Mind The Gap.
Bringing you, your prospects and your CFO closer.

August 2003
By Tom Barnes

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You'll know which method is best by looking at the fragments (or tribes) that make up your customer base. Remember: building hypothesis is integral to the scientific method and requires strong instinct and creativity. Generating concepts for test is the point at which the creative marketing arts are most important.

The old agency model: no accountable risk reduction

If all this reads droolingly obvious--you're probably not working for an agency. CPMs don't measure business impact. It is not enough to simply reach a dubiously measured audience. Further, documentation of marketing process is not Standard Operating Procedure at the traditional agency. Documentation actually works against the agency's old business model: If an agency documents how they do stuff--there's risk the client might not no longer need them.

Finally, only the largest agencies with advanced technical arms are adding value on the CRM side. Let's face it, it is not uncommon for "Planning" to mean going into the store, buying the product, using it, then thinking and writing about the experience. Sometimes the over-achieving planner may pull up a syndicated research report to affirm their anecdotal experience--then bill the client plus 15 for a study they probably already own.

That hardly qualifies as a process that can be documented and measured.

Bridging the gap means managing risk

If you want your ideas to work--see them implemented--you've got to aggressively manage the risk side. Show your prospects how your offering is twice as good as doing nothing. Show your management how marketing is twice as good (financially) as not marketing. You've got to assume the risk associated with being accountable if your ideas don't work, and be willing to adapt them to the information you get from putting your idea out there in the first place.

The willingness to take this step will bridge the gap between your efforts on the marketing side and the weighty fiscal demands from your prospects and your management.

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