• There are too many intangibles to measure ROI in dollars returned on investment.
• You can’t measure ROI from marketing efforts.
• You don’t ask any other department to show ROI. Why do we need to demonstrate it?

Dear marketer, they don’t care about our challenges and problems. When we try to explain why measuring marketing ROI is difficult, we make a huge mistake. I know. I made this mistake in the corporate world and with my clients. I finally figured it out. Let me say this again: They don’t care and they don’t believe us. Furthermore, many of them see what we do as discretionary spending, so if we can’t deliver ROI, they might as well cut our budgets or eliminate us all together. The reality is that no matter how we feel about it, no matter that intangibles matter when it comes to marketing, our bosses and our clients want to know what the ROI will be from our marketing efforts.

Let me be so bold as to say I think I know the problem and the solution. This ephiphany, if I may, did not come to me overnight. I guess I’m a slow learner or enjoy pain.

When we talk marketing to those outside our field, we all too often discuss tactics (tools). We need to stop doing that. When we tell bosses and clients that we will drive sales through direct marketing, blogging, advertising, PR, they then believe that each of those tools deliver ROI. Now we have painted ourselves in a corner and gotten caught with the paint brush in our hand. The solution lies in Marketing 101.

Never, ever verbally discuss tools with a non-marketer. Instead, talk objectives and goals. Then we can reasonably predict ROI. What am I saying? In short, we owe it to those to whom we report to provide them with a strategic integrated marketing plan for every objective expected of us. Go back to your college days and remember the old template. In brief, the plan is a ladder built from the top down that starts on the top rung with an objective. After we state the objective, we complete the ladder with:

• Strategies to achieve the objective.
• A measurable goal for each strategy.
• Tactics to achieve each strategy.

Simple right? Well, only if you keep the plan from gathering dust on a shelf; hold everyone in marketing responsible and accountable for the plan; build in tracking devices and metrics that measure in dollars and cents; (Include intangibles, as well. They provide an excellent source of data.); and add the right tactics under each strategy that will achieve those strategies and the measurable goals. There is no fluff and “no nice to do’s just in case.” This is a tight plan, built on a tight budget, to reach the right people, at the right time, in the right place. This isn’t about reach; it is about targeted and segmented marketing. (For most businesses, reach is yesterday’s marketing news and too costly and ineffective to consider. Unless you aa business like Duncan Donuts, why are you investing in reach? But that’s another post.)

The Key: There is but one objective. Everything in the plan is designed to achieve that objective.

The Key to the Key: The objective should be about sales; otherwise, you will not be able to measure ROI. We must work closely with Sales to ensure that when our strategies drive sales upward, we are aware of when and how. (This is another subject, but if we aren’t working closing with Sales, whether as a CMO, Director or Manager of marketing or as a Marketing Consultant, our chances of delivering and measuring ROI are limited at best and impossible at worst.)

What About Brand: Look, you and I know we need to build Brand Image. We need to drive customers to the web site(s) and to the company blog(s). We need to create PR that gets picked up and advertising that is meant to enhance our image. But these things don’t deliver measurable ROI usually, and we don’t need to argue or try to convince others of their importance. And that’s the beauty of an integrated marketing plan. There is but one ROI, and it is based on achieving the objective. So whether the plan is an annual one or a quarterly one or project based, create an objective based on sales and build in some tactics that will enhance brand image. You will become a hero because you delivered ROI. All the other stuff–hits, links, media mentions, great customer comments are icing on the cake.

With this kind of integrated planning, you can have your cake and eat it, too. Even a blind marketer should be able to see that reality.