Mobium national survey finds most B-to-B marketers don’t track their total program’s sales results to justify marketing budgets

2003-09-09

In one of the most extensive industry surveys conducted on the subject, Mobium Creative Group found that only 28% of business marketers measure program effectiveness by measuring “most of their communications tactics” and of that, only 37% track sales as a measure of success when determining the ROI of a marketing program. Surveys were sent out nationwide to the members of the following marketing organizations: Business Marketing Association, Association of National Advertisers, AAAA, American Business Media, Institute for Studies of Business Marketing, American Advertising Federation.

Business marketers report several different tactical measurement techniques, with web visits/email responses, survey research, lead-tracking databases and versioned communications leading the way. 44% even reported their measurements included anecdote gathering from the sales force. But less than half even link tactics to specific dollar results. The survey was conducted with client, agency and media side populations with the support of B2B Works.

“Until we stop kidding ourselves that click-throughs, awareness spikes and average response rates are ROI, we, as an industry, are on the way to budget oblivion. True ROI is one thing and one thing only. It is the ability to go to the boardroom where all the people who speak the language of money reside and say, ‘You gave us X marketing communications dollars and because of our efforts it has earned Y in incremental, immediate income flows back to the company and Z in accrued brand assets.’,” says Gordon Hochhalter, partner, Mobium Creative Group. “And as an industry, it still doesn’t look like we’re very close to measuring that kind of true ROI.”

“The best kind of measurement unambiguously links marketing communications to the hard sales numbers. To make these links, we encourage business marketers to go beyond just measuring things like awareness and preference (cited by 51%) and start looking at how their customers/prospects act on those perceptions,” says Guy Gangi, Partner, Mobium Creative group. “In that regard, what’s really sad is the fact that in the ‘age of branding’ only 35% measure brand associations let alone how those associations relate to purchase criteria and behavior,” he adds.

Complete results of this and other surveys can be found at: http://www.mobium.com/community/surveys/current_survey.asp

Marketing Out Loud: The Mobium Online Marketing Survey

Mobium Creative Group conducts bimonthly marketing surveys on topics that address grassroots issues important to business-to-business (b-to-b) branding, advertising and marketing professionals. Surveys are conducted thorough the Mobium website, which contains one of the industry’s largest aggregations of marketing and branding data.

About Mobium Creative Group

Mobium Creative Group is a full-service, integrated business branding and communications firm specializing in business-to-business integrated communications, branding, relationship marketing, interactive media, and information architecture.  Clientele include MeadWestvaco Corporation (MWV), NEC-Mitsubishi, Motorola GTSS (MOT), CNH Global (CNH), NovaMed Eyecare Inc. (NOVA), Farm Progress Companies, Tellabs, and Ondeo Nalco Company.

In January of 2002, Mobium launched its new Web site which is an interactive book that helps business marketers, communicators, brand builders and change agents, as well as its own employees, better define revolutionary paradigm shifts and explore ways to take advantage of them.

The company has been named Agency of the Year for 2003 by the Business Marketing Association and recognized as one of the top three business-to-business agencies of its size in the country by Crain Communications’ BtoB magazine.