I’ve been in the B2B marcom business for 3 decades, always working for or with technically oriented companies. Often times I felt I was the lone voice of marketing and marketing communications.

Very early in my career, I heard retailer John Wanamaker’s famous quip -- “I know that half of my advertising dollars are wasted, I just don’t know what half.” If I recall correctly it came from the mouth of a division VP/GM who was a chemist by training. He was a non-believer in the power of marcom.

For me and other members of my generation of marcom professionals the constant mention of this quote and similar ones put us on a mission. I wanted to be able to answer the questions: How much is invested? How much is wasted? I wanted to know what was working and what wasn’t. I wanted to show that the work we do contributes to the success of business. Ultimately, what I really wanted to do was demonstrate the holy grail of marcom -- prove that marketing communications produces sales.

Early on we referred to it as measurement and accountability. We accepted that we must be accountable for the dollars we were spending. Along the journey we’ve measured brand awareness, ad readership, lead count, trade show traffic and produced inquiry follow-up studies. But we have always come short of connecting any of what we have been measuring to a sale. We needed to produce a number that had meaning to the non-believers, a return on investment.

Fast forward to today. We now use the terms metrics and analytics, but the underlying premise is the same, be accountable for every dollar spent and deliver a return on investment number. These are exciting times, due to a variety of technologies we are very close to the goal of directly connecting a marcom lead to a sale. We have one client that is as close as I have ever seen. No, it is not seamless, there are still two "swivel chair" connections in place. But the holy grail is within sight.

The progress we have made was front and center last week while talking with an executive of one of our clients. He told me that just recently his boss used the Wanamaker quote. It started a great conversation among us about how we can now deliver answers to what is working and what is wasted.

Want to read more about Godfrey’s thoughts on this subject, check out our B2B Insights Series on Marketing ROI.

Dr. Jones