Metrics that matter

Market research is an essential part of managing your product brands as well as your corporate brand. Consistent benchmark tracking is required for understanding the growth and value of your brands — it is impossible to manage your brands without it. So, what are the most important metrics to measure? The answer: those that matter most to the performance of your business.

With market research being such an important component of management, it is amazing how few companies use consistent measures to manage their brands. Even fewer seem to use financial metrics that tie brand measurement to value creation. Identifying metrics that matter to your business is the key to marketing accountability.

Unfortunately, market research is often viewed as being a tactical tool rather than a strategic one. Certainly, qualitative research is important for analyzing immediate marketing issues: evaluating the creative approach for a marketing campaign, gaining insights on products in development or obtaining consumer feedback on new packaging are all logical reasons for utilizing market research tools on a tactical basis.