Return on investment (ROI) settles the score in marketing. If it’s high, the marketing department has hit a grand slam; if it’s low, the team struck out. Yet, many marketers don’t know how to cover their bases and track this metric. According to data by Fournaise Marketing Group, 90% of marketers aren’t trained in marketing performance and marketing ROI. In fact, 67% of marketers don’t believe that marketing ROI requires a financial outcome.
This lack of training can leave marketers stranded on base, especially when it comes to proving their worth. According to the Fournaise data, 80% of marketers struggle conveying the business effectiveness of their marketing spend, campaigns, and activities to their top management. In addition, 63% of marketers don’t include any financial outcome when reporting on or presenting marketing results to the CEO and top management.
As a result, marketers often track rookie metrics. For example, 64% of marketers say brand awareness is their top marketing ROI KPI and 58% of marketers say tweets, clicks, and/or click-through rates are among their top five. What’s more, some marketers still don’t know what ROI is. According to the data, about one third of marketers (31%) consider measuring audience reach as a way to determine marketing ROI.
So what causes marketers to have these out-of-left-field assumptions? One theory is that they haven’t had basic coaching. According to the Fournaise Marketing Group, 85% of marketers are well educated; however, more than half of them have degrees or diplomas in non-marketing-related fields. And it looks like these marketers are feeling the late-inning pressure. Seventy-nine percent of marketers who pursued other degrees have a hard time remembering the four Ps (product, place, price, and promotion) and the five Cs of marketing (company, collaborators, customers, competitors, and context or climate) in the right order. Yet, many marketers who do have marketing degrees still make minor league plays. For instance, 80% of all marketers surveyed were unable to create a profit-and-loss statement and balance sheet when given a business scenario.
But just because these marketers are down, that doesn’t mean they’re out. Like in any sport, marketers can improve their skills by practicing and learning from the pros. As Babe Ruth would say, “Never let the fear of striking out keep you from coming up to bat.”
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