Mark Greatrex is the Chief Marketing and Sales Officer of Cox Communications, a multi-billion dollar MSO, telephony and data provider. Mark was named the #1 CMO in America for a private company by ExecRank and has led with a strong marketing analytics approach. Mark has more than 25 years of marketing experience for consumer brands. Prior to joining Cox, he served as Senior Vice President of Global Still Beverages at The Coca-Cola Company where he was responsible for a $7 billion portfolio of beverages. He first worked with Marketing Evolution at Coca-Cola, and when he took the new position as Cox’s CMO, tapping Marketing Evolution was the logical choice. Over the past year, Marketing ROI for Cox increased 31 percent.
QUESTION: What is the most important decision you made that has led to your success in increasing marketing ROI?
The decision to purposefully and continually apply the latest Marketing science to understand and optimize Marketing ROI.
QUESTION: In the past, marketing ROI was limited to a once a year review of budget allocation and mix. Some senior members of your team at Cox seem to use ROI analytics every day. What is your expectation of your team in terms of integrating marketing ROI data and insights into their daily jobs?
I expect my team to leverage Marketing ROI insights at minimum on a quarterly basis as we plan the next year and coming quarter’s activity. We have a process in place by which we learn key lessons after each quarter in a post action review. My teams then plan the upcoming quarter and update and optimize all elements of the media and direct marketing mix. I also expect my teams to look for the “golden threads” across key consumer insight studies to make connections and gain deeper and deeper insights that will give us competitive advantage.
QUESTION: We're both fans of the book The 4 Disciplines of Execution, how do you use marketing metrics in your process to achieve your wildly important goals (WIGs)?
We apply the discipline of identifying and tracking Leading Indicators such as the power of our value propositions, the impact of our advertising before it airs and key operational metrics such as the amount of our core products which we sell into new customers (a lead indicator for future market share). We also work hard to clear ourselves from the cloud of everyday work and ensure we are moving our insight and ROI ahead with major strategic efforts, such as understanding customer path-to-purchase and how that should shape our connections and messaging strategy.
QUESTION: Does data and analytics help your team to be more creative or innovative? If so, how?
Certainly. The best creative springs from a tight creative brief. Our analytics help us clarify and focus in upon the critical marketing and creative opportunities.
QUESTION: If you had a magic lamp, and an ROI genie came out, what would be your three wishes for marketing ROI software and analytics?
I would wish for:
QUESTION: One last question, Mark, any advice on how your Marketing Evolution team can better serve you and the Cox team?
Align your interactions and insights more directly with our planning cycles and further integrate your counsel and tools into our processes.
