Demand Acceleration: Amplify the Revenue You Get From Your Marketing Investment

The average organization generates $9 of revenues for every dollar they invest in marketing, according to research by the Duke Fuqua School of business.  

Does yours?  

Most CEOs and board members don’t think so. According to research we are conducting with Forbes on Marketing Accountability, a majority rate their company’s marketing performance at or below average.

It can be hard to quantify because allocating marketing investment has become more complex, and the stakes are higher in terms of company growth and value. Why? Two reasons:

• The role of marketing and its contribution to growth has expanded dramatically.  Marketers are now mandated to manage and measure a broader investment portfolio, deeper in the sales funnel, with more touch points and higher degrees of business unit integration.  In the last decade, the role of the CMO has expanded to include e-commerce, marketing technology, the customer experience, and greater accountability for sales outcomes. Gartner reports that most (62%) of CMOs have ownership of e-commerce and will buy more technology than the Chief Technology Officer.  And a survey by Forbes found that almost half (49%) of senior marketing leaders are individually accountable for supporting sales channels and driving more measurable sales outcomes deeper into the sales funnel.
• The composition and complexity of the marketing investment mix is changing.  Managing marketing investment has evolved to become much harder than balancing ads and promotions. Today, the CMO is under growing pressure to show returns on rising investments in marketing assets, new media, data, analytics and technology needed to compete for digitally-enabled customers.  This has added many more investments to the marketing portfolio and changed both the economics of marketing and the complexity of allocating investment optimally.  The average marketing or brand leader must now allocate and optimize resources across at least 20 primary investment types in their annual budget. Compounding this challenge is the rate of change in investment driven by rapidly shifting customer behavior. For example, this year, the marketing department will spend more money on technology than the IT department according to the Gartner Group (4), digital advertising spending will exceed traditional advertising (6) and customers will spend more time viewing mobile devices than desktops (7).

For marketers to take on a bigger role in the growth of their businesses, they need to have a blueprint for launching, extending, evolving, and activating their brands in new channels and markets.

The big questions marketers need to answer are:

• What is the fastest and most cost-effective way to develop new markets?
• What mix of twenty strategic marketing investment options will enable my business to generate more demand than the competition?

We help marketing leaders answer these questions. Fast. Effectively. And collaboratively.

Our proprietary brand acceleration process helps brands design a go-to-market program that generates awareness, engagement, and demand. Within six weeks, our expert team develops an actionable go-to-market blueprint that will amplify the awareness, engagement, demand, and sales you generate for new brands, products, and market segments.  

See how our go-to-market strategy drove demand for a connected product and helped launch it in the Apple Store, garnering “product-of-the-year” accolades.  

Let’s have a conversation about how we can design demand for your organization.