Special Guest Post by
Mark Sneider, President of RSW

Reese Adams, Vice President of Account Management with Lewis Advertising in North Carolina was kind enough to share an often-asked question he received from a prospective client recently, along with his response.

The question was, "How do you measure success?" Certainly, there are a myriad of potential variables involved and the question can be answered in a number of ways but I liked Lewis Advertising's answer for its direct, yet comprehensive nature and its up-front use of hard numbers/metrics.

For our readers in the agency world, you need to be able to answer this question. Sounds silly I imagine, because of course you do, but a surprising amount of agencies don't or aren't able to answer the question succinctly.

The key is helping the client understand and appreciate that success starts before the campaign. We see a lot of agencies talking success measurement, but don't often see them deliver on it. And we see a lot of marketers say they're concerned about it, but when push comes to shove, they gloss over it and are moving too fast to seem to care about it.

Like Lewis, you need to force the issue. Not only will it benefit you long-term, but it will help guide the development of future campaigns, and be of value to your marketing partner as he sells the success of his campaign and his or her own personal marketing efforts.

Below is the simplified framework of Lewis's answer to the question, with specifics removed for the purpose of this post.

We measure results a variety of ways:

1) Business Results
Our best measures of success are the quantitative results in the marketplace and the business results generated by the marketing and advertising programs we develop with our clients.

Our best examples of that are the results generated by Client X's branding campaign:

-Exceeding profit goals by 68%

-Exceeding pre-campaign benchmark levels for calls to their 800 # by 300%

2) Research Studies – comparison of same data over time
Another strong measure of success is the comparison of research data over time. Again with Client X we have the benefit of a pre-campaign research study and the same study done 3 years later.

3) Digital Metrics
All of our integrated programs have digital components which allow for enhanced tracking of viewership, time spent viewing and other key measures.Again a real time example of this is the launch of Client X's website in July 20XX.

4) Collaborative Process
These are all achieved as part of a unified collaborative effort with our client. Branding is one of the critical contributions.

Just one example of a potential, initial blueprint on how to answer the success measurement question. Ideally it provides a basic framework for those of you looking to answer the question for a prospective client in the future.