Find and Use the Marketing Metrics That Are
Right for Your Organization

Marketing Expert Laura Patterson (CEO, VisionEdge Marketing) Shows How –

All marketing metrics are not created equal. In her latest book marketing expert Laura Patterson shows how to master the most important marketing and business challenges of recent years: how to identify the particular marketing metrics crucial to one’s particular organization’s marketing needs and how to get the entire organization on board to make better marketing efficiency an organization-wide imperative.

While marketing accountability and measuring marketing performance aren’t new any more, yet they remain top issues on marketers’ minds. Marketing Metrics in Action (ISBN: 978-1-933199-15-3; $24.95; Racom Books, Chicago, IL) argues that marketing organizations need to go beyond just analytics and metrics and transform themselves into performance-driven organizations to remain relevant in today’s corporate environment.

Performance management has been applied to various parts of a business for quite some time, particularly when it comes to manufacturing, logistics and product development. Applying the concept to marketing is finally coming of age. In her latest book Laura Patterson shows marketers how to master the most important challenges of recent years: how to measure marketing effectiveness and efficiency in terms of the impact marketing is having on the organization and how to make better marketing effectiveness and efficiency an organization-wide imperative.

And while plenty of people have written lots of books and articles on the topic marketing accountability, the problem is that the great majority, if not all, try to sell some sort of the silver-bullet theory: just find that one “magic” number or singular method or formula and everything will be fine. Marketing Metrics in Action does much more than just give you a number or a one-size-fits-all formula. It provides wise counsel for identifying which metrics matter most to your organization and practical guidance for how to develop these metrics and establish the processes necessary to sustain a performance-driven organization.

Patterson offers a realistic approach any company can put into practice. In three sections, her book advises how to figure out what to measure (what really matters); build, support, and shape the internal culture; and then translate all of the great measurement processes and ideas into practical applications that make sense for your organization. The result will be a more dynamic, performance-driven organization.

The book includes process maps related to data collection, measurement, reporting and performance target setting along with tips at the end of each chapter to aid any size organization with their transformation. It also describes how to create a marketing performance dashboard and specifications for developing a quality dashboard as well as factors that will affect success in developing a performance-driven marketing organization, including relations with the C-suite, alignment with sales and finance, and the development of necessary processes, systems, tools, skills, and training.

Newly minted MBAs, flush with confidence, are often heard to say, “Forget that other stuff. Just give me your number. Tell me what metric you’re using.” Marketing Metrics in Action does much more than just give you a number or a one-size-fits-all formula. It provides wise counsel for identifying which metrics matter most to your organization and practical guidance for putting all the sophisticated marketing tools to profitable use in your company.

Marketing Metrics in Action:
Creating a Performance-Driven Marketing Organization
Laura Patterson
(ISBN 1-933199-15-3; $24.95; Racom Books, Chicago)
—Foreword by Koen Pauwels,
Amos Tuck School of Business,
Dartmouth College—

About the Author
Laura Patterson is co-founder and president of VisionEdge Marketing, Inc., a data-driven and metrics-focused marketing that specializes in improving marketing performance. Her passion for analytics and measuring value is shown throughout her nearly 30 years of sales and marketing experience. Having worked for accountants and engineers at such companies as State Farm, Motorola, DME systems, Alex Sheshunoff, and Evolutionary Technologies developing measurable marketing programs that performed was a matter of career survival. The author of two previous books (Gone Fishin’: A Guide to Finding, Hooking, Keeping, and Growing Profitable Customers and Measure What Matters: Reconnecting Marketing to Business Goals), Patterson is also a regular columnist for CEO Refresher and MarketingProfs and a contributor and Board Member for CustomerThink. She has appeared as a guest lecturer at organizational conferences and universities, including Purdue University, Truman State University, and the University of Texas at Austin, LIMRA, eMetrics Summit, and Henry Stewart’s Marketing Operations Summit.