Increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of Aalto EE’s marketing by setting goals and defining KPIs

Aalto EE invited Dagmar to clarify the role of its marketing in the company’s business, to increase the effectiveness of its marketing and to remodel its operating methods.

Aalto Executive Education and Professional Development (Aalto EE) is known for its high-quality services for developing management and professional skills. Changes in the operating environment and the desire to be a pioneer in the industry challenged Aalto EE’s marketing to strengthen its role in the business. Dagmar was chosen as a media agency and strategic partner: to increase the effectiveness of marketing and to streamline operations.

They wanted to do marketing in a new way and to clarify its traditional role as a lead generator to a more strategic one. Marketing was planned on three levels from the big picture to practice:

1. Strategic, long-term marketing – aspiration
2. Brand development – goals
3. Operational theme and product level – key results

Aspiration, Goals and Metrics

Aalto EE offers a wide range of courses, and they have many target groups. To streamline operational marketing and target marketing investments, clear goals and metrics were clarified to guide the operation. Aalto EE formed the marketing goals together with Dagmar.

1. Marketing aspiration

The direction of action was first defined as the marketing aspiration: this created an internal description of the role in which marketing participates in achieving business goals. Aalto EE’s business strategy and gathered customer understanding was reflected on the aspiration description.

2. Goals

The goals were designed to guide marketing at all three levels of control. As customer orientation is a key theme for Aalto EE, the latest brand research and identified business challenges were used as the basis for the goals. The need to improve marketing effectiveness and streamline operating models was also strongly linked to the goals.

3. Key performance indicators

To monitor the impact of the measures, key performance indicators were defined for the goals.

Development work was taken forward with joint workshops

The project was implemented as a series of workshops. Comments were collected from Aalto EE and Dagmar’s teams, ensuring comprehensive goals that cover all levels of marketing. As a result, Aalto EE has goals and KPI metrics covering the entire purchasing path at the brand and product marketing levels. During the project, new, natural business support measures were also found that strengthen the role of marketing.

The next step in the cooperation is to integrate the goals into the everyday planning of marketing and to deploy key metrics in optimisation and reporting.

The project was a success:

• Aalto EE’s marketing aspiration is now clearer and the journey towards more holistic marketing has started.
• Goal setting guides marketing planning, optimisation, and development at three different levels.
• The KPIs have been defined as the basis for marketing optimisation and reporting. It also helps to automate measures and their monitoring.
• The set goals have been defined together between Aalto EE’s marketing and Dagmar, and the commitment to common goals is high.
• Marketing change drivers: effectiveness and efficiency are repeated at all three levels of control.
• Clearly defined starting levels make it easier to verify the changes obtained in the future. Baselines are now created by looking at current data and marketing measures before starting new measures.