Psst, Marketing and Sales - connected, just not mutually exclusive

I like John Bell and his commentary at Digital Influence Mapping Project.  Lots of ideas and experiments flowing, so it's nice to check in and see what he and his team are up to.  Lately, there has been a trend there around WOM (substitute public relations if you like) being measured on the same scale as advertising.  Well, I guess this supposes that advertising measurement (GRP, TRP, Rating Points, Circulation, Clicks, etc.) are even worth a c-rap to begin with.  Let's be clear - they are not.  It's why advertising is just above lawyering and used car selling and just below insurance.  No more marketing seats at the Board Room table with Trump and ever increasing CMO attrition velocity.

Note to self, let's not measure anything with that ruler. 

Blinded by the HUGE dollars that advertising gets (not to mention the sexy shoots in exotic locations), other marketing services firms are trying to stake their claim on these untold riches.  It's a sunsetting business, so let's look at this problem a little differently. 

Let's go old school and start asking some questions of ourselves, our friends and the brands we represent.  Let's clarify (really really do this; not just suppose that you know) who the current or target audiences are, find out what make them tick (aka consider, try, buy, recommend), ask (and answer truthfully) if our experience is different in any way from the cat down the street, build a model, try an approach, and then commit to the resources and change that is required.  Then measure against that . . . with customer service scores, satisfaction indexes, contribution to sales, employee morale, whatever.  But squeezing year over year same store sales out of your ad creative or press releases is just silly.