Marketing Governance Needs to Be About Growth

Marketing governance can easily become a conversation about control: controlling costs, suppliers, processes and risk. A narrow focus on control, however, misses a much bigger opportunity. 

In the video below, mediasense CEO Sam Tomlinson argues that governance should provide a framework for aligning and optimising marketing operations and investment against the wider strategic goals of the business. As marketing becomes increasingly complex, this framework must enable greater integration across functions while giving businesses the agility to respond to a fast-moving environment. 

Central to this is the distinction between efficiency and effectiveness. 

Much of marketing transformation focuses – rightly – on efficiency. Businesses need to understand their costs and how well their marketing operations are working. Yet that is only part of the equation: marketing must also be assessed by the sales, revenue and profit it generates. 

This is where audit can play a critical role. Audit can help businesses move the conversation beyond cost, making it part of a stronger approach to marketing governance and decision-making. Ultimately, the objective is not simply to make marketing cost less. It is to help marketing contribute more.