Based on several recent requests to outline methods for tracking marketing results, return on investment (ROI) and cost per lead (CPL), we can see that measurement of marketing results has become an even higher priority, both with clients and potential clients.

Too many times integrated marketing has been thought of as simply planning and implementing a media mix.  While it has been shown that utilizing a mix of media will generate a higher response for a client, i.e. a higher number of quality leads, increased response or foot traffic, the level of integrated marketing that MillerWhite practices actually involves four forms of integration – the client and firm workforce working together, the various marketing channels and processes working together, integrating the various tactics used to reach an objective, and integrating the generated lead and tracking mechanisms.

It’s a given that in all forms of business today – and even in the non-profit sector – sales and marketing departments are under increasing pressure to create cost and process efficiencies, and simply produce more results with less.

To do this, it is important to understand the basic linear flow of an inquiry from advertising (or from public relations, an eNewsletter, etc.). In simplified terms:

1. You advertise
2. A prospect responds
3. The inquiry is captured
4. The inquiry is screened and qualified
5. Fulfillment is sent
6. The lead is ranked or prioritized
7. The lead is distributed to the correct sales channel, or it is nurtured until it is ready to be distributed
8. Sales makes contact
9. Sales reports results
10. Results are analyzed based on source, etc. for future strategic marketing decisions

It is at Step 6 that the integration between a marketing firm and client becomes additionally important, not just at Steps 1 and 10. It would be expected that the lead would be ranked hot, warm or future. Hot and warm leads continue to move through the sales process, but how does the future lead (or inquiry) continue to be marketed to?

This is where a plan and strong integration between the client and firm become so important. A plan for phone calls, public relations, direct mail or eMails to prospects at given intervals can maintain top-of-mind awareness and continue to move them through the sales process.

To do this demands sophisticated tracking of leads generated by your various tactics, whatever your chosen media/channel mix – publications, direct mail, television ads, radio spots, outdoor, Internet ads, viral marketing, and so forth. There are many reliable tracking methods available for all those tactics such as campaign- or daypart-specific phone numbers, target-driven direct mails, specific phone numbers included in press release information, VeriSyst for interactive direct mails and so forth. But to get a total picture, you need to be able to integrate the data they generate.

Success depends on not just integration of tactics, but also on an integration of measurables. Based on the simple theory that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it, it would be important to get to the point of having one accumulated report of inquiries, leads, and sales that encompassed all the tactics – or media – utilized in a campaign.

MillerWhite’s MW Fusion® formula moves integration to a new level and allows you to plan, manage and track the process for more positive results and better evaluation of CPL and ROI.

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