Factfile 48
What role does ROMI play?
The pressure is on budgets of every kind. However, despite the fact that we are living in the age of the customer there is a distinct feeling at boardroom level that finance directors have clear precedence over marketing directors.
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Every week the average person is exposed to over 1,000 marketing messages from a range of media, TV, newspapers, radio. outdoor, for example. In practical terms this means that the marketing budget must now be called the communication budget because it extends far beyond broadcast advertising and must now include web sites, call centres, face-to-face sales and direct mail for example.
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As such it is subject to the same level of scrutiny as every other investment. At least this is true in those companies where the marketing budget is seen as an investment and not merely a cost. The onus is on the marketing department (and their advisors) to justify substantial levels of spend.
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This is a crucial matter at a time when marketers would dearly love to be increasing budgets to land messages more accurately on particular customers and support sales-forces.
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It is no longer enough to look narrowly at the success of an event or mailshot. It is now well established that the customer's view of a product or service is built up of all the opportunities that the customer has to interact with the brand. Collecting together evidence of all these interactions and tracking them to eventual sales is no trivial task - particularly the more people that are involved in complex b2b sales processes.