There have never been so many ways to spend our marketing dollars, and consumer behavior is evolving at a ridiculous pace. Marketing leaders want to take advantage of the opportunities this new era affords, but we also see them struggle to integrate the data from their many tools and partners. That makes it nearly impossible to get a single, omnichannel view of marketing performance—much less extract the timely, business-building insights needed to unlock growth.
And, looking down the road, these leaders see consumer behavior morphing even faster, with more touchpoints emerging and more data piling up. They worry that keeping up will require a level of agility that’s beyond their reach.
It’s time for a paradigm shift. With the right approach—an agile approach—marketers can use the relentless pace of modern marketing to their advantage.
Agile marketing measurement rests on these fundamental insights:
- Every time we measure marketing performance, it’s a chance to learn, decide and act.
- Reallocating spend from poor-performing efforts to higher performers boosts the ROI of our marketing spend.
- The more frequently we can measure and reallocate in this way, the better our ROI.
In short, every time we measure performance, it’s an opportunity to grow our business. And increasing the frequency of this cycle has an exponential effect on growth.
As you can see, this approach stands in sharp contrast to traditional models for planning and measurement, which usually operate on a scale of quarters or years. Instead of what we might call annual “big bang” marketing, the agile model calls for constant iteration, and doesn’t mind if certain efforts fail, so long as they fail fast. When they do, we kill that effort, and put those dollars toward better performers. That’s how agile measurement leverages the pace of modern marketing—so vexing from the old point of view—into a strategic advantage. It’s like marketing aikido.
None of this is possible without fast, omnichannel data. Trying to do agile measurement based on slow, siloed, inconsistent data sources is an exercise in frustration. It won’t work. You need a technology solution that aggregates, integrates and normalizes your disparate data sources to give you clean, trusted data and real-time insight. Like Beckon.
Of course, a transition to agile measurement doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a journey, and a cultural shift, and there will be obstacles along the way. It requires a clear vision and careful management. But it’s eminently doable.
You can get the full “how to” of agile measurement in our white paper, The Mandate for Agile Measurement. It guides you through the business case for an agile approach, common pitfalls and challenges marketing teams encounter as they start to speed up, how to identify the right technology partners, best practices for transitioning your organization into data-driven, agile marketers, and much more.
So, bring on the new channels, the new tactics, the new consumer touchpoints. Bring on the speed. Now, you can handle it.