The inaugural Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) Marketing Benchmark Survey has revealed that ICT (information and communication technology) marketing professionals need to address a variety of concerns in order to make a significant contribution to their organisation’s efforts to overcome current economic conditions.

The study undertaken by Best Case Scenario on behalf of the AIIA revealed seven crucial marketing tactics that have poor to no metrics in place, threatening ICT marketers ability to protect and win appropriate budgets for the future.

These tactics were rated as follows:

• Sales & Marketing: Poor measurable marketing programs
• Sales Alignment: Lack of marketing metrics in place
• Data Management: Poor return on investment on data both external and internal due to lack of metrics
• Marketing Processes: Lack of regular benchmarking
• Brand Metrics: Poor level of branding surveys
• Budget: Lack of return on investment measurements in place
• Growth and Profit: Poor growth metrics

AIIA
CEO, Ian Birks, said:

In 2009, ICT marketing professionals will be faced with thorny
market conditions that some may not have experienced before. This challenge is multiplied by the finding that 64% of
survey respondents indicated their marketing budget versus revenue
goals is inappropriate.

“Now is the time for ICT marketing professionals to use metrics to
restructure their budgets and reallocate funding to activities that
will help secure marketings credibility within the organisation”,
suggested Birks.

Luli Adeyemo of Best Case Scenario added:

The Marketing function’s failure to generate marketing metrics will do little to raise its profile to the upper echelons of the organisation. Marketing metrics and hard facts will earn exposure for marketing professionals to senior executives who control overall budget allocation.

Other key findings from the survey include:

• Senior executives need to experience positive exposure to marketing’s contribution to overall revenue goals; marketing’s interaction with this audience is minimal with only 2% of marketing respondents in the study interfacing with the CEO or equivalent.
• Basic marketing activities such as data cleansing and data quality checks are being neglected. 56% of respondents indicated a poor rating when it came to data quality checks. Good data management results in measurable campaign management, resulting in effective marketing management.
• Marketing professionals rated customer satisfaction and loyalty as healthy and the understanding of business drivers behind growth was also rated very favourably.