Navigating the Complexity of Marketing Capability Measurement

Please note that this report is WFA member content only. If you'd like to know more about WFA membership, please contact membership@wfanet.org.

A marketer attends a training session, they learn new skills and apply them in their day-to-day role. As a result, their own and their teams’ behaviours change and the company sees improved effectiveness and ultimately achieves its financial aims and goals. Brilliant! Now the only job left to do is to prove the link between the learnings and business results… *Sigh*

Even with a strong belief in the value of capability building, there’s a problem that won’t go away: if you don’t know what you’re getting back from your investment, how long can you reasonably expect to hang on to your existing budget, let alone extend it? There’s more data available than ever and yet, the search for the Holy Grail of a reliable ROI model continues.

Many factors conspire to make it difficult to measure Marketing Capability, not least that formal training programmes are just one way we learn and it’s not just marketers or marketing that contribute to business performance.

An initiative by the WFA Marketing Capability Forum and strategic partner Oxford sought to identify and define the best and next suggested practices in this space and codify practical learnings for capability leaders to embrace.

Measuring Marketing Capability Impact explores these issues through 13 in-depth interviews with marketing capability practitioners combined with insights from our forum meetings. We explored the current landscape, delving into topics such as measurement practices, common challenges and aspirations for improvement.

Here is what we learned:

• Marketing capability leads face differing levels of scrutiny, with expectations of internal reporting ranging from programme reach only to tangible evidence of behaviour change. But without exception, everyone wants to get to a position where they can say what the investment in capability development has delivered for the business.
• Dissatisfaction with current measurement practices prevails among capability leaders in WFA membership, with a poll during a recent forum revealing an average satisfaction rating of 5.2 out of 10 (10 being ‘completely satisfied’). This underscores the pressing need for enhanced measurement frameworks that align capability investment with tangible outcomes.
• The Kirkpatrick Model – which includes four levels of training evaluation (Reaction, Learning, Behaviour and Results) – was very familiar as the industry standard, even if capability leads’ own approach didn’t tick all the same boxes. Oxford recommend making a small change to the model that recognises the value of deployment for reporting and the absolute importance of tracking behaviour change.
• Capability grows over time in the right conditions. While we often think first about the immediate value of individual capability-building programmes, we should also measure the long-term impact of more holistic factors. Indeed, every organisation should consider balancing the long and short term, with an emphasis on the former.
• Enriching quantitative data with qualitative human observation provides deeper insights into behaviour change and organisational impact. A simple questionnaire, conducted annually, provides a tangible metric, with interviews as a supplemental way to dig deeper.
• There are good reasons why a direct connection between improved capability and business results may not be possible, but in most cases it’s possible to present evidence of a contribution. Exploring surrogate measures of related enablers of business impact, such as internal indicators and market proxies, can establish a meaningful link between capability development and business performance.

It is undeniably difficult to make a direct connection between improved marketing capability and better business performance. It’s the gap all capability leads want to address, regardless of current expectations from their business on what they report. Many are already using elements of a pragmatic way forward.

Our report proposes a solution through use of surrogate results measures, so that where positive progression in holistic enablers and topic-specific outcomes can be measured ahead of improved business performance. That will make a clear case for a contribution.

The key is to get started, set benchmarks and measure consistently over time.

Download the full report here to uncover actionable insights and practical guidance for enhancing your organisation's marketing capability measurement practices.

To learn more about how you can engage with the Marketing Capability Forum get in touch with Julia Kraft.