Marketing Performance

Introduction: Smart Money

If your marketing department were publicly traded, would you buy a share? If the new campaign were a pay-TV channel, would you subscribe to it? If next year's media plan were a business proposition, would you invest in it? If you hesitate even for a split second – and we would not be surprised – this book is for you. To take its proper place among its fellow functions, marketing needs to evolve from a cost centre to a profit centre. As the CMO, or as an aspiring marketing leader, you don't want to ask the members of the board or the shareholders of your company for budget clearance. You want to present them with an investment opportunity. You don't want your marketing plan to be perceived as a necessary evil, but as a good business proposition. You want marketing to advance the performance of your company in predictable and sustainable ways. You rightfully aspire to generate returns on marketing investment, be it in terms of sales, profit, market share, or brand equity. Make it happen, and you will never have to justify a budgetary line item to the CFO again – or smile and listen patiently as your fellow executives praise a competitor's creative campaign, asking why you never come up with something as clever as that, despite the fortune you are spending on all those hot-shot agencies. Sounds tempting? Then read on.

This is not a textbook for students of marketing theory. There are more than enough of those already. This a performance handbook for marketing ...