get around to closing the loop and being able to pull true ROI reports.

I would love to see the details broken down by industry to see the differences between product companies and service providers. With products you have reams of data and all that is required to generate ROI metrics is some common sense and leveraging technology.

In the services business however, sales data is put into the system by busy salespeople who aren't terribly concerned about some of the detailed info that would help a marketer achieve marketing ROI reporting capability. It is an ongoing challenge and something I grapple with daily. Some days I feel like my marketing programs are "a source of real leadership" and other days I fear that we're in with the dreaded 40% group. I don't think you would ever hear me say a marketing effort was "as good as it needs to be". It always needs to be better.

How would you categorize your ability to measure ROI across your entire marketing organization?

Matching Socks and Big Consequences

I had an epiphany today that made me think about how I manage my daily life, which made me think about how I manage my Services Marketing efforts and my day-to-day business.

This morning as I pulled my multitude of individual socks out of the dryer and began sorting them I had the hardest time. I could not seem to distinguish my navy blue socks from faded black ones of the same length and style. I put them right under the light and...they looked kind of the same, but kind of different, I just really couldn't tell. I don't know if it's my lights or my eyes, but this has ALWAYS been a struggle for me. What if I paired them up wrong? Would that send me into a tailspin of mismatches that I would discover throughout the week? I must have tried in vain for 10 frustrating minutes to work out a particular combination of 3 pairs of black and navy blue socks and it was driving me crazy. Then it hit me.

If you look and can't tell the difference between faded black socks and navy blue ones, then no one else can tell either. NO ONE IS GOING TO NOTICE! And if no one is going to notice, then it doesn't matter what you choose. Who cares if all the faded black socks are paired up with a navy blue sock. Unless they are on the floor looking at my feet with a halogen light, no one will ever, ever the 1/4 shade color difference between my socks. WOW. I am free of the burden! Free to put my socks together and forget about it. I'm going to save a lot of time from now on. If you can't tell the difference, then it doesn't matter what you choose. I wonder what else I usually wrestle with that wastes time and causes uncalled-for anxiety, that no one else will notice.

In Marketing, often I can remember viewing our brand color printed on matted paper versus glossy, and trying to decide if the custom color we created was an exact match or not. Usually I would think...it "mostly" looks like a match. Resulting in "I can't really tell". Kind of like when the eye doctor says "is it more clear here...or here...A...or B...1...or 2..." and despite my best efforts, the look equally clear, despite being different, and I can't tell which one is better.

• Things like - on the brochure, which image should we use - the one guy facing left, or the other where he's facing right.
• Or particularly in writing - trying to decide between wording a call-to-action one way or another way.
• Deciding between 2 different styles of brochure template designs.
• Deciding between 2 choices for background music to use on your on-hold music.
• Company logo'd pens - which color?
• What style of logo'd company shirts to order.

Now - before you write off this blog posting as me having a flashback from "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff", let me throw you for a loop. Often the smallest decisions I make every day as a Marketer have the biggest impact. Sometimes the small decisions made poorly can be a huge detriment to an event, a campaign or to your brand. Buying Marketing promotional products that don't fit the occasion or move the campaign forward is one of the huge mistakes MOST average marketers make all the time.

WHAT? How could I say that? I just said if you can't tell the difference, then it doesn't matter. Now I'm saying small things have the biggest impact.

That's right. Last year I had a seemingly small decision to make about our booth location at a very large corporate launch event in a city we were launching an office in. I weighed all my options and made a call to request a unique booth position rather than have our booth get lost in the pack. As a result, everyone that came into the tradeshow saw our booth, positioned next to the large software partner who threw the event. We had invested in an integrated marketing campaign and we wanted to get noticed. The partner's employees wondered how we were able to become so prominent for being new to the city. There was a fundamentally different outcome as a result of our booth placement. Our campaign materials were passed up the ladder through our partner's organization. We saw strong customer response from those who stopped by our booth, and ultimately won a major yearly Marketing Excellence award for the overall campaign.

Sometimes choosing a booth location is a tactical thing. A booth is a booth. But given the circumstances, this was a small decision in the middle of a strategic opportunity for us and this small thing was a big thing. Not to restate an entry from "Small is the New Big" (Seth Godin) - but I find myself repeating this everyday. Small things are big things. And while it's not the most technically correct phrase...it's my phrase and I'm going to keep saying it.

So here is my postulation (love using that word) -

There are fundamental differences between tactical marketing choices that don't matter, and tactical choices that matter critically. Being able to tell the difference between the two, is the biggest differentiator among marketing professionals.

Do you agree? Disagree? What was a small decision that turned out to be big for you? What about a big decision that didn't really matter? Or do you see Marketing activities as being uniquely strategic or tactical?