Measure Your Integrated Marketing Campaigns

Let me ask you one more question: If your Thanksgiving Day dining habits were replicated every day of the year, how would your health change?

We generally know the answers to both questions. After eating more than any rational person should eat on Thanksgiving Day, we diet. We know we can't eat that way every day or we'll suffer serious health consequences.

This is the problem we face when considering integrated marketing campaigns. We tend to measure the event, sort of like measuring consumption on Thanksgiving Day.

When you measure return on investment, you need to measure not just Thanksgiving Day, but every day. It may well be that integrated marketing campaigns are best for your business. But you won’t know that until you go beyond measuring only the period encompassed by the integrated marketing campaign.

Measure ROI across an extended period of time — monthly, quarterly, six-month season, annually. When you extend the length of time required for measurement, you frequently see that marketing campaigns fail to make a dent in long-term customer behavior.

None of this argues for or against integrated marketing campaigns. Rather, this week's column encourages you to accurately measure ROI. By extending your measurement period, you gain a more accurate view of customer behavior.

Kevin Hillstrom is president of MineThatData, a database marketing consultancy. He can be reached at kevinh@minethatdata.com.