The Marketing Executives Group International

Dear members of the Marketing Executives Group,

Re: Marketing Innovation, Research, and Knowledge Sharing Initiatives

Below, I would like to share some interesting findings from my recent interactions with group members:

• 35% of all new members have reached out and shared their unique professional objectives.

• 90% of group members who responded to the New Members Survey stated they would be interested in attending local / regional marketing executives group networking events.

In the overall feedback received, there appears to be a common theme of willingness to share new concepts and actionable knowledge. Although the community discussion forum on LinkedIn provides a dynamic medium for 1-to-1 collaboration, it is not necessarily the ideal forum for engaging all 11,000+ members.

Over the past few months, more than 1,200 members have shared (and continue to share) their biggest marketing challenges; below are the top 5 challenges from the last 90 days:

- Surviving the financial crisis - "doing more with less" (27%)

- Meeting planning objectives during financial crisis (18%)

- Demonstrating marketing ROI (12%)

- Understanding clients complex needs (12%)

- Executing an effective social marketing strategy (10%)

In the spirit of collaboration, innovation, and open information sharing, I will be working with community members to conduct a series of open studies on these "hot topics" as we continue to identify what is important to you and our community of marketing executives.

As a community member, you will have the opportunity to contribute to helping design questions, provide feedback to questions posed by other members, and share your findings based on your experiences and successes. At the end of the data and knowledge collection period, I will consolidate all information and share it with you and the rest of the community, via the Marketing Executives Group blog, as well as under the ‘Innovation’ tab on our website (link).

When a new topic is identified, you will be invited to participate in the initial design of the study (providing questions for us to survey the group), and during the data and knowledge collection period, you will be invited to share your personal feedback.

I look forward to group participation and ongoing feedback as we embark on this exciting project.

To your success,

Barnard Crespi
Marketing Executives Group Owner