Marketing News Radio: Marketing Mix Decisions – Practical Advice from Leading Practitioners
One thing I really like about the AMA is that I am kept updated on the latest trends and information about marketing. Not only does the newly updated AMA Website provide me with access to tons of great resources, but the AMA also publishes great books like the one we talked about on this week’s Marketing News Radio program.
The AMA just released a book which is actually a collection of papers written by leading academics and practitioners on the current state of marketing mix resource allocation and planning. The book, Marketing Mix Decisions: New Perspectives and Practices, identifies the tools and methods that are available to allocate and measure the effectiveness of marketing spend, and the impact of new media on the marketing mix.
With me on the program to talk about the book was co-editor Rob O’Regan. He’s a principal at 822 Media which is an editorial consultancy that helps marketers with the practice of “corporate journalism” to create content that connects companies with their customers and prospects.
Two things Rob said struck home to me. The first is that marketers appear to have awareness of the number of processes and tools available but either a lack of understanding on how to use them, or even a willingness to do so. Given the fact that ROI and accountability have been forefront to every conversation in marketing during the past 18 months, it is a frightening commentary on the state of marketers if this is true.
With regard to the new media environment, Rob said that we as marketers have gotten really good at measuring components, but the challenge is connecting the dots (the Marketing Mix Decisions book has great examples that address this!). Again, something that plagues us all.
The book Marketing Mix Decisions is available for free to AMA members.
--David Kinard, host of Marketing News Radio
Comments
I have been in market research since 1986. My parents were both market researchers and we had our own full service and data collection company for many years. For the past few years, I have been more of a consultant and not a researcher. I have seen the world of market research and data collection change significantly with the advent of the internet and new data collection methodologies.
However, I am deeply concerned. A dear friend of mine for many years who knows my background signed up for Survey Spot, which I have come to discover is owned by Survey Sampling. Over the years, I have dealt with Survey Sampling as a client and I know Terri Coen personally.
My concern is that upon joining Survey Spot, my friend has received no less than 11 invitations to participate in surveys in a three day period.
He did the first survey and it was long and tedious and he definitely experienced respondent deterioration and filled out answers just to get the survey done and complete.
BUt, when he started receiving 11 survey invitations over such a short period of time, he called me to talk about it.
Now, I really don't do too many surveys on the internet. However, I am truly shocked at the sheer quantity of the surveys presented to respondents both in and out of panels. As professional researchers, how can we offer clients responses from respondents that are asked to fill out so many surveys in such a short amount of time. Albeit they are panelists, but even way back when panels first came into being, respondents were never overwhelmed with so many surveys.
I know it must boil down to money and cost efficiencies. However, are we sacrificing validity for the almighty dollar? And, what will that do to the quality of products and services that clients provide to the public at large?
Posted by: Glenn Weissman | July 10, 2008 9:11 AM
Glenn:
I can relate to your story as I too have been experiencing an overwhelming influx of daily survey invites. I figured this could be a full time job with each survey taking 15-20 minutes to complete.
What is equally frustrating is that receiving these survey invites tends to dull my interest in answering surveys by companies or organizations I am truly interested in (i.e. the American Marketing Association). It's almost that a group of abusers are ruining it for more legitimate researchers (as is the case for nearly everything on the Internet).
However, I can't dispair at this state of affairs. To me it drives me to become more creative in my approach to connecting with my audiences -- customer or community. Perhaps the online survey is about to go the way of the 30-second TV commercial -- into obsolescence.
-- David Kinard, PCM
Host, Marketing News Radio
Posted by: David Kinard | July 30, 2008 12:28 PM