A Great Way to Loose Money

The Church of the Customer reports points to an interesting article in the June issue of the Harvard Business Review (subscription required!). It reports on a survey about the effectiveness of 500 various consumer and B2B marketing programs, which resulted in some eye-opening statistics:

• 84% resulted in less market share, not more
  
• Most customer acquisition efforts did not break even
  
• Fewer than 10% of new products succeeded
  
• Most sales promotions were unprofitable
  
• Advertising ROI was below 4%
  
• Doubling advertising expenditures for established products increased sales just 1% - 2%

Why am I not surprised ?

(via Bernd Röthlingshöfer)