Who Says Marketers Can't Do Math?

Posted by Lisa Hochgraf

Despite the winter weather advisory, I made it today to the CUES Golden Mirror Awards judging event being held this week in frigid Madison, Wis. (OK, it's actually a bit warmer today than when I got to town on Sunday--the temperature is 11 degrees, up from -6.)

So far, I've been observing the work of one team of three judges--two CU marketers and an industry consultant--as they review entries in the category of radio advertising. It's clear that the trio is very good at considering goals and results (and whether the results actually show whether the goals were met) on the entries they review. The group also is very committed to the idea that the top winners must have not only grabbing creative, but also demonstrate that they met their objectives through measurable, relevant results.

"Where's the calculator?" they keep asking.They have used the tool to compute how much one credit union paid for every new member a particular radio campaign brought in (dividing the total cost of the radio spots by the number of new members). They've used it to figure how many credit cards per month the credit union gets regularly (dividing a six-month figure by six), so they can compare it to how many it got with the radio campaign in place. They've used it to consider how a certain level of new deposits compares to a credit union's overall asset size.

In Credit Union Management, we've done stories about marketing ROI before. And, fortunately, I really think measuring marketing has come a long way in the CU world. But with uncertainty in the economy, there's no time like the present to keep goal setting and results measurement at the fore. Check out "Many Happy Returns" from the magazine to get you going. And if you want to see who the judges ranked highest today, be sure to join me in attending CUES Experience: Immersion Learning for Marketing, Operations and Technology Professionals in May in Minneapolis.