📖 Nielsen’s ‘Annual Marketing Report’ 2023
It’s report time again, and this time it comes in the form of Nielsen’s ‘Annual Marketing Report’, which shows that 52% of digital marketers are focused on reach rather than on ROI – which was definitely, at first, a surprise to me because ROI seems to be the only thing people on LinkedIn and in the B2B news world go on about.
The report suggests that 48% of marketers are focused both on their reach/frequency and ROI, whereas the other 52% are focused solely on their reach. Now, we’re going to get more into what we think about this in a minute, but here are some more statistics and facts from the report before we get into that.
Apparently, 61% of marketers are “very�? or “extremely�? confident in their ability to measure the ROI of social media initiatives; 59% said the same about search, and 53% said they were “very�? or “extremely�? confident in their email campaign measurements.
🤔 Here’s What We Think
Colour me sceptical, but I don’t buy it. We’ve reported on a few stories in the past about how B2B digital marketers are feeling the pressure to prove ROI, how they’re not being given sufficient budgets, nor are they being given appropriate deadlines. Granted, there have been a few outliers, and apparently, the budgets are getting bigger, but it seems very peculiar to me that we may be surprised by these statistics.
There’s a reason digital marketers are focused on ROI: because they don’t have the required resources to be so. So the best option for them, really, is to focus on their social media and email marketing reach. It’s the only logical thing they could do, with the funds they have, to prove they’re doing a good job. If digital marketers had the funds for it, then ROI would probably be their main focus.
�? Customer Acquisition vs Retention
‘Practically speaking, marketers without dependable measurement data won’t be able to make fully informed media mix decisions,’ said the researchers behind the report. ‘That could limit their ability to plan for their primary business objective for the year: customer acquisition.’
Again, this smells off to me.
It’s been proven time and time again that customer retention is much more productive and cheaper than customer acquisition. Through retention, you’re more likely to have advocates for your brand and people who genuinely trust you; they’ll persuade people to work with you, making digital marketers’ job a hell of a lot easier and much more effective in the long run. People will trust their marketing campaigns.
But customer acquisition? It’s more expensive and involves more gambling than it does guaranteed results.
So, all in all, let’s not be too surprised by the results of this report. But, let’s also try to ram it into the heads of CEOs and CFOs that customer retention is far more viable than acquisition, and that your marketing and ROI will suffer if you don’t focus on it. Reach should definitely be something you’re focusing on, but you should be honing your skills into other areas.
Sam Hollis is a Writer for Fame, SaaS Marketer, as well as his own fictional short stories. He lives and works in Birmingham with his three cats and his dog (way too many pets, if you ask us)
