One of the hardest parts about marketing is determining whether or not a campaign has been successful. Even more difficult is determining how success will be measured. Should it be product sales? Gross revenue? Brand awareness? Coming up with the wrong benchmarks could ultimately lead marketers to the wrong conclusion about their efforts, potentially ending successful campaigns too soon, or continuing to pour time and money into bad campaigns.
For example, suppose a marketing campaign for a retail clothing chain raises awareness gets people through their doors, but sales remain flat or even go down from previous quarters. Does that make the marketing effort a failure? Not necessarily – there are other factors at play, including (but not limited to) the following:
- Can the shopper find the product they’re looking for easily?
- Is the store design simple to navigate and in keeping with the brand personality?
- Are the prices for the product reasonable – what the consumer expects and would be willing to pay?
- Are the salespeople helpful, or are they pushy jerks?
- Is there a competing product in the window of a nearby competitor that has a really eye-catching display and is on sale?
If the benchmarks for campaign success are gross sales, then a jumpy marketing director will quickly determine that the campaign has failed and pull the plug before any more “damage” can be done. Blame will be placed on marketing creative and the real problems may never be noticed. However, if success is measured by store traffic, then a completely different conclusion would be reached.
Marketing campaigns can do a lot. They can increase exposure and improve consumer perception of a brand, build trust, and even compel people to take action – all of which is measurable. And the agency creating the campaign should be held accountable for reaching their stated goals. But the goals have to be the right goals, and must take into account other non-marketing elements that may be needed. Otherwise, a perfectly good campaign could be scrapped for the wrong reason or, worse, a poor campaign could be kept longer than it should.
