Obsessive Focus On ROI Counterproductive Says Business Expert

Corporates who get too caught up in evaluating the return on investment of every detail of their marketing are missing the wood for the trees, according to leading digital marketing and business expert David Meerman Scott.

England, UK, November 24, 2008 -- The excessive focus of many corporate executives on return on investment from marketing is a big mistake, according to leading marketing and business expert David Meerman Scott. An obsession with quantifying the impact of each detail of a campaign can mean that businesses avoid great tools whose effects might be hard to quantify, he says. Scott is the bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR , and appears in a regular business TV show on leading business television network yourBusinessChannel. "So many people in the business world think that they have to measure and assign an actual dollar value to the return on investment of every little thing that happens in the marketing department," says Meerman Scott on the business TV show . The problem with this approach, he says, is that it is very difficult to assign a dollar value to, for example, each video a business might put up on YouTube. So the company hierarchy might oppose a move by the marketing department to conduct a viral video campaign on the grounds that the return is unclear. While many business experts recommend quantifying every aspect of marketing, this can be "counterproductive to the participative aspects of marketing through online social networks," says Scott on the business TV show. Scott offers some expert business advice for marketers battling with their executives and managers over rolling out a digital or social networking marketing campaign. "Ask them about the ROI of all kinds of other things, like getting dressed in morning, or the landscaping around the corporate headquarters. Can that be calculated?," he says. These things are of value, of course, but demonstrate that a narrow focus on the dollar return of everything a business does, as recommended by some business experts, should not be taken too far. Further links/information: * View this and other business TV shows featuring business experts. http://www.yourbusinesschannel.com * News about the latest expert business advice and upcoming business TV shows. http://www.yourbusinesschannel.com/blog.aspx * Business television on your website or blog. http://www.yourbusinesschannel.com/partner.aspx Contact: David Chandler yourBusinessChannel England, UK +44 (0) 870 041 0459 david@yourbusinesschannel.com http://www.yourbusinesschannel.com