For over 50 years, many people suffering from certain autoimmune disorders have benefited from antibody replacement therapy. The precise mechanism by which this therapy works on these conditions has still not been definitively established. The bottom line is that often, it does work, though doctors cannot predict whether or not it will do so in individual cases.
This situation should sound familiar to modern marketers. The discipline does work, sometimes even dramatically. But since its inception at the beginning of the 20th century, marketers have been at a loss to predict its effects with a great degree of accuracy. As a result, a certain amount of waste has been accepted in marketing investment.
The ability to estimate the outcomes of marketing programs minimizes inefficiency and makes it possible to tie marketing directly to revenue contributions. Since driving revenue directly or indirectly is marketing’s ultimate goal, the ability to create and execute an efficient and effective marketing strategy is paramount.
The industry has been acutely aware of the problem of achieving predictable marketing for many years. Some have sought to make marketing more “scientific.” As far back as 1923, Claude C. Hopkins wrote in his book, Scientific Advertising, “The time has come when advertising has in some hands reached the status of science. It is based on fixed principles and is reasonably exact…Advertising, once a gamble, has thus become, under able direction, one of the safest of business ventures.”
The extent to which the impact of marketing programs can be predicted enables inefficiency (and the costs associated with it) to be minimized. It also makes it possible to accurately tie marketing with revenue contribution so that it can be looked upon as an investment rather than a cost. But if we are to create predictable marketing strategies, we must also adapt them to the times. Hopkins’ instructions from 1923 are almost a century old, and the new worlds of social media and digital advertising have irrevocably changed the marketing game. It’s time for a “New Marketing Value Chain,” one that reflects the way brands and consumers interact today, in the twenty-first century.
Visit our blog throughout the month to learn more about “The New Marketing Value Chain” and how your business needs to adapt to stay relevant.
Photo credit: Christian Schnettelker via Flickr Creative Commons
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