The start of a new year. It’s a time when your newsfeed overflows with resolutions to drop a few pounds, save a little money, get more exercise, and if you’re in the marketing and communications business, it’s the season for articles forecasting the most important trends for the year ahead.

Isn’t it funny that come January 1st, everyone seems to have access to a crystal ball?

It may sound like I’m joking about the annual compilation of predictions, but actually, I believe it’s important for industry veterans to weigh in and share what’s on their minds. But these types of articles can be a little long winded, so instead of 3-5 thoughts for 2018, I’ll just focus on one.

And that, my friends, is the widespread adoption of marketing analytics.

A Blast from the Past

A few months ago, I was eating lunch at a Greek restaurant with a colleague of mine who I’ve worked with for several years. Somewhere between our mazza plate and the main course, he off-handedly mentioned that one of my clients, who is also a mutual friend of ours, said something along the lines of: “Michael keeps bringing us all these analytics we’ve never asked for.”

My jaw dropped..

Never once had I remotely considered that any B2B manager wouldn’t jump at the bit to know what kind of impact their marketing investment was actually having—objectively, and based on undisputed numbers.

With advancements in marketing analytics, we now have insight into what works, what doesn’t, and what changes we need to make to improve marketing results.

The more I thought about it, however, the more I realized that far too many business leaders still don’t understand what the emerging ability to capture marketing data actually means, or that fool-proof data can be used to minimize both marketing subjectivity and waste.

As my good friend and B2B marketing expert, Carlos Hidalgo, likes to say, “The days when marketing could hide are over.”

Marketing Analytics as Financial Reporting

Let’s compare the marketing scenario I described above to an accounting example. Suppose a CPA met with the CEO of a marketing company to review the status of the firm’s financial picture. What if after the CPA left, the CEO’s comment was, “Our CPA keeps bringing me all these profit and loss statements and balance sheets we’ve never asked for.”

It may sound far-fetched, but the analogy between accounting and marketing measurement is increasingly valid. The difference is that reliable accounting data has been around for eons and evolved into a core component of standard business practice.

Not so with the marketing function. But these days, marketing data can shed light on performance and ROI in a language that C-level leaders inherently understand.

And that language is every C-level manager’s favorite—numbers.

For example, it’s now possible for B2B companies to measure:

  • The number of referrals—where they’re coming from, whether they’re qualified, and whether they’re the result of your marketing campaign.
  • What pages on your website are attracting visitors, and which ones aren’t.
  • Where potential prospects happen to be in their buying cycle.
  • How your marketing stacks up against your competitors.
  • What marketing tactics should be emphasized and which ones should be abandoned.
  • What prospects are qualified leads and which ones aren’t.
  • Where you should invest marketing dollars and where you should cut costs.
  • What your actual ROI is on your marketing campaigns.
  • And most importantly, the new data capabilities can allow you to turn marketing from a cost center into a revenue-generating function.

These few examples are just the tip of the iceberg. As technology continues to advance, so will the science of marketing. And when you combine science with the art of strategic marketing, it won’t just be a paradigm shift. It will be a significant way to lower costs and increase bottom-line profits.

Is 2018 the year you start collecting marketing analytics? Let’s chat!.