Laura Patterson

Brands identify the source or maker of a product. Based on what customers know about the brand, they can form reasonable expectations about its benefits. Companies believe that brands contribute to reducing risk by helping buyers avoid a purchasing mistake. It is also a widely held belief that brands are financially important to companies. For example, Carol J. Simon, Mary W. Sullivan in 1993 found that brand power is reflected in higher firm valuation. As a result, many organizations invest heavily in brand building initiatives.

Many researchers and practitioners have focused on ways to measure brands' performance. For example there have been studies that have examined brand awareness, associations, and loyalty as customer-based indicators of brand performance. And other studies that have linked financial outcomes such as price premium, revenue or market share to brand performance.



Some companies are beginning to use brand relevance, which...

Whether you are a marketing professional in a large or small organization, working in a B2B or B2C company, you are expected to demonstrate the value, impact and financial contribution of the marketing investments you make on behalf of your organization. Your leadership team wants to know how marketing is affecting the creation of new customers and the retention of and new business from existing customers.

A Forrester Research study, "Redefining B2B Marketing Measurement," found that "the metrics that most B2B marketers say they use -- like number of leads generated and cost per lead" -- rank in the lower half of the effectiveness list." In fact, cost per lead may...

You know in your gut this social media channel is working.  But you just can't put your finger on it.  Don't worry.  Here's how you start.

B-to-B Magazine's "2010 Outlook" revealed that social media marketing will be of rising importance for business-to-business (B2B) marketers. The study also found that website, e-mail and search spending were at the top of the list for online tactics to increase, but social media was not far behind. Six in 10 B2B marketers planned to increase spending on social in 2010.Today, success in the social channel is mainly measured through Web traffic, response rates, and qualified leads.

While these may be viable metrics, like any initiative, the metric and performance target should be tied to the business outcome you're addressing.  And...

A study by Prophet found that “as few as 19 percent of companies can consistently and accurately determine what they are getting - if anything - from untold millions in marketing spending."

It’s this kind of mystery that can affect the relationship between the CMO and the rest of the C-Suite.While most organizations realize marketing plays a critical role in the organization, the intangible nature of marketing contributes to the marketing ROI mystery.When organizations are looking for “silver bullets” to improve results and reduce costs, the marketing organization that avoids the discipline associated with accountability sits in the cross-hairs. And these CMO's might find themselves at the mercy of the C-Suite who typically take arbitrary actions such as cutting budgets or changing personnel to effect change.

Creating an accountability initiative is the first step to building a bridge between marketing and the rest of the organization. These four steps will help you...