Very interesting that you are working on a standardized framework for measuring Digital Marketing Maturity. Recently (as consultant for Atos Consulting) I have constructed the E-Business Maturity Model and performed the first benchmark (Netherlands). This benchmark is currently being performed in France. More information: http://www.e-business-benchmark.com/.

I have reviewd the model you propose. First off, I think it is great to work towards a cross industry standard, open to all to use. Are you planning to make the model and research approach available, and if so how?

Second, I think that the name of the model does not quite cover the contents. As I see it now, it only focusses on the measurement and analytics skills of the organization. In my opinion, digital marketing encompasses more than just measurements.

The EBMM takes 4 key areas and 12 categories into account:

Management & Organization: Vision & Strategy, Leadership & Commitment, Governance & Alignment
Processes: E-Business Process, E-Business Performance Measurement, E-Business Cost Management
People & Culture: Competencies, Culture, Communication
Infrastructure: IT Strategy & vision, IT Architecture & Infrastructure, Business & IT alignment

What I have found in setting up the EBMM, is that this model only explains the organizational aspect, let’s say the car. In order to be able to assess the overall maturity of an organization, I feel it is necessary to also measure the actual strategy (in relation to market, customers and other benchmarks) and the performance of the current online channel in relation to the other channels.

Your DM3 model could provide a core component of a comprehensive model, but needs enhancement in other areas in order to fit the DM3 promise.

I am more than interested in exploring the opportunities to work together on establishing a comprehensive model. Looking forward to your response.

To provide a suggestion, how about using the six pillars as circles, and each circle would have 4 possible sizes depending on the score of that particular pillar, and they can immediately see where they need to improve? I also suggest we remove the numbers altogether, because even if you have most of the pillars right, if you are seriously lacking in any of them, your other efforts will be meaningless.

From an operational perspective, I think hoping that things will start with a strategy will need the support of the VP’s and the C’s. These people are probably not the most welcoming in terms of letting go of their 20 years of experience and accepting that a 26 year-old analyst knows the details of their industry by spending a couple of hours on an analytics tool.

Therefore, I would suggest that companies start wherever they can. For example, let’s say this 26 year-old analyst does some SEO for the website, tags the campaigns properly, and gets some good results (these are things that don’t cost much, and can be done under the radar fairly easily). Once the results are shared in the company, and the VP realizes that 32% of his sales are coming through free Google traffic, he might be interested in learning how that came. Then the analyst can explain with numbers how that is not only effective, but that it is more profitable to use organic search than to advertise on XYZ.com for example.

Operationally, you should start anywhere.

Regarding the ranges, we can simply put a check box next to each item, and that item will score 1,2,3, or 4 points depending on where in the hierarchy it fits (it’s importance). The total will determine your final score for that pillar. This can be scalable where in the future we can detail the criteria more, and still provide a final score between 1 and 4.

Sorry I talked too much

In terms of your comment about the ranges and how to provide an accurate score – it’s difficult to develop something that is compact enough to be usable but also detailed enough to be helpful. And on top of this it needs to fit as best as possible with an incredibly diverse set of digital marketing practices. It’s like a one-size-fits-all hat. Does it really fit EVERY head in the world? No because it was developed to work for 80% of the heads in the world . Same thing applies here. Of course we feel there is absolutely room for improvement, we also know that we can’t expect it to fit perfectly across all programs.

Thanks again for your comments – please feel free to provide more as you see fit!

Two ideas while reading about the model:

1. Visualization: The resulting shape that is based on the company’s score gives the impression that adjacent pillars are somehow correlated because the area that is formed by joining their scores depends on both the scores and doesn’t give each one visual independence of the other. Is there a reason in this ordering? I still think it’s not a bad visualization because you can see how your are doing versus the industry at a glance, and within two seconds you can see the where the deltas are. You have it presented like an equalizer in the document, I think that’s a good idea.

2. Checklist: While trying to assess a company (going through the model) I think you are making an assumption that certain groups of activities come together. I found it difficult whether to rate a client 2 or 4 on Data Analysis and Insight because they have a very detailed a standard tagging system for all campaign and for the most important links on their site, at the same time they don’t use search traffic data to optimize pages.

I strongly believe that this should be done as a checklist, with each point having a weight to it (think personality tests) and the score would simply be computed by adding up the points.

Thanks!