It's time for management consultancies to be measuring the return on investment from their marketing 

Gauging the return on investment of marketing activity is a fundamentally important metric for management consultancies looking to grow, yet many we meet struggle to know whether the  time and money spent on marketing produces an effective return.

Many only measure short term metrics 

In a few weeks time I'll be on a panel at a marketing summit where I will be discussing how to measure the return of investment for Thought Leadership activities.

It sounds an esoteric subject and immediately begs some specific questions like:"What is Thought Leadership?"; "What resources are being invested and how do I cost such inputs as non-billable time?"; and "What actually is the return I am looking for and how will I know when I achieve it?". 

Measuring the impact and the ROI is really fundamental, but too often businesses leave considering this until after the campaign, rather than early on as it is developed.

It's easy to start over-complicating things, so the key question management consultants and their marketing teams involved in Thought Leadership projects should be asking are: