Just 2 Days Away….. - November 2, 2008 at 9:45 am

It’s just two days away.  No, not Dreamforce, although that’s definitely important to me and to Model Metrics.  What’s two days away is the Presidential election.

Last month I commented on the first big drop in the financial markets.  Since then it’s been a bit of a stock market roller coaster and the Presidential campaigns have both turned to how they are going to fix it.  Whoever wins, I don’t expect the nominee to follow his current prescription precisely.  Right now it’s still a campaign and rhetoric will overrule reality.

When reality does hit the new resident of the Oval Office, I don’t expect the financial markets to be in any better shape, but who knows?  What I am more certain of, which I mentioned last month, is that marketing accountability will once again become a paramount concern for marketers.

Last week a friend of mine, who has a developed a pretty slick yet simple marketing budget management app, sent out an email campaign to a list of prospects.  He does this about every month, gets some leads, and hopes to close a couple deals.  Typical stuff.  Until last week his messaging was rather generic, but with this last campaign he was laser-focused on cost-cutting and the ability to manage those savings in an automated fashion.

Guess what?  Not surprising, highest response rate ever.  His lead creation rate was 15%, versus an average of 2 to 3% in all previous campaigns.  

Marketing accountability is clearly becoming important to all of us.