August 2nd, 2010 Go-to-Market, Product Launch | No Comments »
Greg Dolan
I have now completed my second month managing the validation and launch of a new service for a large technology company. My continued mission is to share my learning and best practices along the way and do my part to help more new product and service launches succeed in the marketplace! No small task, given that at least 1 in 3 new launches fail in the marketplace every year, despite diligent research and planning.
In my first month, I focused on getting up to speed fast, identifying and building relationships with key stakeholders, quickly understanding marketplace dynamics and driving alignment around scope and key assumptions, framing fact-based strategic options, developing a robust timeline and, most importantly, keeping the communication lines open across the organization.
Month 1 was a little hectic, but the pace of activity only intensifies as the service is readied for launch and decisions are needed quickly to meet an extremely tight timeline! Strong communication remains imperative to continued progress toward the launch date.
Month 2: Validating the Proposition and Developing the Launch Plan Read more »
July 21st, 2010 Marketing Performance | No Comments »
Brett Smith How can you move beyond basic tracking and measuring of improving marketing effectiveness and onto seeing benefits to your business. To gain this insight, CMG Partners and Chadwick Martin Bailey interviewed more than 400 participants to see how they are conducting their marketing measurement and management and to better understand the barriers that exist to improved performance. From the results, we have gleaned best practices undertaken by the 25% of respondents who have turned this marketing science into tangible positive results. Full text of the article can be found here with a full report download available following the link.
Here are the top five best practices to gaining a marketing performance advantage that we identified:
1. Foster Senior-Level Buy-In
2. Seek Strategic Alignment
3. Make Targeted Investments
4. Develop Strong Processes
5. Leverage Marketing Performance Beyond Marketing
June 30th, 2010 Go-to-Market, Product Launch | No Comments »
Greg Dolan How many new product and service launches fail each year? At launch, at least 1 in 3, despite diligent research and planning (1).
Successful launches are critical to the success of an organization, so how can you avoid being part of the 33% that never take off?
Disciplined strategic planning and flawless execution are imperative to ensure success. As experienced strategic marketing consultants, we have helped numerous clients across industries successfully launch new products and services into the marketplace.
Our countless experience in this space allows us to “drop in” to an organization and manage complex product launches on tight timelines, a situation I find myself in right now.
I am currently working with a large technology company looking to launch a new service business … in only four months! This tight time frame is not uncommon, but it does bring with it unique challenges that must be anticipated and planned for in advance.
Over the next several months, I will provide updates of how the project is progressing, note any challenges that arise and document all the lessons learned along the way. This inside look into a real project, in real-time, will provide a picture of why some launches succeed and others fail.
This is the first installment outlining my experiences managing this project.
Month 1: Establish Relationships & Set Direction Read more »
May 26th, 2010 CMGP Events, Marketing Performance, Marketing Strategy, Strategic Marketing | No Comments »
Kathryn Robinson Thanks to everyone who was able to join our webinar, The New Face of Marketing Leadership. We had a great turnout and received several questions from the attendees, which we have answered below.
If you weren’t able to join us for the live webinar, no worries, you can still catch it on demand here, where we share emerging trends shaping the future of the lead marketer and discuss where marketing as a function is headed. If you have any questions after viewing the presentation, post them here and we’ll get back to you with answers.
What should a director or VP of marketing who reports to the CMO take away from this research?
A couple of things stand out. First, CMOs on the path to being a transformative leader, as described in CMO 2.0, need talented people to help them drive change inside the organization as we have talked about. To that end, much of the same apply to theses “lieutenants” in terms of interpersonal skills and alignment with strategy and objectives of the organization. You can take the action plan we have laid out and adapt the essence of it to better support your head of marketing and the initiatives that you are leading.
Secondly, this research can be used with your CMO or head of marketing to discuss where you are as a marketing function and what you as an organization can do to ensure the marketing function is creating maximum enterprise value. You can help foster alignment with business objectives and assist in communicating across the organization to ensure alignment.
Who do you think are successful CMO 2.0s in the marketplace today? Read more »
May 20th, 2010 Marketing Performance, Marketing Strategy, Social Media, customer loyalty | No Comments »
Kathryn Robinson The latest issue of our e-newsletter, Perspectives, is available online now.
As the global recession slowly recedes, many businesses are moving their focus from survival back to growth. Investment in finding and capturing growth opportunities is returning. However, during the downturn, the agenda for marketers changed. To meet new demands, marketing’s role must evolve to accept greater accountability for its performance.
CMGP has always believed that marketing can and should be a strategic asset. As such, the increased focus on marketing’s accountability is a natural evolution. Continue reading to learn more about this evolution and its implications, as well as how marketing performance management will be a key differentiator in today’s highly competitive marketplace.
In this issue:
- The CMO’s Agenda
- Achieving the Marketing Performance Advantage
- Loyalty, the Holy Grail of Marketing
Want to receive Perspectives in your inbox? Subscribe here!
May 12th, 2010 customer loyalty | No Comments »
Kathryn Robinson Loyalty, the Holy Grail of Marketing:
A cross-industry look at the challenges and rewards of driving customer loyalty
(We will be tweeting live throughout this event May 13, 2010 at 3:30 p.m. ET at twitter.com/cmgpartners. Follow us to receive real time updates of the conversation.)
“Marketing is about being customer-centric and the first step in driving loyalty is creating attachment,” said Rich Beatty, founding partners of CMG Partners, opening the Loyalty Lab Client Summit panel discussion on April 8, 2010 and setting the tone for the conversation. He went on to explain that “Driving attachment impacts behavior, which drives financial results.”
These two statements lead to the same conclusion … customer loyalty drives financial results. With customer loyalty tied directly to performance of your bottom-line, marketing leaders cannot ignore this critical piece of the marketing puzzle. Read more »
February 23rd, 2010 Marketing Performance | No Comments »
Karl Gustafson It’s no secret that marketing leaders and their organizations are under increasing pressure to demonstrate their value to their businesses, especially in today’s tough economic environment; the effectiveness of marketing efforts can prove the key differentiator in highly competitive markets.
So, what sets successful marketing organizations apart from their less successful peers? To learn more, join us for our webinar The Marketing Performance Advantage on February 25 where we will share best practices in measuring and managing Marketing Performance that we uncovered from a study among over 400 CFO, CEO and marketing leaders.
February 19th, 2010 Marketing Performance | No Comments »
Karl Gustafson The objective of Marketing Performance Measurement and Management is:
To build the marketing organization’s capabilities to measure, learn from, and improve upon marketing strategies and tactics over time — with the goal of ultimately delivering improved business results.
By studying the responses of organizations that are experiencing a positive impact to their business from their Marketing Performance practices, we were able to identify five key best practices.
To learn more, join us for our webinar The Marketing Performance Advantage on February 25 where we will share best practices that we uncovered from a study among over 400 CFO, CEO and marketing employees of companies with 100+ employees interested in measuring the performance of their marketing initiatives.
February 17th, 2010 CMGP Events, Marketing Performance | No Comments »
Karl Gustafson There is no question that the science of marketing has grown in importance over the last decade. Just in the last few years, advances in the science of marketing measurement as well as significant changes in communications mediums have transformed the function of marketing and the measurement of its impact on the business. Over the same period, marketing departments are under increasing pressure to defend budgets and more clearly articulate the value they are creating for the organization. The result has been a seismic shift towards the science of marketing and an explosion of interest in marketing measurement.
But has the result been a corresponding improvement in business results?
We found that many of the 400 organizations we surveyed appear to be stuck in the basic tracking and measuring stage of improving marketing effectiveness. And an almost equal number are focused on breaking down barriers to improved performance in areas such as the correlation of measurements and data or incorporating insights into the decision-making process.
We also found that those companies who have fully embraced the concept of Marketing Performance Management have seen a more positive impact by the marketing organization on the business and in turn are more likely to be market leaders. By studying these top-performing companies, we were able to uncover a series of best practices that can be translated across a wide array of organizations to help drive business results.
To learn more, join us for our webinar The Marketing Performance Advantage on February 25 where we will share best practices in measuring and managing Marketing Performance that we uncovered from a study among over 400 CFO, CEO and marketing leaders.
February 11th, 2010 Customer Experience, Marketing Strategy, Organizational Behavior, Strategic Marketing, customer loyalty | No Comments »
Karl Gustafson I have something to get off my chest - I love Southwest Airlines. The significance of this statement is I’m an airline snob - for approximately 10 years I traveled frequently for corporate America on the big airlines, accumulating miles (as well as a threshold for pain) and holding the smaller discount airlines in disdain. And then last year my eyes were opened to a whole new world in the sky - a world where customers are treated as customers - where the words “we appreciate your business” are backed by service that actually makes me feel appreciated as a customer.
Having developed this affinity towards Southwest I started to contemplate their business model and success. What struck me is the both the genius as well as the simplicity of their model. Genius from the standpoint that they were able to innovate by addressing the emotional needs of customers while their competitors where focused on the functional needs (this may be a stretch) and relied on monetary loyalty systems to increase attachment (certainly Southwest’s regional expansion strategy helped them to stay under the radar and gain scale but from my perspective this is not why they are still in business). Simplicity from the standpoint that there model is based on basic common sense - people like to feel treated well, and if we’re paying for service we expect to be treated well. And while simple, Southwest’s model is darn near impossible for their competitive peers to replicate because it’s rooted in their culture (one of the most challenging areas for a company to change) and the premise that happy employees = happy customers. This manifests itself across every touch point I have with Southwest - from the gate agent, to the flight attendees (while I may not always find their attendant performances over the PA system necessarily funny or entertaining I certainly respect the effort - it adds one more personal, human element to the experience) and pilots, to the personalized Southwest stories of exemplary service in their monthly magazine.
While there is no doubt I’ve been converted and am an advocate of Southwest - their success, and the success of others like Zappos, begs the question of which industry and what companies are next to be caught sleeping at the wheel - i.e. do not truly understand their customers and their motivations?
