Marketing ROI Topics

Marketing ROI and Efficiency

Marketing ROI Process

Marketing Gate Review Phases

Marketing gate reviews are sometimes called "phase reviews". They represent a structured way of objectively evaluating the relative merits and likely ROI of marketing proposals.

While the details will vary from business to business, some typical questions may be assumed in the different stages of reviewing marketing proposals for the best marketing ROI. Some ideas of the right questions to ask in each phase review are presented below.

More details on ROI Planning Process

The level of detail that is prepared at each phase can vary. Some businesses will be comfortable with only summary information. Large investment proposals are likely to require greater detail.

Is a Formal Marketing Investment Process Necessary?

A formal marketing gate review process imposes overhead on the organisation, and may be perceived to slow things down.

Marketing management may be able simply to follow the principles behind this approach - more as a structure for their own decision-making, rather than as a formal process.

Situations where this type of formal marketing investment planning process is beneficial include those where:

Large-scale investments are involved (either in-house marketing resources or external marketing spend).
Considerable cross-organisation committments and/or coordination is involved
Marketing management has a significant stakeholder-management challenge (lots of people with lots of requests and/or opinions)
Marketing investments are controversial, perhaps because there is a lack of clarity to the process involved, or simply because they are high profile, large projects.

Background considerations:

Review marketing investment ideas with the strategic end-goals in mind. Is the expected benefit a worthwhile investment of the team's energy? Is this getting us where we need to go? Can the results be measured and can follow-through by all stakeholders be depended upon?
At each gate review the summary business case should be reviewed, and any changes in prior assumptions or conclusions highlighted.

The Marketing Investment Planning Process

Phase 1 - Initial Concept Screen of Marketing Proposal

a) Is the request aligned with

	- Overall Business Goals / The Business' Strategy Plan?
	- Agreed Go to Market Strategies?

b)	Summary business case. Does the projected impact on revenue and profits exceed investment hurdle?
c)	What is the financial or strategic downside of not doing this?
d)	Would the proposal require executive approval, and is there an appropriate sponsoring manager prepared to take seek this approval?
e)	Are the non-revenue goals of the proposed investment clearly defined?
f)	Has a management sponsor and a program owner been identified for each proposal?

Phase 2 - Feasibility of Marketing Proposal

a)	Does request have sales management sponsorship?
b)	Is targeting of Marketing Program clearly defined? (the target segment/s are identified and known to sales & marketing)
c)	Do sales / marketing know how to identify segment members? (can the program be accurately targeted)
d)	Have the criteria for successful customer responses been defined and agreed (if an objective is to generate leads, has the criteria for what is a qualified lead been agreed with the sales channel)? Is this measurable / viable?
e)	Is the sales channel resourced to follow-up on projected responses?

	Capacity is available and committed by sales management:
	i)	Immediately
	ii)	Within timeframe program will be deployed
	iii)	Committed to by channel management, but yet to be scheduled
	iv)	Not yet committed by channel management
	v)	Response / follow-through has not yet been defined

Phase 3 - Prioritisation and Review of Marketing ROI

a)	Degree of "technical risk" (new processes / unproven resources needed)
b)	Logistical risk (timeframes needed, confidence in gaining access to key resources and materials needed, exposure to uncontrollable factors)
c)	Scheduling commitments - have key resources committed their availability? Are there any finite and/or perishable "availability windows"?
d)	Fully costed program plan created
e)	Probability of achieving revenue and profit goals
f)	Identification of key metrics and definition of success criteria.

Phase 4 - Implementation Planning of Marketing Programs

a) Budget identified and made available
b) Key steps in plan identified
c) Potential sources of resources identified (internal and external)
d) Scheduling in place
e) Follow-up agreements in place with sales channels
f) Lead management flow agreed
g) Success metrics defined and agreed (especially with sales channels)

Marketing ROI Review

The review of the marketing programs ROI can take several forms. For a major investment a separate, focused review with all stakeholders may be appropriate. In other situations, summaries of the results of a wave of marketing programs may be suitable.