Many CEO complain they do not see the value in marketing efforts. For them we suggest to use a simple and practical framework, PCCDIO, that has worked wonders for our clients,

1. Making marketing work!
Introduction
A constant crib we notice whenever we meet CEO’s of companies is, they believe marketing departments
does not justify the investment and people. CEOs and owners of SMB enterprises feel they are spending
enough on events, they were not sure what way it has helped them create branding and most importantly
sales. Companies in average spend about 3-4% of their top line across different marketing assets as shown
in Figure 1. Print media, especially related to industry magazines still plays a dominant role, but the impact
the social media is increasing.
Companies spend a fortune on the conferences and events but the outcomes belie expectations. It is not
surprising for many corporates to find 75% of the participants who attended their events came for free lunch
or a swanky dinner. Many of the participants may not be the decision maker or influencers, but pretty junior
in their organization. Corporate gifts, industry exhibitions cost a dime, and yet ineffective. Albeit companies
continue to pursue many of these acts they are afraid to pause and question fundamentals. What is the
objective of the event? Why this city and this hour? How this format will help sell their ware? Unfortunately,
many leaders want to just follow the herd. Therefore, it is not surprising when:
1) 50% of marketing budget is totally wasted
2) Only 34% of feel their content marketing works
3) 44% had no alignment between various marketing media
How to make marketing work
Based on our experience of working with companies of all sizes, right from start up to 50 years old, we ask
the management to consider a simple framework, PCDIO, to guide marketing. P stands for Purpose, i.e., why
a particular marketing activity amongst the basket of marketing assets as shown in Figure 2 is being used.
Some marketing assets are good to maximize reach, while some would be more useful to build loyalty.

2. On the outset, it is important to realize marketing function serves three objectives, as shown in Figure 3. If the
purpose is to inform the market about your products and services, marketing assets like blogs, brochures, PR
drives work best. Marketing assets such as curated white papers, case studies, conferences and magazine
publications are very effective in directing the customer purchase intentions. These assets allow for experience
sharing and position ‘expertise,’ and therefore help the company in moving branding from product-
commodity to credibility.
If the objective is influence, awards, citations, sponsored industry events, directed online community forums,
video endorsements serve as effective mediums. Marketing assets such as online forums, webinars, face to
face meetings allow for bidirectional exchange of dialogues and serve as effective feedback platforms. These
assets work best to meet “listening” requirements.
Companies gain legitimacy and from advocacy when their customers, partners and ecosystem players
endorse and push their products and services. Marketing assets such as Analyst case studies, industry awards,
recommendations from leading customers are effective means to lock-in customers.
Marketing pays off when it is comprehensive and consistent. There are several ads we see where the message
is incomplete or the styles changed too often “confusing” the positioning. Unfortunately, many brands seem
to follow 50 something dye the white hair to look young policy and missing out on authenticity. While many of
us associate YouTube with videos of cats or people falling off their skateboards in new and interesting ways,
the reality is that YouTube can be an extremely powerful weapon for a B2B marketer. In addition to providing
your prospects with information about your product or service, a YouTube channel is also important from a
brand equity perspective. HP, for example, has a large part of their channel devoted to their work in health
and education. Its press release or blog or product demonstration video are consistent and help HP to position
its brand in the prospect’s mind as caring and trustworthy.

3. D refers to delivery, how and when is the marketing happening. Some assets have “time of the day “and “”
week of the day” limitations. Consider “Congregation branding”, an approach many brands attempt without
much success. The advantage of congregation branding is it helps brands to reach out to consumer who may
reside in media-light or are low TV and print penetration areas. Congregation branding helps to marry the
essence of the event with the brand proposition. Congregation branding drives social approval and
recommendations. It is a low-cost approach to reach out to large user base. It offers the opportunity to
consumers to touch and feel products. WhatsApp and other aps are powerful and low-cost communication
tools. Their biggest advantage is their simplicity and quick roll out. In an internet world that is algorithmic and
controlled by Google’s of the world, app messaging services support organic reach without having to pay to
play the community game. The app message alerts are instantaneous and have a high probability of
engagement. Our audit of many marketing campaigns reveals many marketing efforts fail because the
delivery issues affecting interest elicitation, interactions, sense of achievement and brand association.
Most often companies measure the outputs of marketing team which may be in the form of number of blogs/
Facebook posts/ Awards etc. However, we ignore the fact that marketing is a means to an organizational
goal. Measuring marketing efforts in terms of the outputs, outcomes and impact is key to sustaining higher
returns from marketing. What is more important for a CMO is to know what has been cooked, who consumed
it and what happened later? Our recommendation is to measure marketing in four categories: content, leads,
social & web and analysts. Content could involve blogs, case studies, videos, EDM, s, PR releases, etc created
in a particular period and their associated metrics of consumption. Leads could come from both online and
offline channels. Capture the leads from website using tools like Google analytics & complement with
advanced tools to track visitors. Next, capture the social and web activities and their impact. How has the
followers grown on various platforms, viz, twitter, LinkedIn, FB, etc. Measure the depth of engagement in each
platform by measuring impressions, views, likes and comments. Capturing sentiments is key to know the
impact of any marketing effort. Lastly, measure the number of advocacy efforts, number of reports which
mention our product or company, client endorsement or recommendations, etc. Regular weekly and monthly
reviews with sales teams is key to realize sales-marketing alignment.
In sum, marketing delivers, if you keep things simple. Have a clear expectation, check whether the means you
are investing with will lead to the objectives, pursue the efforts and keep sharpening the aim.
Swathi Rao and Remya Mohan