Where Marketers (Used to) Fear to Tread

During the height of the recent recession, marketing industry publications were lamenting the diminishing average tenure of the CMO. 22 months was about the time when someone in the hierarchy got tired of waiting for results. The lamentation was well-meaning: Marketing is under a great deal of pressure to create ROI immediately and this pressure results in hasty decisions, usually spurred by cost-cutting CFOs and CEOs. While 22 months might seem unfairly short, some marketers likely think of short stints as a blessing.

 

Why? Because they are scared to get the results of their marketing campaigns, some of which inevitably will be a failure.

I understand this fear because I’ve felt it many times. I’ve had successes and abject failures. And I’ve made large financial decisions based on little more than gut-feeling and the power of will.

 

I’ve also made decisions based on real-data and have had the power to peer into campaigns mid-stream to gauge their success. If successful already, I could further hone them. If not hitting the mark, I could course-correct and to clutch victory from the jaws of defeat.

 

This power — the power to be an agent of change and not a passive victim of circumstance– got me excited by Intlock solutions. As the great philosopher Auguste Comte said, “To be able to have pre-vision is to be able to act”.

 

I’m proud to see Intlock take it another step forward with the new integration between the SharePoint Marketing Suite and the Microsoft Atlas Advertiser Suite – another example of powering action through vision.