By Vipul Oberoi

“In God we trust, all others must bring data.” Never has this adage been truer.

Let me rewind to how marketing was till a couple of decades ago. The number of mediums available were limited to print, television, radio and outdoor. Even more limited was the measurement of data available from these mediums or sellers. 

There are always two ways to determine the correct or desirable route to take: a) experience and b) data. In the earlier days, senior marketers and agency creative directors had the experience. Your grey hair meant that you have seen enough business cycles, marketing campaigns, a variety of clients and problem statements to give you useful insights and life lessons. Data-based insights were available through market research surveys, either commissioned or syndicated. Look closely and you will discover that research data was accessible only to the upper layers of the marketing machinery. That is why, the planning and strategy came from the top down and everybody else was the executor. 

However, that changed from the mid-2000s onwards when digital marketing started evolving. The digital platforms were capturing all kinds of data on an almost real-time basis. Interestingly, these platforms were being controlled or managed by the lower strata of the marketing machinery. This meant that data, and hence insights, were now flowing bottom-up. Data access was democratised. 

No doubt that this is the Digital Age. Now, every marketing campaign throws up umpteen data points that help marketers across levels make more informed decisions on how to create new campaigns and how to optimise the existing ones. Data is everywhere; the real skill now lies in how to sift through all those data points and make the best use of the most relevant ones.

I have always maintained this opinion that while creativity is extremely important in marketing, we are, ultimately, employees of an organisation and not artists. Therefore, marketing cannot be dissociated from the strategic and business objectives of the organisation. As marketers, we certainly don’t like our function being referred to as a cost center. We like to call out marketing as an investment into the future of the organisation or brand. The corollary is that every investment demands a return.

Personally, I am confused with this new designation of ‘growth marketer’. It tries to paint ‘marketing’ as an activity without a care for business or overall growth of the company. That was never true. Marketing was not just a philosophy; it was always concerned with achieving qualitative and quantitative metrics for growth.

Now more than ever, marketing (or call it ‘growth marketing’ if it pleases you) must be accompanied by a return on investment (ROI). I am not implying that ROI should always be quantitative or about business generation. It should be a combination of quantitative and qualitative metrics that benefit the organisation in the short term and the long term. The mindset of a marketer cannot be of just a ‘provider’: one who creates the right assets and environment, and then hands over the baton to the sales team. Ab tumhare hawale watan saathiyon. The mindset of a marketer should also be of an ‘enabler’: one who supports and guides the sales team in converting the opportunity into closure. Hum saath saath hain.

That’s what a go-to-market (GTM) strategy is all about: providing the right tools to enable the brand to be in front of the right audience, at the right place, at the right time and with the right message. 

Any GTM strategy needs to start with the objectives behind launching a product or a new brand. These objectives should be defined for every stage of the sales funnel. Broadly, these objectives can be classified into building brand salience, generating demand and creating customer loyalty. 

Each stage of the funnel requires specific investments and therefore demands adequate returns. The more quantified the objectives, the easier it is to determine what will be the appropriate returns (KPIs). I recommend that at this point you should refer to the first sentence of the article: “In God we trust, all others must bring data.” 

The more the data, the easier it is to measure and monitor. Further, defining the objectives and focusing on ROI will provide clarity to every person in the marketing structure on how to go about their respective marketing efforts. The bigger goals are broken down into smaller goals, annual goals into monthly goals, campaign goals into sub-campaigns, and team goals into individual goals. 

A word of caution though. Everyone feels safer with the cushion of data, and it has resulted in today’s marketing organisations being more data-driven. However, marketing organisations should be data-driven but not data-obsessed. It is not prudent to focus just on data, for data is as good as the insights you derive from it. 

That is why it is important to have your objectives defined. A GTM strategy without a clearly defined ROI is akin to a rudderless ship in the ocean. 

(The author is Director of Marketing, CSR and Learning Solutions at Dun & Bradstreet India)