Richard van Hooijdonk

Obtain real-time insights in campaign results

Many companies fail to obtain the required insight in their campaigns' marketing results. It's not that hard to get those insights though, and it's impossible to properly adjust your actions without realizing the crossmedial results your campaigns are returning. My experience is that good insights in customer value and campaign results directly lead to better decisions. It doesn't matter if you're spending millions or just a couple thousand dollars on marketing: with the right insights, you can adjust quicker, make better decisions and be ready to strike when the market shows opportunities. Companies who do obtain real-time insights in campaign results, will perform better than their competitors.

I'd even go so far as to say a campaign should not be launched, if its results cannot be presented: it's the most important investment for any commercial organisation.

When setting your targets, be firm!

There are several reasons to formulate firm, thorough targets. Once you've set them, you can 'measure' your targets and analyze the results. You can then use those results to adapt your targets insightfully. Targets form an excellent base to any good business case. If the recession faces you with budget cuts, there are two ways to get the budget you want. First of all, you can exceed your targets. Second, you can present a 'recession business case'. In both cases, targets are crucial to your success. Targets are measurable numbers you can define at specific levels. Use the 'down drill': turnover, profit, target, product, brand, channel, crossmedia, web presence and goals facilitating the connection to sales. Strong operational goals ensure you can keep track of campaign results, target audience turnover, web conversion, lead generation and customer value. That means you have a much bigger chance of getting the results you want!

Positive online brand experience helps brand loyalty

The number of hours consumers spend online, makes internet the largest marketing channel of all. For marketers, this means they have to adapt their ways of branding. Creating loyal customers is now subordinate to creating loyal brands instead. The experience internet users have with an online brand becomes the most important thing a brand has to offer. Much of the interaction online for instance is nothing more than an attempt to offer a positive brand experience.

Such a strategy offers marketers three distinct advantages: a structural asset advantage, a scale advantage and process advantages. The asset advantage can be found in creating customer communities. The scale advantages would be collecting, interpreting and using information acquired through interactive online applications. The process advantages are, for instance, networks of partnering businesses created to develop innovative programmes. Such programmes will be particularly successful when the creative, media, promotion and analysis elements co-operative tightly.