When I first saw the schedule for the 2010 BMA conference, I immediately noticed that Pat LaPointe from Marketing NPV was on the schedule. Was immediately excited about that as I had not seen him speak before but had heard many positive things.
For those of you who don’t know Pat LaPointe, his bio on his website states the following:
Pat LaPointe – Managing Partner
At MarketingNPV, Pat LaPointe directs the development of client solutions for CMOs in the areas of skills, structure, processes, and tools to improve marketing measurement through greater alignment and accountability. His book Marketing by the Dashboard Light: How to Get More Insight, Foresight, and Accountability from Your Marketing Investments is a pioneering work on the topic of marketing dashboard development.
Prior to launching MarketingNPV in 2003, Pat was an equity partner and senior vice president at Frequency Marketing Inc., a consulting and software company known for design and operation of large-scale customer retention and loyalty programs. Pat also directed the operation of a marketing department at Bell Atlantic (now Verizon), creating and implementing customer acquisition and development programs for both B2B and consumer markets. He started his career in advertising in the Y&R network and at Ketchum, where he managed large client portfolios in all aspects of marketing strategy and communications.
Pat is an MBA graduate of Stern School at NYU and holds a B.Comm. from McGill University in Montreal.
Gary Slack introduced Pat as someone who helps CMOs and CFOs in the Fortune 100 better measure their marketing. Pat started his talk by telling a funny and likely inappropriate joke. Happy to retell it privately.
So how do you measure engagement?
Some engagement methods have more traction and have better acceptance.
Traditional Problems In Measuring Engagement:
See a stimulus > Think/Feel Differently (Research) > Buy Something (Pray for correlation)
Behaviorist’s View of Engagement – Referrals lead people towards purchase funnel:
Challenges#1: Engagement is not Linear – these things do not follow an order. Awareness, Consideration, Preference, Purchase, Retention, Repurchase
Challenge #2: Interaction Effects are Very Real – there is a basket mix effect – last touch versus complex reality
Challenge #3: Value isn’t always transactional (Me: more and more I’m not sure this is the case)
Forrester’s 4 I’s Engagement Model: Involvement, Interaction, Intimacy, Influence
Eric Peterson’s engagement calculator provides brand impression, engagement metrics.
New definition – Pre-transaction, then purchase
Pre-transaction screening – the scores are linked to what we think will create value
Pre-transactions can be either positive or negative and scoring models can be created to create useful measurement of marketing activities across multiple channels.
Marketing Effectiveness = change (direction * velocity) t+1 vs expectations (Me: What if the expectations are highly flawed?)
Measuring engagement in 4 simple steps
1) What does your business objectives (hint: awareness is not an objective)
– What are your hypothesis about the behavioral pathways?
– How are you attempting to influence them?
– Ask “So what?”
2) Create a methodical testing process:
– Break the big problems down into smaller component parts
– Use experiments to test your hypothesis
3) Look for leading indicators of eventual purchase behavior
– Use analytics to verify how these audiences drive customer behavior
– Important Protect and Defend the Credibility Chain
4) Develop and refine drivers to leverage drivers
If you follow these actions you can make a credibility chain!