Marketers have long been divided on the right recipe for long-term sales growth: focus on sales, or focus on brand building. While the marketing landscape is rife with tech solutions to help brands and agencies easily track and validate their mid- and low-funnel spending, research shows that sales-driven efforts do little to acquire new customers—the top business objective cited by marketers for the 2022 Nielsen Annual Marketing Report.
With new customer acquisition and brand building at the forefront for marketers in the coming year, the need for balanced marketing strategies has never been greater. This need is also being embraced by brands around the world, especially after some began to over-emphasize conversion efforts heading into the pandemic.
“There is a clear tension between brand awareness and the need to drive clear outcomes,” said Emma Delserieys, vice president of customer success in Europe at Nielsen, during a recent panel discussion arranged by the Drum on the topic. “Every advertiser wants the same thing—maximum brand awareness, quantifiable, immediate outcomes and all of that for the minimum budget they can spend.”
汉堡王英国首席营销官凯蒂-埃文斯（Katie Evans）指出，自她于 2018 年初加入汉堡王以来，其品牌的营销工作发生了独特的转变，变得更加全面。
"埃文斯说："我加入时，公司的媒体战略相对传统，非常注重线性电视和短期销售。"公司拥有品牌知名度，但我们将新的重点放在品牌显著性和品牌亲和力上，以便在繁忙的市场中实现差异化。这确实推动了我们的媒体战略和方法。
Media sellers are seeing the shift as well, including Jo Holdaway, chief data and marketing officer at The Independent, a global, digital news brand.
"Holdaway 说："作为媒体所有者，我们看到对效果营销的关注度大大降低，而作为一个为客户提供广告平台的品牌，对品牌知名度的关注度大大提高。"我们看到的真正转变是更直接的品牌认知活动，更多的长期合作业务，很多营销人员希望在长期赞助或品牌内容的基础上将他们的品牌与我们的品牌联系起来，这与五年前的情况大不相同。
引导转变或在长期目标和短期目标之间找到正确的平衡点可能令人生畏。Delserieys 建议，与其独自应对挑战，不如与合作伙伴合作，找出既能衡量长期效果又能衡量短期影响的解决方案，并让他们为取得成果负责。
"例如，我们看到一些广告商的关键绩效指标过多，导致运营效率低下。还有一些广告主只关注一个 KPI，这可能会影响他们找到真正的平衡，"Delserieys 说。"因此，通常情况下，我建议为长期和短期效果找到合适的 KPI，对两者进行衡量，并让合作伙伴承担更大的责任，以实现成果。
衡量的重要性在此至关重要，尤其是消费者的旅程并不局限于特定的平台或渠道。然而，这也正是许多营销人员在跟踪其回报方面遇到困难的地方，因为只有 54% 的全球营销人员对其衡量全渠道投资回报率的能力充满信心。
The full-funnel ROI measurement challenge is real, acknowledged Holdaway. As a news brand, she says The Independent is very involved with podcasting, video, digital and social, but measuring the ROI of these channels holistically is a growing challenge. For example, she says it’s relatively easy to measure whether people come back to the site or are more engaged with the site. But as a brand with many channels at work to drive registration and membership, largely through brand awareness efforts, attribution is the larger, growing challenge.
"Delserieys 说："为了改进全渠道测量，品牌需要通过在可用的粒度上获得最佳数据，并结合最好的专业知识来理解这些不同的数据集，从而实现更全面的战略。"在工作和生活中，遇到困难或挑战时，拥有合适的合作伙伴来帮助你渡过难关是关键所在。
