The foundation of every growth plan and dashboard is quantifiable customer-centric objectives. If your function’s objectives aren’t aligned with the business outcomes, you will be at a disadvantage in demonstrating its value to the business right from the get go.

How do you make sure your growth planning and dashboard development efforts aren’t for naught? Know the three questions:

1. What are your organization’s business outcomes?
2. Which of these outcomes is your function expected to impact?
3. How will the organization know whether your function achieved this impact?

Know the answers? You’re a rare breed. When we started our research around performance management and accountability in 1999, we were shocked to learn how few functional departments, especially Marketing, which we believe is the primary driver of growth, did not know the answers to these questions! Over the years, our research on Marketing Performance Measurement (MPM) continued to reveal that it is unclear to the leadership of over 2/3 of Marketing organizations how their Marketing activities and investments contribute to the business. Other research such as the Kantor and the VisualIQ study reveal similar results.

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We wanted to try and understand the root cause of this situation. What we learned is that there often isn’t a clear link between the function’s activities and business outcomes, and this is particularly true for as many half of the Marketing organizations in these studies. What do we mean by an outcome?

Goals vs. Outcomes – What’s the Difference and Why You Should Care

What’s the difference between a goal and an outcome? A goal indicates intention whereas an outcome specifies a result. Statements such as improve customer retention and/or increase revenue are goals. Outcomes are far more specific. Some examples might be:

• retain 90 percent of our tier-one customers resulting in X dollars of revenue
• acquire 50 net new customers from industry segment X with an average order value of $10,000 each quarter
• double the number of customers who have two or more products based on Y platform
• increase our rate of growth within our category by 15% resulting in X more revenue

Outcomes provide direction. Outcomes clarify success. Outcomes define priorities. Outcomes are all-inclusive. Every part of the organization should know the outcomes and their role in bringing the outcome to reality. A growth plan and a performance management dashboard not based on outcomes are already handicapped. 

Business Outcomes are Essential for Success

Once you know the outcomes and the answers to the other two questions, you can establish the quantifiable outcome-based objectives – the basis of your growth plan. The growth plan you develop should be designed to deliver on those outcomes your function is expected to impact. This is why outcomes serve as the starting point for your dashboard. 

When you have customer-centric measurable outcomes it will be clear what data, metrics, and analytics your function needs to determine how well the function is contributing to business results. Success will be far less arbitrary. Which scenario would you prefer?

1. A vague outcome around increasing revenue and a function’s objective framed around increasing the number of qualified leads?
2. An outcome framed around acquiring #N net new customers that increase revenue to $Y so you can create a quantifiable marketing objective such as, generate #X conversations with #N non-current customers quarterly with X% these converting to level 2 demos resulting in #N new qualified opportunities within 45 days of demo. 

Scenario 2 is far more concrete. You will be able to develop, implement, monitor, and adjust strategies, programs, activities, and the associated metrics for scenario 2. So before you start writing your next marketing plan be sure you know the answers to three questions: what are our organization’s business outcomes, which of these are you expected to impact and how will your success be measured?

Let’s talk about your outcomes and make sure the hard work of creating your plan and dashboard pays off.

FAQ:

1. What are the organization’s business outcomes?
2. Which of these outcomes is your function expected to impact?
3. How will the organization know whether your function achieved this impact?

• Acquire 50 net new customers from segment X with average orders of $10,000 quarterly
• Double the number of customers using two or more products on platform Y
• Increase category growth rate by 15%, resulting in $X additional revenue

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