Shifting the Marketing ROI Paradigm

Consider this situation: Many marketing stakeholders need to better understand marketing’s value. So far, marketing has not quite succeeded in providing these insights to them. Sales and Business Development still wonder why they shouldn’t do ‘marketing stuff’ themselves. The Board and Finance are only interested in P&L – profit & loss. This, of course, refers to the aforementioned departments that not only have a cost-budget, but also a revenue-budget. Putting it more bluntly: “no revenue-budget, no board attention” (other than the attention prompted by cost cutting motives…).

Ultimately, business is about the bottom-line, the numbers. It is about your company generating more revenue than the costs it incurs. This may explain why a department that doesn’t have more to show for than a cost-budget (as many marketing departments think they do), forces itself into the role of business support. This may be fine for some departments, but to get the most out of your marketing-euro,