Results of The House of Marketing Yearly Marketing Survey (6th edition); over 1000 Belgian marketeers and CMOs respondent

1. 2009
2009
April
6th edition
6th edition

3. The Yearly Marketing Survey
An initiative by:
In collaboration with
Supported by

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and figures cannot be reproduced without permission of The
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If you wish to organize a presentation of the 2009 Yearly
Marketing Survey for your organization or need an article
about the survey results, please contact us too.

5. Voorwoord door Patrick De Pelsmacker
(Prof. Dr. Marketing – Universiteit Antwerpen)
Donkere wolken, back to the basics en een ethisch Wat onmiddellijk opvalt in vergelijking met de
reveil vorige “vette jaren” is de ingrijpende impact die
het economische klimaat op het gemoed en de
Het is weer de tijd van het jaar. De resultaten verwachtingen van de marketeer lijkt te hebben.
zijn bekend van de jaarlijkse enquête van The In vorige jaren werd wel eens gemeld dat er meer
House of Marketing bij deze keer meer dan 1000 zou moeten gebeuren met dezelfde mensen, maar
Belgische marketeers, die in december 2008 en in het algemeen zat er in de verwachtingen van
januari 2009 de vragenlijst hebben ingevuld. Zoals de marketeers een positieve trend. Dit jaar is dat
gewoonlijk en begrijpelijk zijn business-to-business radicaal anders.
marketeers sterk vertegenwoordigd (45% van
De door The House of Marketing berekende
de respondenten) in vergelijking met uitsluitend
“confidence index” die over de voorbije jaren
business-to-consumer marketeers (17%). Ook zoals
heen vrij stabiel bleef, laat voor 2009 een
gebruikelijk werden de traditionele vragen naar
diepe duik zien.
trends, buzzwords en prioriteiten gesteld, maar
anders dan de vorige jaren lag in de vraagstelling De respondenten voorzagen voorlopig nog geen
erg veel nadruk op de economische situatie, en vermindering van de marketingteams, maar wel
de consequenties ervan voor het marketingvak in minder projecten en minder budget. Vrijwel
België. iedereen verwacht drastische budget cuts,
gemiddeld met 23%. Bijna de helft verwacht een

6. daling van het mediabudget – een netto-daling, geen financiële, het meten van “return on marketing
verschuiving naar andere marketinginvesteringen. investment” (ROMI) worden groter, zowel bij
Vooral ICT en financiële instellingen voelen zich business- als bij consumentenmarketeers.
bedreigd. Algemeen verwacht men een hogere
prijsgevoeligheid, uitstel van aankopen, en een Vergeet de frivole buzzwords en de nieuwigheden,
druk op de prijzen, hoewel bijna twee derden vindt maar focus op de basics van prijszetting, inzicht in
dat hun producten uniek zijn, en dat de klanten er “customer experience”, klantentrouw en marketing
een premium willen voor betalen. Niets nieuws metrics. Hoewel slechts 60% aangeeft beslissingen
onder de recessiezon dus. Marketeers reageren te baseren op metrics, geeft de meerderheid aan
zoals iedereen in een economische recessie die dat een kritische factor bij het verdedigen van
razendsnel om zich heen grijpt: met een dalend het marketingbudget het bewijzen van ROMI
vertrouwen in de toekomst, het besef dat er minder is. En praat met uw klanten. Leer directe en
te verkopen zal vallen, en dat er voor die inkomsten interactieve communicatietechnieken. Er is een
duidelijke verschuiving te zien in de verwachtingen
harder zal moeten gewerkt worden dan voorheen.
m.b.t. marketinginvesteringen: meer naar direct
marketing, events, on-line en e-mail, en een
Hoe reageren de marketeers op deze donkere
stagnatie van budgetten voor klassieke massamedia.
wolken? Naar eigen zeggen met “back to the
Het lijkt wel alsof marketeers stellen dat hypes en
basics”. De belangrijkste vijf uitdagingen blijven
nieuwigheden meer iets zijn voor goede dan voor
dezelfde als vorig jaar, maar het belang van
slechte tijden, terwijl in moeilijke tijden misschien
het bevorderen van klantentrouw en van het

7. net nieuwe en creatieve invalshoeken voor een Maatschappelijk verantwoord ondernemen,
impactvoller marketingbeleid kunnen zorgen. “triple bottom line” (de economische, ecologische
en sociale opdrachten van bedrijven voor ogen
En dan de buzzwords… die gedragen zich qua belang houden), en zorgen voor echte meerwaarde voor
in de opeenvolgende jaren als…buzzwords: ze klanten, gebaseerd op inzicht in hun behoeften
schieten omhoog als een vuurpijl, en doven net zo en ervaringswereld, vinden we inderdaad al een
snel uit. De blijvers zijn inderdaad de basics: ROMI tijdje terug in de missie, strategie en operationele
(56% van de respondenten), customer intelligence activiteiten van vele ondernemingen.
(57%) en customer experience (66%).
Als marketeers hun maatschappelijke
Opmerkelijke aandachtspunten, en zelfs
verantwoordelijkheid ernstig nemen, worden ze in
stijgers in vergelijking met vorige jaren, zijn
de toekomst allicht voor voller aangezien door de
“authenticity” (57%) en “green marketing”
rest van de wereld. Als ze hun basics beter leren
(76%).
beheersen, worden ze wellicht ook meer au serieux
Zijn de marketeers aan een grondige introspectie genomen door hun management. De donkere
begonnen, en is er zelfs sprake van een ethisch wolken zijn dan misschien een catalysator geweest
reveil? Weg van de gebakken lucht, mensen van een mentaliteitswijziging die hoe dan ook nodig
aanspreken op wat echt belangrijk voor hen is, en was.
meer aandacht voor de rol van het bedrijf en het
merk in de maatschappij? Het zou me niet verbazen. Patrick De Pelsmacker, 18 Maart 2009

9. Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Participants 2
Executive Summary 3
Buzzwords, challenges and media for 2009 6
1. Buzzwords 8
2. Challenges 11
3. Marcom budget 14
How is the crisis impacting marketers? 20
1. The Marketers Confidence Index 22
2. Pricing and Value 25
Planned responses to the crisis 28
1. Defending Budgets 30
2. Measuring Marketing Performance 31
3. Building Market Intelligence 32
The House of Marketing’s recommendations 34
Glossary 40

10. Introduction
The House of Marketing started conducting the Belgian marketers to the current economic crisis:
Yearly Marketing Survey in 2003. It is the most
extensive and well-known survey keeping track How are they really impacted?
of marketers’ thinking, behaviours, opportunities What is the level of confidence of Belgian
and challenges in Belgium marketers in terms of budget, staff and
projects?
Every year, hundreds of marketing professionals Which strategies are they adopting?
across Belgium complete the extended How do they measure their marketing
questionnaire in December and January, looking performance?
forward to the coming year. As the leading What impact has the economic crisis on
barometer of Belgium’s marketing community, the pricing and other policies?
2009 Yearly Marketing Survey will again identify
the new trends, current expectations and future In addition, the challenges, buzzwords and
challenges of Belgian marketers across B2C and Marcom budgets of Belgian marketers are of
B2B sectors. course surveyed, for the sixth year in a row. This
document is a summary of the highlights and key
The 2009 Yearly Marketing Survey innovates by conclusions of the 2009 Yearly Marketing Survey
launching the Marketers Confidence Index, and as presented on April 2, 2009 at the Stichting
focuses more on the impact on and reaction of Marketing event.

11. Participants
A total of 1028 respondents participated in the Additionally, there were 1240 respondents
survey of which 73% are Dutch-speaking, 20% are who either did not provide relevant answers
French-speaking and the remainder 7% English- (we recognized random clicking patterns) or
speaking. only completed their profile to obtain survey
results
Respondent classification in terms of size
of marketing team finds the highest for 1-4
employees (29%) or for above 50 employees
(24%), whereas the lowest response is for
department sizes of 25-49 employees (10%) Number of
respondents
1240 14 2282
45% of participants work in a B2B environment,
17% in a B2C one and 38% in a hybrid
environment
The survey was conducted online from Dec 463 1028
5, 2008 to Jan 30, 2009. The questionnaire
contained 21 questions and took around 10
565
minutes to answer
For each question the response rate fluctuates Full
surveys Answers
Total
responses responses
Mere
site
Total
sample
between 565 and 1028 (partial survey -
reviewed
-
reviewed
viewers
completion), depending on the answers given

12. Executive Summary
Customer loyalty, experience and intelligence rule, Build a sustainable strategy and organization
or they should…
Marketers who want their brand to stand out
from the crowd in the long-term will need to be
The marketers’ confidence index is on a historically
genuine and authentic about the value proposition
low level. While marketers expect their teams to
conveyed to target segments. A perfect fit has to be
remain relatively stable in 2009, a huge majority
created between the corporate identity, business
expect their already revised 2009 budget to be
model and culture.
reviewed again in the coming months. Healthcare
Companies also need to focus on improving their
and Utilities marketers are least positive compared
internal operations and external touch-points
to colleagues in other sectors.
within a consistent Customer Experience strategy
Belgian marketers need to adopt a longer term
Do more with less marketing resources
decision horizon in order to sustainably position
marketing as a key value adding department The size of the marketing budget is one of the first
within the organization. Based on the findings items to be challenged in times of crisis. It is far
from our survey, we identified a number of from likely that these will be restored to their pre-
attention points that should help building further crisis levels without marketers needing to build up
on both the external equity of marketing and the a rock-solid argumentation.
internal perception/credibility of the marketing Marketers must develop pragmatic marketing
department: performance management tools allowing them

13. to track, manage, benchmark and predict the reactions better. Too many complex decisions are
financial return on marketing initiatives. The still judgment-based, many marketers lack proper
importance of and focus on measuring ROMI analytical skills to generate relevant customer
will return once short-term corrective actions insights from the often non-standardized and
have been implemented and companies need to scattered data available within their organization.
evaluate future investments. Marketers must also get their basics right (such
as pricing policy) before launching into the latest
Define, create and capture more value and buzzword; this includes processes, segmentation
margins and value proposition.
As companies expect to be subject to higher price
sensitivity, postponement of purchases and a
Some key findings of the 2009 Yearly Marketing
decrease of volumes sold, marketers need to focus
Survey include:
on highlighting the added-value of their products/
services even more.
• Marketers expect green marketing and
Companies also need to find a better balance
customer experience to gain significantly in
between top-line and bottom-line (analytical)
importance. Green, ethical marketing as well
marketers to leverage their customer data
as authenticity are definitely contributing to
effectively, identify most sustainable and profitable
the sustainability wave.
customers as well as anticipate customers’

14. • Improving customer loyalty and value is are still under-used while measuring marketing
marketers’ biggest challenge for 2009. performance.
Marketers seem to place greater emphasis on
monitoring the financial impact of marketing. • Analytical deployment is depending on
Nevertheless, ROMI is considered as a less organizational context and prioritization. Staff,
important challenge, probably due to short time and budget are the key obstacles to
term results focus and smaller budgets. improving marketing’s focus on this area.
• The top 3 biggest media spend in 2009 remains
unchanged compared to last year (direct
marketing, events and newspapers). Use of
online communication channels such as e-mail
marketing has of course been gaining more and
more importance in marketers’ minds over the
years.
• Despite all ingredients being available, key
efficiency metrics such as Average Revenue
Per Customer and Customer Lifetime Value

15. BUZZWORDS, CHALLENGES AND MEDIA FOR 2009

17. 1. Buzzwords
• Green marketing is the n°1 How do you expect the following buzzwords to evolve in terms of importance
buzzword for Belgian marketers for the coming year?
in 2009, moving up from the
third spot in 2008.
76%
• Customer experience and
authenticity are prominent in
Customer Experience 66%
their mind too.
• Top 2 buzzwords are similar
57%
for B2B and B2C marketers.
Customer intelligence and
ROMI are next on the list of B2B Customer intelligence 57%
marketers. For B2C, authenticity
and social media rank buzzwords 56%
n°3 and 4 respectively.
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
• Interestingly, half of Belgian % of respondents w expect an increase
ho
marketers have never heard Legend:
of “Crowdsourcing” and 1 in In survey 2008
New to the survey
5 are not aware of the “360 N= 598
Marketing” term.

18. Customer Experience and ROMI are
the only buzzwords to remain strong
over the last five years. BUZZ DROP BUZZ STABLE BUZZ INCREASE
Social Media ROMI Green Marketing
All others tend to stay just buzzwords, Web 2.0 Customer
such as Blogging. Blogging Experience
Ethical Marketing
Evolution of buzzwords’ importance, perceived by marketers
80%
ROMI
70% Blogging
Customer experience
60%
50%
Remember: buzzwords rankings are Social media
usually different from actual usage 40% Web 2.0
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
trends and challenges. N= 598

19. How sustainable will Green Marketing How do you expect the following buzzwords to evolve in terms of importance
be? Which sector is surfing on the for the coming year?
“sustainability” wave?
As expected Transport & Logistics 91% 71%
is the most “green buzzed” sector, Healthcare 88% 63%
followed by Healthcare and Utilities. 88% 54%
ICT 80%
Distribution is the least. Finance & Insurance 79%
38%
71%
Consumer Goods 79% 60%
Other 79% 65%
Authenticity is also seen as a top Industry & Materials
… 78%
78%
62%
61%
buzzword for all sectors except ICT Professional Services 74% 62%
and Utilities. 65% 61%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
% of respondents who e xpect an increase % of respondents who e xpect an increase
Marketers in the financial and
Legend:
industrial sectors are those who see Top 3
N= 598
customer experience most as a top 3
buzzword, those in Utilities see it
least.

20. 2. Challenges
• The top 4 challenges for Belgian What will be your major marketing challenges for 2009?
marketers are all about improving
customer loyalty and value
52%
proposition. Build customer loyalty and trust
48%
46%
• Financial concerns have increased
Building a strong brand 45%
as marketers named for the
33%
first time margin protection Protect margins
Sustain revenue growth 33%
and sustainable revenue as top
Protect market share 30%
challenges.
29%
28%
• Competitive differentiation
Communicate through online media 27%
remains, as expected, one of 0, 0% 10, 0% 20, 0% 30, 0% 40, 0%
% of respondents
50, 0% 60, 0%
marketers’ top 3 challenges.
Legend:
Not in 2008 Top 5 In 2008 Top 5
N= 683

21. • Differentiation from competition Evolution of challenges’ importance, perceived by marketers
and customer loyalty remain
solid top-of-mind challenges for
marketers over the past 4 years. among answers
0
1
• Online communications,
Building customer loyalty and trust
2
ROMI
Innovation and ROMI (measuring 3
4
marketing’s ROI) see a strong 5
media
Building a strong brand
decline compared to 2008. 6
7
8
• Marketers strongly acknowledge 9
Protect margins
the importance of highlighting 10 Sustain revenue growth
the value and benefits of 11
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
products/services they provide
as a Top 3 challenge in 2009.
N= 598

22. Looking to business environments, What will be your major marketing challenges for 2009?
main challenges seem to be quite
similar…
Nevertheless B2C marketers place
greater emphasis on building a
strong(er) brand which is in line with
their desire to protect market shares.
They also assess the challenge of
communicating through online media
as one of the most important, which
is less the case for B2B marketers.

23. 3. Marcom Budget
The biggest media spend in 2009 will Please indicate which 3 media represent the largest part of your
communication budget for 2009?
be:
1. Direct marketing
2. Events
3. Newspapers/magazines
4. E-mail marketing
5. Online interactive marketing
These five media are firmly established
as main spenders of the Marcom
budget since they hold exactly the
same position as last year.
Nevertheless, the share of top 4
spenders in the total budget tends
to stabilize or slightly decrease at the
benefit of other media. The Marcom Legend:
budget is actually spread over an Not in 2008 Top 5 In 2008 Top 5
N= 661

24. increasing number of activities.
In B2B direct marketing and events Which media takes the largest share of the Marcom budget?
spend is shifting to e-mail marketing
and other media.
25%
• As a result of diversification of the 21%
24%
media mix expenditures, online 29%
media such as e-mail marketing Events 21%
18%
are grabbing larger shares in the
13%
Marcom budget allocation. Newspapers &
20%
Magazines
13%
• Newspapers and magazines are
E- 7%
falling below 2007 levels in terms 12% % of respondents
of Marcom budget share.
0% 10% 20% 30%
• Direct marketing remains the main
spender for B2B Marcom budgets
Legend: N2007=323
N2008=290
2007 2008 2009
N2009=262

25. For B2C companies, newspapers
& magazines and direct marketing Which media takes the largest share of the Marcom budget?
spend is shifting partly to classic TV.
• B2C firms are expected to get 27%
Classic TV 25%
back to basics since classic 30%
TV media is regaining share, 21%
Newspapers & Magazines
remaining the main spender of 12%
19%
Marcom budget for 2009. 13%
17%
13%
• Moreover, promotions and
sampling is conquering share 6%
7% % of respondents
at newspapers & magazines 0% 10% 20% 30%
and direct marketing’s media
expense.
Legend:
N2007=323
N2008=290
2007 2008 2009
N2009=262

26. 45% of marketers expect a budget I expect further budget reviews in 2009 and I agree that it would impact
decrease that would negatively affect negatively our media expenditures
their media expenditures. ICT 64%
Finance & Insurance 58%
Consumer Goods 54%
Mostly ICT, Finance and Consumer Industry & Materials
50%
49%
Goods sectors are expecting further Professional Services 44%
41%
budget reviews to impact the 39%
38%
composition of their actual media
Average:
Other 32% 45%
Healthcare % of respondents who agree
expenditures.
29%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
In times of downturn, cutting media Downturn expected to impact media expenditures
expenditures means shifting the Yes No
media mix, otherwise this shift won’t
take place. Downturn to
Yes 54%
media mix 29%
towards online
The observed shift in the media mix channels 23%
48%
is mainly due to past and expected No
budget reviews.
% of respondents

27. The House of Marketing Comments…
Marketers are struggling to adopt a long term The borders between companies and customers
sustainable business model tend to disappear; firms are looking to (or should)
gather much more information about their clients
BUZZWORDS in order to build deeper and more effective
customer relationships. Consumers are also keen
The results highlighted by the survey are not that
to better know companies and products before
surprising. Marketers are definitely matching
becoming loyal.
customers’ environmental concerns by picking
up green marketing as the top buzzword for
CHALLENGES
the coming year. Ethical marketing as well as
authenticity are values that marketers also plan In times of crisis, companies’ challenges are clear:
to take into consideration when promoting their it’s all about improving customer loyalty and value
products/services. Together these three buzzwords proposition.
contribute to the actual sustainability wave. As predicted by buzzwords learnings, companies
tend to be much more customer-oriented,
The relative importance of customer experience improving their value definition and branding
and intelligence terms also documents the efforts, trying to differentiate even more from
proactivity shown by Belgian marketers when the competition. Focusing on building customer
interacting with customers. loyalty and trust as well as highlighting benefits
of products seem to be key strategies used by

28. Belgian marketers for keeping market shares and
profit margins at decent levels during economic
downturns.
Measuring return on marketing efforts isn’t
anymore in the top five challenges since companies
tend to be more conservative regarding their
marketing policies and working with smaller
budgets.
MARCOM
Strong budget reductions have made marketers
rethink their media mix. Overall, communications
budget have been shifting from Direct Marketing
and Events to e-mail marketing and other media.
45% of marketeers still expect a media budget
decrease, and those do rebalance their media mix
to more measurable media

29. HOW IS THE CRISIS IMPACTING MARKETERS?

31. 1. The Marketers Confidence Index
The marketers confidence index is at Net Adjusted 75%
an historically low level, featuring a Index(%)
strong decrease from 2008 and being
50%
seen well below its 2005 level.
26,8% 27,5%
24,7%
22,6%
25%
9,5%
0%
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
The sharp drop in confidence
is mainly due to the increased Legend:
pessimism regarding projects and
budgets.
Note: The marketers confidence index is an
average of marketers’ expectations about
their budget, projects and staff headcount.
The percentage reflects a balance between
the positive, neutral and negative views. It
can vary from -100% to +100% depending
on the amount of confidence.

32. Marketers in healthcare remain least 9% Legend:
positive compared to colleagues in Finance & insurance 6%
ICT 8%
other sectors. -0,2%
Average:
Based on previous years, healthcare 4%
9.5%
expectations appear very accurate in
Professional services 20%
Industry & materials 15%
hindsight, whereas the other sectors Consumer goods 5%
tend to to be too positive. 15%
Healthcare -3%
Other 20% Net Adjusted Index(%)
Not a single sector has escaped budget -10% 10% 30%
cuts in 2008. Marketing budgets have
been cut by 56% on average. What was the actual change of your marketing budget during 2008
compared to the previous year?
Transport & Logistics and Finance
& Insurance have been the most
affected, Distribution the least.

33. Marketers have downward
expectations overall. In addition
actual 2007 figures were already
pessimistic.
Belgian marketers are less confident
than during the last five years,
especially on the budget side
Legend:
2009)
hindsight)

34. 2. Pricing and Value
Prices are expected to remain stable How do you expect the current economic crisis to affect your prices or price
or to decrease due to the economic policies in 2009?
situation. 43%
Lower price or higher discounts 32%
Most marketers expect to sustain Higher price 14%
their current pricing policy overall. Lower margins 11%
5%
Lower volumes 4%
% of respondents
0% 10% 20% 30% 40%
Companies will need to highlight the How do you expect your customers to react to the economic crisis?
added value of their products/services
even more.
Customers will become far more price
sensitive and postpone purchases due
to the economic crisis.

35. The House of Marketing Comments…
Financial concerns and prospects hit marketers’ • Marketers expect to be subject to higher price
confidence. sensitivity, postponement of purchases and a
decrease of volumes sold.
• The Marketers Confidence Index is on a • Companies will need to focus on highlighting
historically low level, after observing the the added-value of their products/services
largest absolute change in 5 years. more to customers in order to counter an
• This dip can be atributed to a significant expected downward trend.
decrease in expected budget and projects
evolutions.
• All sectors have sustained marketing budget
cuts, healthcare and distribution being the
most conservative for the future.
Marketers need to fight the crisis with lower
budgets
• 80% of respondents expect their already
revised 2009 budget to be reviewed again in
the coming months.

37. PLANNED RESPONSES TO THE CRISIS

39. 1. Defending Budgets
Return on Marketing Investment
(ROMI) is considered the critical What would allow you to better defend your 2009 marketing budget?
success factor in defending marketing
budgets.
ROMI/Proof of performance 46%
The need for proofs in these hard
Data (availability & quality) 10%
times is high; no proof, no budget.
New product launches 10%
9%
8%
7%
6%
Visibility & trust of
5% % of respondents
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
N= 859

40. 2. Measuring Marketing Performance
When tracking marketing How do you expect the current economic crisis to affect your prices or price
performance, three hard metrics policies in 2009?
and two soft metrics are most often
used:
69%
1. Customer satisfaction
2. Number of customers Number of customers 60%
3. Loyalty
4. Brand awareness Loyalty 53%
5. Average revenue per
customer (ARPC) Brand awareness 47%
Mastering ARPC and CLV (customer
Average revenue per customer 47%
lifetime value) tend to be key in
outperforming competition. % of respondents
Legend:
Hard metrics

41. 3. Building Marketing Intelligence
• Usage of metrics is higher than
their usage for decision making.
1 out of 5 marketers do not use Yes No
the full combination of metrics
available to them. Both metrics
Yes
81% 8%
Using hard
metrics
Hard only No metrics
No
7% 4%
• Reports are more analyzed analysis than reports
by marketers than the actual
raw data, generating missed Many of the
opportunities to keep or increase insights our Yes
37%
55%
customer value. department is
building are based
16%
on intensive data
analysis 48%
No
% of respondents

42. The House of Marketing Comments…
Marketers need to invest in measurement
and intelligence to tackle future challenges
successfully
Marketers realise the importance of ROMI … …yet they only apply very basic marketing
performance principles.
• Almost half of the marketers indicates ROMI as • Half of marketers do not track the average
an indispensable tool to defend their budget revenue per customer and less than 20% of
• Marketers indicating that they monitor marketers know the customer lifetime value
financial performance and key customer of an individual customer
metrics are more confident to outperform • 1 out of 5 marketers does not use a combination
their competition of hard and soft metrics
• Customer Lifetime Value and Loyalty metrics
are still under-used despite being expected
performance boosters and with all ingredients
available

43. THE HOUSE OF MARKETING’S RECOMMENDATIONS

45. Build a Sustainable Strategy and Organization
• Marketers need to adopt a longer term decision Marketers must get their basics right
horizon in order to sustainably position (such as pricing policy) before launching
marketing as a key value-adding department
into the latest buzzword; this includes
within the organization.
processes, segmentation and value
• Marketers who want their brand to stand out proposition.
from the crowd in the long-term will need
to be genuine and authentic about the value
proposition conveyed to target segments. A • Companies need to focus on improving their
perfect fit has to be created between corporate internal operations and external touch-points
identity, business model and company within a consistent Customer Experience
culture. strategy.
• Companies need to find a better balance
between top-line and bottom-line marketers
to leverage their customer data effectively and
anticipate customers’ reactions.

46. Do More With Less Marketing Resources
The size of the marketing budget is one of the first Marketers need to be able to prove
items to be challenged in times of crisis. It is far and communicate the return on their
from likely that marketing budgets will restore to
initiatives if they want to grow and
their pre-crisis levels without marketers needing to
build up a rock-solid argumentation to support a capitalize on their authority within the
future request for marketing budget growth. boardroom.
• Marketers should not only think about how to • Marketers must develop pragmatic marketing
differentiate their product, brand or company. performance management tools allowing them
They should pay at least as much attention to track, manage, benchmark and predict the
to the selling proposition of the marketing financial return on marketing initiatives. They
department itself and position marketing also need to align their focus more with the
internally as an essential tool in the company’s main concern of the boardroom: sustainable
value creation model. profitability.
• The importance of and focus on measuring
ROMI will return once short-term corrective
actions have been implemented and companies
need to evaluate future investments.

47. Define, Create and Capture More Value
Marketing departments aspiring to outperform • Too many complex decisions are still judgment-
their peers should invest in developing their based, many marketers lack proper analytical
analytical skills to a level allowing them to extract skills to generate relevant customer insights
maximal value from internal data and generate from the often non-standardized and scattered
relevant customer insights that can be used to data available within their organization.
support their decisions.
• Some marketers need also to be better educated
• Introduce a better pricing power such as about direct and interactive marketing in order
value-based pricing, but ensure first the to be able to effectively deliver results in these
right deployment of data and customer areas.
intelligence.
Marketers rely too much on reports
analysis instead of data, which can
lead to missed customer intelligence
opportunities. Marketers need the right
strategy, internal coordination and
sometimes tools to find and exploit
accurate data.

49. Glossary
Authenticity effective customer relationships and improve strategic
Refers to the action of promoting a brand or product decision making. Customer Intelligence is known to be
based on real stories or facts. Customers are looking for a key component of effective Customer Relationship
authentic experiences analysing what is real and what Management.
is fake about the company and its products/services.
Authenticity marketing is then about treating prospecs Data mining/Predictive analytics
and customers with respect. Process of extracting hidden patterns from data to
facilitate predictions about future events. Transforming
Customer Experience data into information allows marketers to better
Being the sum of all interactions a customer has with a profiling customers needs and market trends.
supplier of goods or services, this concept emerged as
the single most important aspect in achieving success Engagement
for companies across all industries. Besides, the goal of Also known as participation marketing, engagement
customer experience management (CEM) is to move marketing is a strategy that encourage customer to
customers from satisfied to loyal and then from loyal participate to the evolution of a brand or a product/
to advocate. service. Rather than being passive, engagement
marketers believe that consumers should be actively
involved in the production and co-creation of marketing
Customer Intelligence programs.
Process of gathering and analyzing information
regarding customers in order to build deeper and more

50. Green marketing Marketers Confidence Index
Green marketing is the marketing of products that are The average of Belgian marketers’ expectations about
presumed to be environmentally safe. Thus, green their budget, projects and staff headcount. This
marketing incorporates a broad range of activities, percentage reflects the balance between all the positive,
including product modification, changes to the neutral and negative views. It can vary from -100% to
production process, packaging changes, as well as +100% depending on the amount of confidence, from
modifying advertising. Other similar terms used are totally pessimistic to totally optimistic respectively.
Environmental Marketing and Ecological Marketing.
ROMI Net Adjusted Index (NAI)
ROMI stands for ‘Return on Marketing Investment’ and Degree of ‘outspokenness’ of a direction; i.e. a positive
is a concept that makes the link between the money NAI indicates an increase of importance of an item, but
that is being spent on marketing investments, such as the number reveals how relevant or outspoken this
advertising, and the money (in euro) that is earned by increase is, according to the survey respondents.Net
every euro invested. Index represents the difference between respondents
seeing an increase versus those seeing a decrease.
360° marketing Moreover, the NAI gets adjusted by the weight that
Mix of integrated marketing and web 2.0 usages, these two opinions represent against those stating a
360 degree marketing characterizes a multichannel status quo.
marketing strategy consisting of the exploitation of
each promotion media.

51. About The House of Marketing
The House of Marketing is Belgium’s first Marketing
Expertise and Excellence Center. For the last 15
years, it has been offering clients in B2B and B2C
sectors strategic marketing advice, marketing
project management, and marketing interim
management; from strategy and go-to-market,
to marketing organization, process and marketing
performance.
The House of Marketing is based in Mechelen and
currently has a team of 70 marketing experts.
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