The only way you’ve escaped the whole conversation around marketing ROI is if you’re head has been in the ground, or you were abducted by aliens for the last five years. And right alongside the whole conversation about how to track ROI is another conversation about marketing dashboards – those handy dandy thingamabobs that are supposed to tell you just how well your marketing is performing.

But while we can all talk about the importance of marketing ROI and their corresponding dashboards, very few marketers are actually tracking their ROI in a way that’s meaningful to their CFO. And even fewer have marketing dashboards that provide real time data enabling strategic and tactical choices to be made.

With me today to help figure out how to identify marketing ROI and create a dashboard that gives useful data was Alex Eldemir, partner with MarketingNPV. Alex believes a well-constructed dashboard should play a dual role today we talked about what those roles are.

One thing Alex mentioned was that marketing depts are in a state of evolution. Some are still money pit publishing houses, others take on the mantle of brand policing, and the final group are really growth drivers. It's in that last category that marketers are seen as growth drivers of a company, not just expensive line item spenders.

Alex and his business Partner Pat LaPointe are conducting three workshops with the American Marketing Association. They'll be held in October, November, and December at various parts of the country. More info about Marketing Resource Allocation: Using Measurement, Analytics, and Dashboards to Link Spending to Financial Outcomes is here.

Marketers, if we want to be seen as credible players at the strategy table, and NOT be seen as just willy-nilly spenders, we have got to be well-versed in ROI, dashboards, and the whole discussion around how marketing is contributing to the profitability of the company -- and do it in a way that is meaningful and acceptable to the CFO, CEO, and board. So, listen to today's show, go to the workshop, and learn how to do this!