Synchronising Marketing Performance Measurement Indicators with Corporate Strategy: A Conceptual Framework

Abstract

In todays tumultuous corporate setting, it is of paramount importance to charter the intangible domain of customer value and thereby measure the impact of marketing on holistic growth, profit, and shareholders wealth. Archetypally, non-marketing executives still perceive that marketing exists solely with the object of facilitating sales, or that it is less of a science and more of an art that throws parties and churns out color brochures. Marketing activities are deemed as black holes, which apparently do not seem to proffer any systematic method of fund allocation, thereby enabling the tracking of returns from marketing investment leading to thriving business performance. The concept of marketing performance measurement indicators (MPMIs) is nothing but a response to cope with this crisis of credibility, thus enabling the successful returns from marketing initiatives. Soft marketing metrics like brand awareness, GRP, impressions, organic search rankings and reach are indubitably relevant, but only to the extent that they quantifiably connect to hard metrics like pipeline, revenue, and profit. We shall in this critique, identify five stages which highlight the impact of marketing investment metrics on sales potential. We also propose the use of a Consolidated Marketing Scorecard (CMS), akin to the concept of a balanced scorecard, as used in other functional domains such as operations and manufacturing. This consolidated marketing scorecard furnishes a measurement apparatus, with a comprehensive view of data tracked among decentralized, multi-channel marketing programmes. It would involve a harmonious concoction of the metrics to stimulate business efficiency. We have also developed a conceptual framework that correlates the impact of MPMIs on organizational upshots. Once the marketing metrics deliver results, the key lies in how the top management capitalizes on them and formulates versatile strategic decisions for organizational performance, profitability and credibility.

Keywords: Marketing Performance Measurement Indicators (MPMIs), Returns on Marketing Investment, Soft Marketing Metrics, Hard Marketing Metrics, Consolidated Marketing Scorecard (CMS), Corporate Strategy

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