In Marketing, the job starts and ends with the goal of creating customers. However, in a world gone social where mobile, big data and 24x7 availability of technology rule the roost, brands need a new method for measuring their marketing return on investment (ROI). Revenue and sales are at the core, but for marketers to truly measure their impact they also need to consider things like customer retention, satisfaction and employee engagement in their evaluation. Welcome to a new world of marketing, where new KPI's drive the initiatives of the marketing organization.

1. The New Business KPI's of
Marketing ROI
BEYOND SALES:

2. THE TOP PRIORITY
OF MARKETING
should be to create
customers for the
business
As a marketer, you live in a world that is adding channels on seemingly a
daily basis, while at the same time the consumers’ attention are being drawn
in a hundred different directions making it increasingly difficult for any brand
(especially those without an endless budget) to stand out.

3. IN THE END THE MISSION IS SALES
But are there key performance indicators (KPI’s) that should be
attached to marketing and social media efforts that span beyond just
customer acquisition and sales?

4. THE SHORT ANSWER IS YES
They measure different aspects of a business that are
equally, if not more important, for long term performance
than their traditional counterparts.
In the vastly evolving landscape of marketing, the new
KPI’s must also reflect the following:

5. CUSTOMER RETENTION
How successful are we in
keeping customers and building
repeat business?
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
Are our customers happy? How
well are we doing in getting them
to share their satisfaction?

6. EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY
Does the company adequately
equip and empower employees to
succeed?
EMPLOYEE RETENTION
Are we creating a brand that
employees are proud of and a
place of work where they can grow
personally and professionally?

7. PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENTS/OPTIMIZATI
ON
Is our community driving ideas to
help foster innovation? Whether
products or services, do we have
our finger on the pulse and how
much are our customers helping us
accomplish this?

8. If you look at the numerous studies that have shown the value of a
satisfied customer or the return on stronger employee morale, you would
have to be crazy to dismiss these items when determining the success of
a marketing program.
The challenge that remains is how, or perhaps if it is possible to
MEASURE THE DIRECT VALUE OF INVESTING IN CUSTOMER
SATISFACTION

9. For instance, Zappos, from their
earliest days, have set out to
build the ultimate customer
experience. With almost a
“Never-say-no-to-a-reasonable
(or unreasonable) customer
demand,” their customer
experience teams will
do whatever it takes to
maintain a happy customer!

10. I suppose a marketer may
say “Customer Satisfaction
is a customer service
expense.” but…
I would beg to differ!
When an unhappy customers’
situation is flipped on its head
by a small expense approved
by an empowered customer
service professional what you
have is an investment in your
customer; to create and keep
them, and that is without a
doubt a marketing investment.
The cost of replacing a
customer is 6x the cost of
retention, so why wouldn’t we
want to keep our customers
happy?

11. ANOTHER GREAT EXAMPLE IS
the way companies such as Dell and
Starbucks use online communities to
drive product development and
innovation.
While one company is a technology
company and the other is a beverage
company, both have invested
substantially in building their brand
evangelists by making their most loyal
customers ideas and input feel welcome
and sometimes even utilized in their
product optimization.

12. While Steve Jobs may have been known for never putting his ear to
the street and just “knowing” what his customers want, he was the
exception and not the rule.
Companies that can find ways to listen and adapt to their customer
feedback can build a new type of loyalty that translates into dollar returns.
The challenge again is how do you attribute that to a campaign? Is it
even possible?

13. WHERE
MARKETING ROI IS
HEADING
Marketing ROI will move beyond
just customer creation and
measurable dollar value returns.
The creation and continued
evolution of metrics that measure
the baseline value of more
satisfied customers, the
involvement of a brand’s
community in product
development and the investment
in more satisfied employees will
all become anchor points in the
process of building a marketing
strategy.

14. PERHAPS THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE WILL BE
the way smarter businesses will apply the new marketing
KPI’s to enhance their marketing 24/7/365, rather than
placing a hyperawareness on the peaks and valleys created
by a traditional marketing strategy, which is dependent on
campaigns that do little to build loyalty within the brands’
stakeholders.

15. Dan Newman is the president of Broadsuite where he works side by side with
brands big and small to help them be found, seen and heard in a cluttered digital
world. A regular contributor to Forbes, Entrepreneur and Huffington Post, he is also
the author of two books, a business professor and a huge fan of watching his
daughters play soccer.
Dan Newman
President of Broadsuite
@danielnewmanuv dnewman@broadsuite.com