In a past life, the marketer and the financier existed in two separate realms. Such was the way of the siloed business that the “creative” functionality was not attune to, nor involved in, the money-based world of finance. And never was this more eloquently articulated than in the John Wanamaker quote, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”
Luckily for us, and for the Wanamakers of the future, marketing and revenue have found their groove—giving up their individual choreography to form one unbeatable double act.
But what caused this seismic shift? It all comes down to metrics. What you’re measuring and why you’re measuring it.
Historically speaking, the metrics of success for marketing and finance were worlds apart. While the marketer focused on and forecasted the more volume-centered units sold, the financier relied on the actual dollars and cents. In CFO language, the bottom-line was the end all, be all.
But the rise of the experience economy brought us more than just the new “it” buzzword. A convergence of interests fostered by this new environment resulted in the sudden and inextricable meeting of the minds.
Marketing and finance, together at last.
To put it simply, our customer-focused world produced a new approach to measurement, one that noticeably removed the product from the forefront, replacing it instead with the customer.
The effect of this metric remapping? A key alignment of the goals and metrics between previously disparate functionalities.
In this landscape, reports abound with acronyms like CAC (customer acquisition cost) and CLV (customer lifetime value). Talk of strategy migrates swiftly from product and units to loyalty and experience. The underlying theme connecting every strategy and number? The customer.
And as businesses look towards the “what’s next” of it all, one thing remains constant. Success lies not in any internal role, but in the strategic role of the customer. The data, insight, and opportunity brought to any business by those who keep them in business. And we’ve got the metrics to prove it.