Laura Patterson
How Frameworks Help Close the Experience Gap and Sustain Business Continuity
By Laura Patterson and Anand Thaker Companies who have experienced cyberattacks, data breaches, unplanned IT outages, interruption of utility supplies, adverse weather, or global economy shutdowns understand the importance of business continuity. Proactively planning to avoid and mitigate risks associated with a disruption of operations...
3 Metrics to Help You Thrive in The Age of The Customer
We are well into what Forrester coined as the Age of the Customer, where “empowered customers are shaping business strategy.” And Marketing plays a key role, as posited by Andrew Spender, VP of global corporate communications at Gartner, when he said, “Marketers can take...
How Marketers Must Adapt to the New Era of Customer Engagement, and Measure Success
There appears to be no slack in the effort by organizations to create and distribute content designed to create meaningful interactions with prospects and customers across the customer buying decision process. However, despite the intent to create a dialogue, most of this work still...
Establishing Key Performance Indicators for Measuring Marketing
Measuring marketing plays a role beyond making organizations more accountable. Effective marketing measurement initiatives enable organizations to use marketing metrics to guide scenario modeling, planning and investments. An integral part of such an initiative is establishing key performance indicators (KPIS). KPIS should...
Improve Your Win Rate With a Customer Buying Pipeline
We all understand the need for Marketing to positively and directly impact the sales cycle and win ratio. This remains an area of challenge for many marketers. Numerous studies, including the CSO Insights 16th annual sales performance study of 2,800 companies and an...
When Brand Relevance Is A Relevant Metric
Brands identify the source or maker of a product. Based on what customers know about the brand, they can form reasonable expectations about its benefits. Companies believe that brands contribute to reducing risk by helping buyers avoid a purchasing mistake. It is also a...
Five Steps to Improve Your Marketing Accountability
First the good news! After several years of significant reductions, marketing budgets are expected to see some recovery in 2011. For example, according to a Forbes Insight survey three out of four marketing executives expected their marketing budgets to stay the same or to...
Measuring Beyond The Lead
Whether you are a marketing professional in a large or small organization, working in a B2B or B2C company, you are expected to demonstrate the value, impact and financial contribution of the marketing investments you make on behalf of your organization. Your leadership team wants…
Move from Managing Programs to Managing Performance
Earlier this year the results of our ninth annual marketing performance and measurement (MPM) study revealed four gaps that still hinder a number of marketing organizations: 1. The inability to leverage insights from metrics and dashboards ...
August 2010: Four Metrics Categories for Measuring Social Media
Ok, the Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn sites are up. There's lots of activity. Customers are engaged. Judy the Intern can barely keep up. Even Skip in sales said he got a few qualified leads. You know in your gut this social media channel is working.…
Marketing Accountability Builds Bridges
As a marketing professional, do you know specifically how the marketing investment translates into real value in your organization? If you answered yes, you're among the few who can. Our studies and those of other firms such as those conducted by Prophet found...
Solve the Mystery of Marketing ROI
A study by Prophet found that "as few as 19 percent of companies can consistently and accurately determine what they are getting - if anything - from untold millions in marketing spending." It's this kind of mystery that can affect the relationship between the CMO...
Do Your Marketing Metrics Pass the “So-What” Test?
In order for Marketing Measurement - the act of measuring or the process of measuring marketing's performance - to be accepted and actively supported in your organization may require a complete paradigm change. Marketing measurement needs to be viewed as an integral part of...
Bounce Back from Lead Rejection
Is your sales organization still rejecting too many of the leads forwarded on by marketing? Sounds like you may need a better way to qualify leads and agree on what constitutes a lead worthy of forwarding tos sales.If you want to get serious...
Using Sentiment Analysis to Measure Social Media Engagement
As products become more commoditized and companies try to outperform their competitors, a better customer experience is becoming an increasingly important way to differentiate. Customer engagement plays a large role in the overall customer experience. There has yet to be a standard definition...
Managing Touch Point Value: 10 Steps to Improve Customer Engagement
A long-term patient goes to a doctor for an annual physical, completes the required paperwork and checks out. Months later, the patient receives a bill indicating the health insurance company denied part of the service. The doctor's office can't explain why— they use a...
Customer-Centric Planning Cleared for Takeoff at Southwest Airlines Cargo
By Wally Devereaux, Southwest Airlines and Laura Patterson, VisionEdge Marketing The top 12 companies in the highly concentrated U.S. airline industry generate about 90 percent of the revenue. Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV), an American low-cost airline based in Dallas, Texas, is the sixth largest...
Advisory Boards: Innovation Means Knowing What Your Customers Want
Peter Drucker once said that marketing is knowing "the customer well enough to develop products that sell themselves." Long-term success is linked to innovation. New product development depends on synthesizing customer insights and market intelligence—and the knowledge behind creating a product to meet these...
Marketers Must Tap Into the Year of the Customer
The year of the customer. That is what the authors of the third annual New York Stock Exchange CEO Report have dubbed 2008, based on research with 240 of the world's top business leaders representing more than 20 industries in 24 countries. Those executives...
Measuring Only Marketing Activities Won’t Reveal the Return on Marketing Investment
Today's marketers are being asked to be more accountable for the money they invest on behalf of the company and to demonstrate the contribution and value they are making. At the same time, they are struggling to secure a more strategic place at...