On the heels of its successful generic prescription drug plan, Wal-Mart announced in 2007 that it planned to open several hundred medical clinics within its retail stores. Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott believes the number could grow as high as 2,000 by 2014.

The model was simple. Doctors or nurse practitioners provide routine medical care - testing for strep throat or giving flu shots at a fixed rate. CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid were quick to follow suit, saying that they were considering similar measures.

It's a classic example of Blue Ocean Strategy. Faced with slowing revenue gains, Wal-Mart decided to curb its expansion plans and focus on deriving more income from its existing stores. Rather than battle Target or CVS and accept diminishing returns, the company set out to get ahead of the curve and launch a retail, healthcare operation.

Marketers often believe their job is done as soon as sales leads start coming in the door. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how marketing dollars are wasted. Successful marketers help turn leads into customer conversions because they understand that sales can be the most valuable metric for measuring new campaigns.

In attempting to fulfill their responsibility to connect campaigns to the bottom line, many marketers discover that their efforts are hampered by poor conversion rates resulting from an underperforming sales team. So, marketing needs to understand how to communicate with the sales department and effectively motivate the team responsible for converting leads. We brought in somebody fluent in the language of sales, Tim Brenton, President of the Brenton Group, Inc., to teach marketers the right questions to ask the sales management team and assess whether the right processes are in place for success.

For many CFOs marketing is the nebulous part of business. On the surface, it doesn't appear to mesh with their traditional short-term focus on improving productivity and reducing costs. The CFO is charged with prioritizing budgetary resources, balancing the needs of departments across the company, including marketing.

But is marketing effectively making its case?

The marketing department has traditionally existed outside the revenue column. But, it's time to demand the same demonstrable results that you would require of any of your business units. Marketing is more than a maker of multi-media; it is a catalyst that reenergizes how the company thinks, invests, acts and connects to your bottom line.

However, traditional business standards of measurement don't tie marketing directly to that bottom line and companies struggle to establish performance benchmarks for their marketing teams. So how do you measure the efficacy of your marketing efforts?

When I tell people I'm in Interactive Marketing, I often hear, "Oh, you design websites," or, "You do banners on the Internet." Wrong. "Interactive" is a misused and misunderstood word in the marketing world. Interactive channels include every communications platform that people utilize in their daily lives: cell phones, the Internet, ATM machines, kiosks, video games, and many others. These devices are evolving at lightning speed. Is the iPhone a phone, a computer, or a social networking device? How do marketers decide which platforms will be most effective to build business? And how can marketers develop interactive programs on these platforms that are engaging and meaningful to the consumer?

A recent survey showed that only 17 percent of executives and marketing professionals felt their CEO would give the company's marketing an "A." When asked why, marketing executives said it was because they didn't show their work.

CEOs are not ones to take performance on faith; they need hard numbers to justify spending to a results-driven board and investors. That sentiment was echoed by CEOs; 48 percent felt marketing was only marginally effective.