Working “in the dark” wastes 65% of marketing spend
Global benchmark report highlights all-time low in estimated effectiveness as marketers battle for accurate feedback.
LONDON, 22 January 2008 - 65% of all marketing spend in 2007 had no effect on consumers, according to The Fournaise Marketing Group's 2007 Global Marketing Effectiveness Report.
The organisation, a global leader in real time customer acquisition maximisation, questioned 3,000 marketers on a number of aspects of their role – from effectiveness of specific marketing channels, to how they track results and measure return on investment.
Estimated wastage rates varied from 45% in business-to-business marketers through to 65% for business-to-consumer, with figures highest in more developed economies such as the UK, US and Australia compared to developing economies like China and India.
To compound the problem, the report revealed that just one in ten of all marketers worldwide have automated systems in place to track effectiveness of their communication spending.
Of the 55% of marketers that even track the results of their spending at all, 80% do so manually, spending hours capturing, compiling and analysing data.
Tracking marketing effectiveness topped the 2008 wish lists of 35% of marketers, and made the top three for 70%.
"Marketers shouldn't pour money into an idea and then leave the results to chance, only to worry when they don't see a return," said Jerome Fontaine, CEO and Chief Tracker of Fournaise. "Media clutter, sophisticated consumers and intense competition go some way to explain the wastage. But tracking every marketing dollar spent would mitigate the effect and feed critical real time analysis back into marketing strategies, which in turn would have more positive impacts on the business bottom line."
Interestingly, when questioned on strategy, marketers believe that the short-term revenue-boosting and lead-generation campaigns were more important (a combined 70%) than long-term intangible brand building (15%), a clear indication that even more so now than before, marketers need to generate results.
Fontaine commented: "Tightening budgets and a slowing economy mean all marketers must be focused on maximising their spendings' immediate impact on their company's top and bottom line. But generating more demand for your product or service with no accurate and real time feedback and analysis on what delivers and what does not is impossible."
"The tools are now available to give marketers actual, and not assumed, visibility to their entire campaign cycle, from pre- to post-launch phase, and to shift their money to the areas where they can see results.
When it comes to tracking across all media – offline and online, traditional and non-traditional, mass and niche – there's no need to work in the dark when the lights could be on."
NOTES
About the Fournaise 2007 Global Marketing Effectiveness Report - Background and Methodology
The Fournaise 2007 Global Marketing Effectiveness Report is derived from the Fournaise 2007 Global Marketing Effectiveness Tracking Survey run on more than 3,000 business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing professionals (including Chief Marketing Officers, Vice-Presidents of Marketing, Heads of Marketing and Marketing Directors) working for Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and Large Corporations in North America, the United Kingdom, Australia, Greater China, India and Singapore (when combined these regions/countries represent more than 65% of all reported global advertising spending – offline and online – in 2007).
About The Fournaise Marketing Group –
The Customer Acquisition Maximiser™
We are one of the world’s leading Customer Acquisition Maximisation companies. Organisations call us when they want to acquire more customers to boost sales: our automated Software-as-a-Service Marketing Maximisation Solutions enable them to track and maximise the real-time effectiveness of their marketing campaigns to push them to capture more leads, generate more store traffic or increase conversion. Our portfolio of clients includes MNCs from the FORTUNE 500 group of companies, leading International Advertising Agencies and Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs). www.fournaisegroup.com
For more details, please contact: Ms. Katherine Watts - Marketing Department
The Fournaise Marketing Group –
The Customer Acquisition Maximiser™
Email: katherine.watts@fournaisegroup.com
Telephone: +44 (0)8 700 429 688 (in the UK) or
1-800-798-8347 (US toll free)
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