Jeff Leo Herrmann, Founder and President of Madison, Michigan & Market, believes the definition of audience measurement needs to be expanded—and I couldn’t agree more.
On Wikipedia, audience measurement is defined as follows:
“Audience measurement measures how many people are in an audience, usually in relation to radio listenership and television viewership, but also in relation to newspaper and magazine readership and, increasingly, web traffic on websites. Sometimes, the term is used as pertaining to practices which help broadcasters and advertisers determine who is listening rather than just how many people are listening. In some parts of the world, the resulting relative numbers are referred to as audience share, while in other places the broader term market share is used. This broader meaning is also called audience research.”
As Herrmann points out in a LinkedIn article, the current definition focuses only on advertising. It completely leaves marketing out of the equation.
However, if the definition were expanded to a brand audience measurement, this would give marketing executives—including healthcare marketers—the fuel they need to drive their companies to the next level.
It would also solve the CMO trust problem, Herrmann says. According to a 2012 global survey by the Fournaise Marketing Group, 80% of CMOs don’t trust or are unimpressed with their CMOs.
“Marketing is now a business model and market maker, and no longer just a cost center that creates sales collateral and allocates advertising expenditures,” Herrmann writes.
“To support the expansion of new business models from this audience-first effort, we must provide CMOs an objective set of data to show the true value of the most important asset they’re building and managing — a loyal audience,” he continues. “Objective data that reveals the quality, composition, loyalty and revenue contribution of the owned media platform audience should garner the trust of CEOs that are not yet believers in this media-centric audience building strategy.”
To read the full article, click here.