When you spend a lot of time analyzing marketing programs and performance, the problems tend to stick-out like a sore thumb. From campaign ROI that didn’t turn out as expected to poor lead generation numbers to lead-to-opportunity rates that could clearly be improved, these issues are practically screaming at you and demanding your undivided attention.
Fix me! Fix me! Fix me!
But if all you’re looking at are the marketing problems, you could be missing out on opportunities that are much bigger and far more impactful.
As discussed in The Fundamentals of Effective Marketing Analysis , there are two major types of analytical findings:
- Corrective Findings — These are about “stopping the stupid.” Typically, negative outliers are identified and investigated, and corrective action is taken to prevent similar problems and mistakes from happening in the future.
- Directive Findings — These are about “doing more of what’s working.” This is about identifying and investigating positive outliers, with the goal of directing the organization toward behaviors that are inherently more profitable.
Of course, corrective findings are valuable. Fixing marketing problems and preventing future process outliers will certainly produce a financial benefit. And as human beings, we’re somewhat hardwired to view “fixing problems” as being a high priority.
However, no matter how important we perceive corrective findings to be, directive findings can actually be many times more powerful and financially rewarding.
You see, with corrective findings your influence is limited to the relatively small handful of outliers, or potential outliers. On the other hand, directive findings can positively influence the entire salesforce, or even the entire business, for that matter.
In other words, while corrective findings might enable you to improve a few campaigns to be more in-line with the rest, directive findings can enable you to shift the performance of the marketing team (and even sales team) in a positive direction.
When so many things look broken, it can be difficult to focus on anything but problem solving. But if you can force yourself to focus even just a little more attention on what’s working, it can pay huge dividends.
The Fundamentals of Effective Marketing Analysis
Effective marketing analysis has the potential to reveal significant opportunities to drive more profitable growth.In this on-demand training webinar, learn about the key analytical concepts and foundational elements that need to be in-place to ensure meaningful results.
