GROW WHO YOU KNOW

Harvesting Active Relationships

Strong relationships represent many opportunities for generating revenue and improving competitive advantage: They open doors to new prospects, reduce sales cycles, improve customer satisfaction, and provide critical insight into market trends. But effectively harnessing the power of relationships is only emerging as an art and a science.

To explore the challenges and opportunities in leveraging the value of relationships, the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council is undertook a research initiative in Q3 to determine how companies can better aggregate, mine and manage Active Relationship Networks (ARNs). Participation and access to program resources was available at no cost to registered program members.

ARNs provide a powerful environment for gaining valuable market access, insight and influence. The ability to enable introductions, multiply contacts, engage in conversations, focus dialogs, derive intelligence and shape market attitudes offers early-adopting businesses a priceless competitive advantage.

Dubbed "Grow Who You Know: Scaling Relationship Networks," the Q3 program was underwritten by Leverage Software and included:

Formation of an ARN advisory board, which provided input and direction for the Relationship Intelligence initiative. This included CMOs, event marketing directors, event producers, and association executives.
Teamed with affiliated organizations, publishers and media groups.
Online survey of marketers to determine how they assess and optimize the return on customer relationships; harvest existing contact networks; and make the most of new introductions, opportunities and connections at user conferences and industry gatherings.
Publication and promotion of research findings, as well as syndication of content through 150 Internet information channels served by KnowledgeStorm.
Production of both a webinar and webcast to discuss best practices in Relationship Intelligence and showcase the value of ARNs in optimizing the efficiency and effectiveness of lead generation, prospect harvesting and sales cycle closure.

The CMO Council will also deploy Leverage Software solutions (MemberConnect and EventConnect) to stimulate peer-to-peer interactions, appointments and meetings around its annual CMO Summits in North America and Europe, as well as across its network of 1,400 members worldwide. CMO Council members currently control more than $45 billion in annual marketing expenditures and are focused on driving yield and accountability in their organizations.

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RESEARCH

The Grow Who You Know program emerged from the insights and interest generated by the Staging & Gauging Survey and final report was issued in February 2005. The study was conducted by the CMO Council, in partnership with the Computer Event Marketing Association (CEMA). It was based on a survey of 230 event marketing managers and 189 chief marketing officers.

According to the study 67.2% of CMOs said events are a "vital and valuable standalone marketing function," and more than 60% dedicate at least 10% of their marketing budgets on events. But less than half (45.5%) said they consistently measure the effectiveness of events against marketing objectives, while 42.8% measure inconsistently, and 11.8% said they do not measure the effectiveness of events at all.

When asked what metrics they use to determine the effectiveness of events, 75% of CMOs said the number and quality of leads, 39% said traffic and/or attendance levels and 38% said customer acquisition levels.

The full report is available for download below.

Staging & Gauging Survey Report. February 2005. After facing the challenges of reduced travel following 9/11 and event-spend cutbacks during the subsequent business slowdown, event marketing has rebounded magnificently. Expenditures on sponsorships, shows, conferences, meetings and other event activities grew by 15 percent in 2003 to over $140 billion, per Promotion Marketing Association/PROMO magazine. And industry insiders expect 2004 to also look strong. This environment led the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council to launch a new thought leadership initiative that takes a closer look at the role, value, criticality and effectiveness of events as a vital part of the strategic marketing mix-from both the event manager and the CMO points of view. The first part of this initiative is a new survey entitled: Staging & Gauging: Do Events Pay Off? One component targeted event marketing managers, with 230 responding. The other targeted CMOs, with 189 respondents. download report