A recent survey of 3,000 global marketers concluded that marketing effectiveness has reached an all-time low. Those surveyed said that "65% of their marketing spend had no discernible effect on consumer behavior in 2007." [Survey was conducted by The Fournaise Marketing Group]

That's even worse that the old adage about 50% of your marketing being wasted, but not knowing which half. However, the reason is pretty much the same—lack of measurement.

The survey results also discovered, "Of the 55% of marketers who track their spending, 80% do so manually, spending hours gathering and analyzing data. Only one in 10 marketers surveyed had automated systems in place to track the effectiveness of their spend."

Manual tracking is too complex and, with all those hours of analysis, too late. Besides that, marketers are being charged to deliver more highly qualified leads, move faster and do more with less. They are also charged to prove their results, hence the brave attempts to measure a myriad of siloed activities at all.

Marketing automation systems are available to streamline many of these tasks with a much higher degree of efficiency, and provide a variety of insights unavailable otherwise. In order to impact buyer activity and drive momentum, marketers need to be able to monitor behavior every step of the way and tweak and tune their programs to higher relevancy.

One of the best examples of marketing automation capability is the difference between being able to monitor only the whole lead database from a limited set of interaction points, or being able to leverage real-time insights to segment and individual data across all online activities. Looking at database trends is one thing. Honing in on a lead showing increased momentum and specific interests to get them to sales at exactly the opportune time is another.

Think about it this way: Just like you don't have time or inclination to speak with a salesperson who calls and says, "Tell me about your company and how we can help you," you also don't have time to waste the opportunity to strengthen engagement with your buyers.

The elusive objective is to harness the capability to be relevant every time you communicate with buyers. And, when they’re ready, your salesperson will contact them with a seamless extension of the dialogue the buyer is already having with your company’s marketing group.

The only way this type of experience happens is if you can measure interest, response and related follow-on activities and share it with sales. Measurement is not just about numbers, it's about assessing how to generate momentum based on relevancy as expressed by the buyer.

It's about real-time discovery of engagement and working to extend that attention, gathering more intelligence about each step of the buyer's cycle.
It's about leveraging those insights to move buyers farther through the pipeline than you've ever done before.

It's about marketing's contribution to downstream revenues and benchmarking improvements marketing can drive into sales productivity achievements.

And finally, it's about being able to produce those results repeatedly.

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B2B marketing strategist Ardath Albee helps companies significantly increase their marketing momentum by generating more and better leads for their sales organizations. She helps them capture the attention of web site visitors, and strengthen engagement with high value content till they are "sales ready." Visit the Marketing Interactions website: www.marketinginteractions.com.