Events News South Africa

Everything is measurable in marketing

One of the biggest myths in marketing is that advertising and public relations are not measurable. Marketing managers, ad agency execs and media owners who tell that to their clients should be fired - plain and simple.

Just looking at comments on the subject from some of the world's greatest marketers show that they all agree - everything in marketing is measurable.

The problem today of course, is that far too many marketers and people who really aren't marketers but have simply been dumped into the job, rush into ad and PR campaigns as well as all sorts of other marketing activities without actually thinking about what they are doing.

Generally all they are obsessed with is the BIG IDEA which, quite frankly has caused more marketing efforts to fail than succeed.

This knee-jerk rush into marketing is what caused 20 per cent of all advertising to fail and leads to South African business wasting R50 billion a year on ineffectual marketing.

Quite simply, marketing is all about measurement. Marketing done properly is nothing more than a pretty boring system of checks and balances to ensure that not only do various elements not conflict but that the outcome can be measured.

The only time marketing cannot be measured is when measurement tools are put in at the end and not the beginning.

That's like trying to work out the fuel consumption on your car when you haven't made a record of the mileage when you left or how much petrol you put in the tank.

All marketing can be measured if measurement tools are put in right at the start. It's not rocket science stuff just plain and simple logic.

About Chris Moerdyk

Apart from being a corporate marketing analyst, advisor and media commentator, Chris Moerdyk is a former chairman of Bizcommunity. He was head of strategic planning and public affairs for BMW South Africa and spent 16 years in the creative and client service departments of ad agencies, ending up as resident director of Lindsay Smithers-FCB in KwaZulu-Natal. Email Chris on moc.liamg@ckydreom and follow him on Twitter at @chrismoerdyk.
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