The are any number of marketing metrics. (We said 50+ in the first edition of our book. That worked for us. After all, we couldn’t be bothered to count them. There are much more than 50). An obvious question is, therefore, which metrics should we bother to calculate? What is the value of any metric?…
Category: Marketing Metrics
The Problem Of Researchers Giving Advice To Managers
Translating academic research into advice for managers is a tough skill. I really don’t think we value the skill enough. We hope that researchers will effortlessly translate quality research into quality managerial advice. There seems little reason to believe this. Many otherwise excellent researchers giving advice to managers are not at their best. Researchers Giving Advice To Managers Barbara Kahn’s Global…
The Denseness of Social Networks
What can we find out from the denseness of social networks? Individual Versus Network Characteristics Researchers often study questions focused upon the individual. For example, we might want to know if a consumer has been influenced by an advertisement. Alternatively, we might assess what sort of skills are useful for a salesperson to possess? There…
Is Reliability A Good Thing?
Reliability in analysis is widely valued. Reliability is returning the same result whenever we test the same thing. I’m not against reliability. Still, it can be overrated as Scott Armstrong explains. We need to ask occasionally: Is Reliability A Good Thing? Or more accurately, how much are we willing to sacrifice at the altar of…
Implementing Marketing Analytics
Cesar Brea’s book, Marketing and Sales Analytics, is a practitioner’s take on analysis. He discussed implementing marketing analytics. Conversations With Experts Indeed, a full third just details his conversations with practitioner experts. The work has several points that are worth considering. Brea also includes elements that I would have avoided. The division of marketers into…
Faking Market Share
I enjoyed Peter Thiel’s Zero to One which he wrote with Blake Masters. Thiel seems more interesting than most business leaders. The book spews out ideas in a slightly haphazard, but never boring, fashion. (To be clear I’m pretty sure I disagree with him on an awful lot of issues, but still think it is…
Using Marketing Analytics
Two of my MBA professors, Paul Farris and Ron Wilcox, along with a newer Darden professor Raj Venkatesan, have a new book. This examines using marketing analytics through cases. (Raj also runs the marketing analytics initiative at Darden). Numbers-Based Marketing The cases describe scenarios relevant to numbers-based marketing. For example, they allow readers to see the…
Measuring Research Quality
One of marketing academics’ favorite recommendations is to measure outcomes. Still, measurement problems make it hard for academics to take our own advice. Let’s give academics the benefit of the doubt and assume they genuinely want to measure their achievements. How then do we go about measuring research quality? Measuring Research Quality A major part…
Valuing Brands In Accountancy
Valuing brands in accountancy has been a challenge for a long time. The Challenge Of Valuing Brands In Accountancy Brand valuation is a challenging topic. Still, it is a critical one for marketers. It is hard to look at corporate accounts without noticing that marketing is poorly accounted for. The accounts largely omit the value…
Story Spreadsheets
Business school spreadsheets annoy me. I’m not anti-spreadsheet generally. Indeed, a good spreadsheet is a thing of beauty. What irritates me is the belief students have that a good spreadsheet is a complicated spreadsheet. Students sometimes think that the more they can jam onto a single worksheet the better. This fundamentally mistakes the purpose of…
