Promo - April 2008 - (Page S22) a promotion or program approved (see business case sidebar). Q&A Making the Case Mike Ryan, Vice President, Marketing, MADISON Performance Group: “The business case is a decision support tool used by management to evaluate and rank projects. It enables a company to ascertain the likely financial costs and outcomes and/or consequences of a particular business investment. It is changing as a business tool, because decisions are becoming more macro in nature and bringing the entire value chain into consideration. In presenting your case, you have to act like a lawyer—that is, you must connect all the evidence or findings to a conclusion that’s compelling and financially sound. This means using financial techniques that economic executives rely on to put their requests for funding into a context that’s “apples to apples” against other requests. But that’s not the only consideration. While every business case has financial elements, there is no one, triedand-true way to formulate it. You will find many established standards for content and structure already in play. Check with other members of your senior management team to determine what formats they’ve used and follow that template. You will probably notice that the ones that stand out—and get approved— address the business issue in a holistic manner and propose a project that is philosophically consistent with the strategic direction of the organization. Successful cases rationalize both alignment and the ability to make money above and beyond existing hurdle rates.” What’s the “secret” to a successful loyalty program? Ned Daley, Marketing Programs Specialist, Subway Card Program: “Patience and flexibility. The program you design at inception is not always representative of your end product. Allow the program to grow and evolve with the tides of consumer expectation. It’s a fluid marketplace. Offer something that has the buoyancy to remain relevant and exceed expectation.” Without hard performance data, promotions and incentives are vulnerable to being cut or even eliminated—particularly in an economy teetering on recession. “In a weak economy, some of the first places companies look to cut are incentive programs and marketing budgets,” says one incentives pro. “The way to prevent this is to quantify the benefits to the business.” Not having clear, hard performance baselines and tracking metrics makes it impossible to realistically assess a program’s strengths and weaknesses. In fact, a growing number of companies are now viewing ROI and other backend metrics as being part of a suite of tracking tools needed to ensure maximum results. “Companies are getting more sophisticated, and realizing that ROI is really a lagging indicator,” says Jeff Beegle, executive vice president and CMO for MotivAction and an IMA board director. “They want to track leading indicators, during the program, so that they can adjust it as it goes along.” The Internet has made real-time tracking of consumer or user behavior and dynamic responses a reality beyond the dreams of marketers practicing even a decade ago. And increasingly sophisticated online platforms and performance dashboards are moving program management into a whole new realm. Once clear baseline, goal and tracking metrics are in place, promotion logistics—including incentives selection and budgeting—can be tackled. < S 22 SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT
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