Marketing Performance

10 — Agility: Infuse your organization with a return on investment mindset

Why does agility matter?

Have you been keeping track of the goods we are dishing out? Multi-lens budget sizing. Granular allocation. Insights-driven messaging. Creative storytelling. Like-for-like instrument comparisons. Advanced mix modelling. Smart activation. Superior systems and solutions. Trust-based performance partnerships. With a toolbox like that, how can you go wrong? Actually, it's all for nothing unless you make sure these fine tools are put to good use. For sustained impact, marketers need to use these tools not once, but continuously. The new, evidence-based approach to marketing performance management we have outlined in the preceding nine chapters depends upon you to invest in the capabilities of your team and change the way you work.

Think back to what you have read and ask yourself: Do I have the right people to do the required research, oversee the necessary analyses, draw the right inferences, and take appropriate action? Is there someone on my team who can build and maintain the technological infrastructure that will support data-driven decision making across the organization? Are our processes and decision rules set up to absorb the new insights, align our activities, monitor the impact, and make real-time adjustments to the marketing plan? No? Don't worry. Very few CMOs will say “yes” to all of these questions. It's not a checklist anyway. The important point is to realize that ...