The 4 Measurements of Marketing


Several months ago I got to sit down with one of the brightest, most energetic marketing minds in technology, Elisa Steele. Steele's resume is nothing to sniff at. She has served as Corporate VP and CMO of all consumer applications and services at Microsoft, including brands such as Bing, Internet Explorer, Lync, MSN, and Skype, among others. She was also CMO at Skype, Executive VP and CMO at Yahoo!, and Senior VP of Corporate Marketing at NetApp. Since my article on Elisa went to print she has now graduated from CMO to CEO of Jive Software. Elisa is really inspiring. She got into marketing by way of sales by way of spending her summers scooping ice cream as a teen. It all started because she was just really excited about putting a smile on customers' faces.

Steele wrote a manifesto of her view on marketing called "Fast Forward: The Four R's That Matter in Marketing." I want to share her "4 R's" with you today.

The Four Measurements of Marketing

1. Reputation

How are people viewing your company in terms of giving back and doing the right thing in the world? What is your reputation as compared to that of your competitors? What specific aspect of your reputation is trending over time, and how can that trend be affected?

2. Relationship

How are partner relationships doing? Are they producing results? How can we make them better? Are customers garnering value from our product so they are inspired to tell the world about their success and help others learn from their experience?

3. Reach

How do you define your target market segments, and how much reach do you have within those? Of the reach you have today, what is your penetration rate? Is your penetration rate growing? What strategies are effective at increasing penetration and what strategies are not?

4. Revenue

How is marketing driving growth for the company? Are we supporting sales channels as effectively as possible? How is our database health? What are the conversion rates? How are we doing on sales leads?

Steele has used these marketing check points to ensure that her team is achieving the right goals. Do you have your own sign posts that you check in with regularly to make sure you're headed down the right path? 

Enjoy the full-length version of this article originally published in Forefront Magazine here.

Hilary is a freelance journalist, a bit of a marketing geek and blogger. Say hey on Twitter @hilarysutton.