Customer acquisition beats ROI as business objective
Marketers accused of losing sight of financial implications of campaigns.
Customer acquisition and retention are now the key priorities for marketers, above measuring return on investment (ROI), according to new research.
The survey – carried out by research firm Vanson Bourne, on behalf of predictive analytics software company SPSS – reveals that 50% of marketing professionals questioned placed customer acquisition and retention as their key business objectives.
By contrast, ROI has fallen down many marketers’ lists, with only 5% of respondents placing it as their top concern.
Colin Shearer, SPSS senior vice-president of strategic analytics, argues that ROI needs to rise back up the agenda and says: “Marketers seem to have lost sight of the budgetary and financial implications of campaigns. We are no longer in the boom times – all expenditure needs to be justified within the business to ensure value for money.”
The research, which quizzed 100 marketing professionals, also found that some marketers are making decisions based on instinct alone. In terms of decision-making, nearly 15% of marketers from the financial services sector say that they often largely go on gut feeling.
This is compared with their counterparts from the technology and retail sectors, who prefer to mix intuition with proven results and historical success.
