Managing Return On Investment (ROI)

Meeting head hunters once in a while is critical as they reflect the changing trend in the industry. In one of my conversation the lady asked me more about my job at the bank.

It was more of a dialogue and I feel I need to place it on record - this is similar to the dilemma I faced when I was a Account Manager for a large ad agency in Mumbai, India

Do you design products? - Not really that’s is the Product Development team
Do you set the business goals - nope that’s the business call
Do you control the customer service? - That is the service quality department
Do you manage communications? - yep we do - we manage communications in sync with the set business goals and ensure the designed products are bonded with our customers.

We manage the tone of messaging and also ensure we obtain Return on Marketing Investment

It is a tough job more because business owners, guard the marketing budgets and run their business like SBU’s and is impossible to poach this without being stung hard. The management always toes in line with Business more to the fact that they contribute to the companies bottom line

My belief always is that if you cant measure the budgets then you cant manage it. My sincere thanks to my previous line manager who was looking at the regional marketing portfolio and also to prudence of UAE’s consumer head, Return On Investment (ROI) was a mantra which was followed through out every campaign

Few steps which I faced and how I managed to overcome

1) Buy in - It is critical to have business units buy in as you are seeking to manage their business money and also to control it. We need to be able to demonstrate greater value and exhibit greater confidence that Marketing can deliver on the value proposition. In this testing times where marketing dollars are cut and people are made redundant it is important to demonstrate discipline in expenses and also show case marketing initiatives which will reduce expenses and get greater buy in from business

I recall how Balance Score Card team was struggling with the staff few years ago and how the entire bank came to terms with it. More because of the Head of Business concurred to it. It is important to have senior management buy in to move forward. However, the first step is to speak with business heads and cascade up

2) Agree on a matrix - not all marketing expenses can be measured and especially for credit cards where the life cycle of products vary and justification for US$10 a piece welcome pack is important as the customer needs to go through the experience and spend - ideally two different sets of expense matrix is ideal one for cards and one for other business units. Since the budgets are annual - the campaign effectiveness ROI can be measured over long term. This may counter any arguments from product units.

3) Manage Vintage - Post every campaign - track the call center volumes and also the leads to the sales team and manage the matrix with product teams. We are catalysts for their success and hence it is important for them in the long run to partner with us. We can then arrive at effective media mix, budgets for both internal and external customer engagement which will be proven effective. Bankers love numbers and if we back them with clear cost savings and value for money - this winning matrix will have greater shelf life