According to Boston-based research company Aberdeen, best-in-class companies--those performing in the top 20% of all survey respondents--have instituted marketing performance strategies to establish marketing's value to the organization and improve management's view to marketing decisions. Moreover, 33% of all companies surveyed identify proof of results for justification of next year's marketing budget as a key driver for the adoption of new performance measurement capabilities.

According to research presented in a new report, "Measuring Marketing Performance: The BI Roadmap to Information Nirvana," Best-in-Class companies have increased their Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) at nearly twice the rate of Industry Average companies. As a whole, Best-in-Class companies have adopted and are planning to invest in technologies and services that center around improvement of customer profiling and understanding, combined with real-time analytics capabilities that enable faster response to changing market dynamics.

Best-in-Class organizations showed significant performance improvements in comparison to Industry Average and Laggard companies in several areas over the previous twelve months. Best-in-Class companies achieved:

1. 9% mean increase in ROMI in the past 12 months
2. 12% mean increase of new leads into the sales pipeline in the past 12 months
3. 11% mean increase of customer cross-sell / up-sell opportunities in the past 12 months
4. 10% mean increase in customer retention rate in the past 12 months

"Improvement of marketing performance, and specifically the ability to pinpoint the drivers and detractors for performance, is the holy grail of marketing organizations. The ability to analyze performance across all activities and generate improved results defines the 'information nirvana' marketers are looking for. Traditionally, companies have taken a hit-or-miss or 'let's do what worked before' strategy toward developing and executing their marketing initiatives and campaigns. As the pressure to improve performance has increased and budgets have come under close scrutiny, organizations are now faced with finding new ways to make marketing activity more effective, efficient, and yield higher return," said David Hatch, Research Director of Aberdeen's Business Intelligence Practice.
To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, visit:
http://www.aberdeen.com