Avoiding Random Acts of Marketing is a key recommendation of the latest “State of Marketing” report from the Chief Marketing Officer Council, a 6,000 member global association. CMO's participating in the latest edition of the annual survey found that a majority of businesses have budgeted modest increases in marketing for 2011. The report goes into excrutiating detail by breaking down marketing into the various components of online advertising, mobile, print media, and so forth. Like many such reports, the sheer number of statistics can me mind-numbing.

The main thrust of the report brings to mind the familiar quote from marketer John Wanamaker, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.” With all the new options out there for advertising, it's tempting to try a bit of this and a bit of that. CMO Council executive director Donovan Neale-May summarizes, “Today's successful marketing organization is unifying its extended ecosystem, aligning more effectively with business and sales groups and integrating campaign components to drive efficiency and more measurable outcomes.”

In other words, how about trying some advertising that has measurable results? At APTCO, we help companies of all sizes with promotional marketing. Since promotional products have one of the lowest costs-per-impression of all advertising, we get a lot of requests for imprinted items. It's surprising how often the thinking hasn't gone any farther than that. “We need some pens (mugs, caps, tote bags, flash drives) with our logo on them.” Really? We can do that. But how about making this something more? How will you distribute them? To whom? What would you like them to do after receiving the item? Wouldn't you like a way to know if they actually do that?

Don't be guilty of commiting “Random Acts of Marketing.” Let APTCO tie your efforts together into a targeted campaign with measureable results.