Want marketing on the board agenda? Bring the right numbers.
The marketing report looks good. Website traffic is up. LinkedIn engagement has improved. The webinar was well attended, and the newsletter open rate is comfortably ahead of last month. So… what does that mean for the business?
Of course I’m going to say marketing should have a seat at the board table… but hear me out! Done properly, it drives commercial decisions: which customers to target, what to offer them, how to price it and where growth will come from.
The problem is that too many businesses see marketing as comms alone. And, frankly, we don’t help ourselves when we report on it that way. If all we talk about is campaigns, clicks and content, we’re giving the board a very narrow view of what marketing contributes.
Our reporting needs to connect the work to the commercial decisions behind it, and show whether it’s delivering what the business needs.
A bigger number isn’t necessarily a better result
Digital marketing means we can measure pretty much anything… but there’s a real possibility that has just confused measurable with meaningful!
Take leads… a campaign generates 200 enquiries instead of 100. Success?
Possibly. But what if most are from businesses you can’t profitably serve? What if your team then spends weeks qualifying them and only two become clients? What if a smaller, more focused campaign brought in ten clients who stayed for years?
The lead count alone won’t tell you which is the most successful. That’s why numbers on their own aren’t always useful.
Start with how the business makes money
This is embarrassingly obvious… but I wonder how confidently could your marketing team explain which clients are most profitable, what it costs to acquire them, or how long it takes to recover that cost?
These are the questions that need to shape your plan.
Build a report that helps… really helps
This is where it gets tricky, there isn’t a universal set of five marketing metrics that every board should have. The right measures depend on the objectives.
If the priority is profitable acquisition, you’ll need to look at the cost of winning customers with the margin they generate and the time it takes to recover that investment. If it’s growth in one segment, you’ll need to track qualified opportunities, conversion and revenue from that market. If retention is the problem, you’ll need to understand who leaves, why, and what income is at risk.
You get the picture – ultimately you need to tie up your marketing with your business commercials. And know that Marketing won’t control all of the outcomes. Sales, service, finance etc all matter. That’s why it’s always best to look at reporting, actions and ownership together.
Know the so what!
As well as numbers you need a so what, a recommendation… the next step. If enquiries are rising but conversion is falling, what does that tell you? Are you attracting the wrong people? Is the proposition unclear? Is follow-up too slow?
A board report should tell the business what’s happening, what that means commercially and what the options are. A page of green arrows doesn’t do that!
Don’t forget the long-term investment in brand
There’s a trap here. When we talk about commercial accountability, very quickly everyone wants to see every piece of marketing generating an immediate roi.
But we all know it doesn’t work like that… people don’t move neatly through a funnel just because you drew it on a slide. They might hear you speak, read an article, see a post, check out a competitor, get distracted and come back six months later following a recommendation. By the time they become an enquiry, plenty of things could have influenced their decision.
The point is much of the ‘sales work’ happens way before anyone is looking to buy. So, if you only invest in activation marketing you’re expecting someone to choose you as you’re introducing yourself.
There’s commercial evidence for taking a longer view. In The Long and the Short of It, Les Binet and Peter Field analysed advertising effectiveness and found that combining long-term brand building with short-term sales activation delivered stronger business results over time. Have a read… essentially if you judge everything on its immediate response you risk shifting money away from the very activity that supports future growth.
Boards are not going to stop asking what they’re getting for their money, nor should they. But you can’t sign off a plan to build the brand and then declare it a waste of money because the phone hasn’t rung by Friday.
Give the board something to work with
Of course marketing belongs at the board table. But if we want the business to see beyond campaigns, clicks and content, we need to show what our work means for the business. Next time you’re pulling that report together, start there.
Karen Quinn, Co-founder, Untamed Consulting
