I recently presented a new view of the future of marketing (Marketing 3.0) to a group of senior retail and CPG marketers.  In our dialogue, it became clear that all were extremely dissatisfied with their ability to measure the performance of their marketing efforts in a way that directly linked performance to customers.  The current processes that they have employed are not up to the task and do not provide the level of accountability they need.  They can not measure direct customer performance for either off or on-line channels and have no hope to link performance integrating on and off-line together at any level, let alone at the customer level.  In addition, most said that their CEO's were taking a more active role in managing expenditures and demanding greater accountability and optimization of the marketing efforts.  These marketing leaders expressed that they were unsure of how to quantify the marketing process in terms of real customers, and were worried about the effect of this accountability on their partner and resource relationships.

The heart of the solution to the CMO's new accountability dilemma is how they drive the integration of the processes of strategy and performance measurement.  It's a new way of thinking.  In the past, Strategy was up front and measurement at the end of the line.  To succeed, it must be integrated.  The link for integration is the customer....and the foundation of the solution is real, hard customer level data linking media, channels, touch-points, segments, brand, attitude and purchase behavior.  The result is a new set of customer measurements driven by Return On Customer (ROC)....how much effort and cost does the marketer invest acquiring and growing individual customers compared to the value generated in return for the marketer and for the customer.

The next post will dig deeper on ROC

As always, I welcome your comments and questions!