ilure Points of a Marketing Measurement Plan — and How to Fix Them //

I’ve been in countless meetings when someone comes up with a small idea and it becomes a full-fledged campaign within minutes. Everyone is eager to get things done.

With all the excitement and buzz, one key element is almost always overlooked — a plan for measurement. The measurement plan is often an afterthought. You spent a lot of time, effort and creativity to create your campaign. You want to know exactly how your campaign affected your business.

A measurement plan is much more than a list of numbers on a spreadsheet. A measurement plan is more than just numbers in a spreadsheet. It’s also a story and a tool for making decisions. Always make sure that you are setting yourself up to succeed. Let’s look at the five areas where things can fail and how you can fix them.

What are five points where a measurement plan fails?

If a measurement plan doesn’t work, there are two possible reasons:

• Data alone cannot be used to make decisions.
• You are trying to make too many conclusions with data.

Think about the actions you want to take with the data when putting together your measurement plan. Don’t just think of collecting data. Teams tend to ignore requirements gathering because it is “just” about a measurement plan. The mere mention of “requirements” can cause a shudder. Why?

The gathering of requirements is often (incorrectly ) seen as a long and tedious process, which is an obstacle to action. It doesn’t need to be. You should at least be able answer five simple questions.

• What is your purpose?
• People. Who are the key stakeholders? What do they care about and why?
• Process. What is your process for collecting data and maintaining its integrity?
• Platform. What tools do you use to collect, analyze and report?
• Performance. How can you tell if your plan is the right one?

Your measurement plan is less likely to fail if you are able to answer these questions.

Failure point 1: What is the purpose?

Why is purpose a failure? We often don’t know what question we are trying to answer. We’re also trying to answer a lot of questions, and one measurement plan won’t be enough.

Start with a user’s story. A user story can be described as a simple sentence with three parts, each answering five questions.

“As [a persona], I [want] to, so [that]”

Your purpose is the statement.

• You can tell who people are by their [persona].
• The [want-to] will tell you about the platform and process.
• You can tell the performance by [this].

Many people stop writing or thinking about a user-story when they reach the [want to] part.

For example, I am a [marketing manager] and want to [measure the success of my campaigns].

There is no “so this”. Why is the marketing manager interested in measuring their campaign? With the data, what decisions can you make? What happens when the results are not as expected? What will happen if results are above expectations?

Giving people a purpose is the flipside of this. Your people will not know what to do if you don’t give them a purpose. We all want to understand why we are asked to do certain things. This gives us a purpose. Share your user story with your team to help them understand what you want. They will then take responsibility for the final outcome.

A measurement plan can only be as good as the purpose it serves. The numbers will be just numbers on a spreadsheet if there is no purpose or point. Make sure that you and your team understand the purpose of the plan.

Failure point 2: People

The people are the main failure point in a business for several reasons. First, they don’t really know what they want. They’re not focused. It helps to give the plan a goal. Next, they may not know why they’re being asked.

As mentioned above, giving them a reason gives them a why and a feeling of ownership. Last but not least, they were never asked. How can you ask someone what they want to do?

Each person should create their own version of the original story. You will gain a deeper understanding of their needs.

“As [persona], [I want to], [so this].”

The “persona”, your stakeholder is the “want to”, and the “so as” is the desired outcome.

As an example:

• 
  As a CMO I want to know how my channels perform so I can determine which channels drive revenue.
  
• 
  I am a marketing manager and I would like to know which channels perform well so I can allocate budgets and resources accordingly.
  
• 
  I am an analyst and I would like to know which channels perform best so I can focus my voice-of-customer analysis.
  

We can see from the user stories that while the platform and process are similar, the data and the purposes are not.

The output of your plan can be used to address this issue. Here’s where you start to enter the process. Create dashboards for every stakeholder. The data is the same, but the story you tell depends on your audience.

A second failure of people is to limit the audience. Some companies are required or want to share data with external parties. Some teams use data for marketing and sales purposes. Some teams use data for regulatory purposes. You should also consider the perspectives of other teams when creating user stories.

Failure point 3: Process

Failures are more often caused by a lack of process than the actual process. You need a plan for collecting, analyzing and reporting your data to create a successful measurement program. The 6Cs of data-quality are a good place to start.

• Data are well-prepared and error-free.
• Complete. No missing information.
• Complete. Data should cover all questions.
• Chosen. No data that is irrelevant or confusing.
• Credible. The data is collected in an appropriate way.
• Calculable. Data must be able to be used and manipulated by users.

You will also want to determine the frequency at which the data is collected. Are you pulling the data once to see what happens, or do you set it up daily over a period of time? You can automate your measurement plan.

When you define your processes, consider both short-term and long-term options. It’s okay to begin with manual data collection and analysis. Consider automating your processes in order to reduce errors and save time.

Your measurement plan will fail if you don’t know the quality and frequency of data that you collect, or all of the points where your data is collected. These questions will prevent this failure.

Knowing how to share data is key to digging deeper into the process. What do you need? A deck, a sheet, a dashboard or something else entirely? You can always go back to the user stories or people if you are unsure. Set expectations upfront for how to present data. This will dictate the way you collect and store data. The platforms that you use will be influenced by this.

Failure point 4 : Platform

Your purpose and user stories can help you narrow your choices from over 11000 martech platforms.

Platforms can fail for several reasons.

• Too many. We try to cram all of our data from our various platforms into a single report. This tactic involves a lot more processes around data cleansing and transformation.
• The wrong platforms are chosen, and the wrong data. By not taking a step back to consider the purpose of the measurement plan, you could be heading in the wrong directions. Google Analytics, for example, is a common tool used by marketers. Everyone knows about it and it’s widely used. By default, it’s included. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it is the best platform for your analysis. Consider your goals and the user stories. This will help you decide which platforms to choose. Google Analytics may not play a part in your measurement plan.

You need three platforms to get started if you are overwhelmed.

• The first step is to collect all your data.
• Analyze your data.
• Report your data.

Start with the basics, and then build on that.

A measurement plan that is all-encompassing can also be a failure. What would your measurement plan look like if there were multiple plans?

Your user stories can be compared to chapters in a novel. All of them work together to tell a story, yet they are also independent. This will enable more platforms and user stories. It’s not necessary to cram all the information onto one confusing page.

Failing point 5: Performance

Performance in this context is not about whether the campaign was successful, but if you have the right plan. You can check your homework here before you submit it.

It’s easy to skip this step. Right? You’ve made your plan, created the spreadsheet, and are done. It’s better to go back and review the first four Ps.

• Purpose. Have you answered the original question?
• People. Have you met the requirements for answering this question in your user story?
• Process. Have you created a repeatable procedure to answer the question?
• Platform. You used the correct one to answer the questions.

Be sure to have a plan in place before you start running campaigns. This should go beyond a simple excel spreadsheet. Set up your dashboards, reporting templates, processes, and expectations in advance to save time.

You can use the 5Ps for any campaign you want to launch, whether it is a mid-month campaign or a year-end planning. It may seem like gathering requirements for a plan is excessive, but this doesn’t have to be the case.

You should at least be able to answer the following five questions.

• What is the goal for this plan?
• What people are involved in the plan?
• What is the Process that we need to follow in order to execute this plan?
• What platforms are needed for this plan
• What is the performance measure that you can use to know if you are successful?

Go back to the start if you cannot answer these questions. Begin with a user’s story, and then build your requirements. In no time, you’ll have an excellent measurement plan.

The post Five failure points in a marketing measure plan — and How to Fix them first appeared on MarTech.