Albert Einstein's famous quote defines insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".

This practice appears to be alive and well in many marketing organizations. WHY??!!

When we ask marketing executives, they tell us it really boils down to not having the tools to confidently change their direction. With the average tenure of CMO's rapidly approaching single-digit months, it's easy to see why many choose to "stay the course" versus heading in a new direction that can result in an even shorter employement period.

The Result: Fear of the unknown breeds sub-optimal business results, which in turn breed more sub-optimal performances.

The Solution: Fact-based decision making. Marketers need to be armed with the facts to make confident and credible decisions that move companies forward in terms of increased revenues, market share and profits. Otherwise, the sales and marketing "growth engine" will be stuck in neutral.

Getting facts is often an arduous endeavor for most marketers. It requires turning data sources that are typically designed for finance and operations teams into usable and valuable intelligence for the marketing organization.

However, this capability is becoming more obtainable through service models that allow you to outsource your data mining, modeling and reporting needs so you can focus on making confident marketing decisions and driving new initiatives that truly improve company performance. These solutions are much more cost-effective than in-house systems and can often be deployed immediately.

So get out of the marketing rut and position yourself and your team to lead with confidence.

- Read Ziegler is the founder and president of Vantedge Group

As companies look for ways to achieve their objectives in 2008, Customer Intelligence provides some powerful opportunities. Industry experts such as Aberdeen Group have linked companies that deploy customer intelligence initiatives with 25% or greater year-over-year performance improvements in customer acquisition, revenue and retention.

Customer Intelligence helps organizations build and grow more profitable customer relationships by gathering, analyzing and exploiting information. As we've discussed on this blog before, most companies have no shortage of customer data. It really comes down to being able to centralize the data and transform it into usable and valuable intelligence that can fuel decisions regarding customer acquisition, customer growth and customer retention.

Traditionally Customer Intelligence solutions have required large upfront expenditures and lots of resources to manage and maintain them. However, many Customer Intelligence leaders are now turning to service models where the data cleansing, transformation, modeling and mining functions are performed by a service provider who delivers customized output in the form of customer profiles, performance reports and alert notifications.

So now there really is no reason not to take advantage of Customer Intelligence to improve your business. Start getting more from the data you already have and position yourself for a strong 2008.

- Read Ziegler is the founder and president of Vantedge Group

With the day-to-day pressures of supporting sales and marketing initiatives, many miss the opportunity to learn from the results of their efforts. Providing an objective means to monitor performance and optimize marketing campaigns is essential to generating a positive ROI over time.

The discipline of performance monitoring starts upfront when campaigns are being developed. Ask yourself "What will constitute success?". Develop a few key metrics that will allow you to monitor your definition of success along the way. For example, if you are looking to launch a marketing campaign to your customer base to incent cross-selling perhaps you should look at revenue per customer or services per customer.

Establishing baselines for each of your success metrics prior to campaign deployment will provide an objective way to gauge progress as the campaign develops.

The key here is to not make it overly complex at the outset. You will be amazed at the impact a few key metrics can have on the overall success of your marketing and sales initiatives.

- Read Ziegler is the founder and president of Vantedge Group

In today's digital world, companies have no shortage of data...Websites, CRM systems, marketing databases all serve to produce mountains of information. However, very few companies have turned that data mountain into meaningful intelligence.

Case in Point: I was recently working with a Fortune 500 company that was about to launch a new product. This company has over 500K customers and the natural inclination was to target marketing initiatives to their current base. When asked "Which segments of the base should we focus our efforts on?"...the room fell silent. This silence is not unusual.

Transforming your various data resources into an INTELLIGENCE ADVANTAGE is vital. The returns from these initiatives are immense.

First Step: Conduct an INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENT. Determine the various data resources you have already. Once identified, these resources can be analyzed and compiled into usable profiles that provide specific details about how best to target, message, and attract / retain your primary target audiences.

The end result: INTELLIGENT MARKETING that produces high returns, revenues, and profitability.

- Read Ziegler is the founder and president of Vantedge Group

Only 18% of CEO’s report they are very satisfied with their marketing departments…50%-75% of marketing expenditures have no discernible impact on company performance…and 67% of marketers say they don’t have the necessary tools to manage and optimize their marketing investments.

So it’s no wonder the Marketing Confidence Index continues to decline.

The good news is that these trends can be reversed, returning the marketer to a powerful position that generates measurable revenue and profitability improvements.

The key – INTELLIGENT MARKETING.

Successful marketing prioritizes BRAINS not brawn. Greater spending or better creative does not compensate for a poorly defined target audience or messaging strategy. It’s the equivalent of treasure hunting without a map. The end result is wasted resource and “hit or miss” success rates.

5 Simple Questions for Intelligent Marketing – Challenge your team to get definitive answers to the following before spending your first dollar on marketing initiatives:

(1) Which segments of the market will provide the greatest opportunity?
(2) What specific characteristics distinguish these segments from others?
(3) What motivates these segments to gain interest and make purchases?
(4) What is the best way to reach and influence these target segments?
(5) How will we gauge success and measure it?

If you take the time up front to “Get Smart”, I believe you will be very satisfied with your results and on the road to restoring confidence in the marketing function.

- Read Ziegler is the founder and president of Vantedge Group.