How should we evaluate marketing? What is marketing's focus. What is marketing's goal and objective?
Companies and sales reps are quickly falling into a dependency and reliance on marketing. For many companies, it seems marketing has taken over much of the function sales used to perform.
Years ago, marketing played the role of advertising, awareness, branding, brochures, and the like. I do not think companies relied much on marketing to generate leads. Marketing was more of a support role and their tasks, functions, and personnel kind of sat outside of sales. Often the two groups seldom communicated with each other.
Is it different today? Are companies more heavily relying on marketing for sales related tasks and functions? I think so… If not, well, we will save that discussion for another blog.
Today, companies are still relying on marketing for the things of the past. However, today, the role of marketing has trenched itself much deeper inside companies. Marketing automation, social media, video content, global commerce, widespread competition, the need to cover more ground and at faster speeds are all contributors to the rise and importance of marketing inside our organizations.
Companies are turning to their marketing staff to come up with ways to:
Do more with less
Cover more ground
Increase the effectiveness and efficiencies of their sales groups
Open new markets
Beat out the competition
Generate qualified sales leads
Nurture leads
Increase revenue
And more...
If they are not doing this, their competition is.
We are putting a lot of expectation on our marketing groups and for good reason. We are forced today to do more with less. We do need to cover more ground. Our sales groups need to become more effective and more efficient. We must open new markets and steal business from our competition. A steady flow of new and qualified leads is imperative. We must have a process to nurture these leads beyond the first few phone calls.
So, what is the role of marketing? What is the role of sales? Should marketing be evaluated like sales reps? How should we evaluate marketing?
Companies are more and more relying on marketing to be the front-end part of the sales process. In 2002 when I formed Concept, the service we provided was the front-end part of the sales process. I believed then and still believe today, that we must separate new business development, lead generation, and prospecting from all other facets of your sales group. That was the concept of my company, thus the name of the company I formed.
In most cases, marketing is unable to take a lead to closure. There is still a need for a real person, a salesperson, to complete the final stage of the sales process. So, what is marketing responsible for and how should we evaluate the effectiveness of our marketing efforts?
Let’s list some of the things marketing is responsible for:
Branding
Market awareness
Marketing materials (blogs, presentations, digital content, graphic images, etc.)
Website management, content, SEO
Video content
Pay per click, Google ads
Social media content, presence, and management
Internal communications
Market research
Campaign management
Steady flow of qualified leads (qualified is the keyword)
Opening new markets
Nurturing leads
And more…
The role and importance of marketing today is rapidly growing. COVID-19 has accelerated this even more. Small to mid-sized companies do not have the resources, skillsets, and staff necessary to carry out all these functions. However, they are often competing with larger organizations that do.
I think we can agree, marketing plays an important role within our organizations. It is critical that our marketing groups perform at the level we need. Whether you have an internal marketing group, or you outsource these functions, there are many things to consider. However, for this discussion we are focusing on how we evaluate our marketing efforts.
As we demonstrated above, there are many functions and focuses for marketing. At the highest level, we must first determine the goal of marketing for your company and your group. I believe one of the primary tasks of marketing is to generate qualified leads. To be successful at generating leads, marketing must be successful at branding, market awareness, social media content, SEO, pay per click, nurturing leads, and more. By making marketing responsible for generating qualified leads, it forces marketing to be effective at all other areas.
Marketing needs to be given a very clear definition of a qualified lead. To measure their effectiveness, we must have a very clear measuring stick. We cannot let marketing be self-regulated. Being busy does not necessarily mean being productive. Marketing needs to be measured monthly the same as we do sales.
Each month in our company we measure and monitor our Google ads and our inbound lead activity. We monitor how many leads were generated, how many of those leads were qualified leads, how many of those leads hit our website, how many form fills were completed, how many of those leads turned into sales presentations, how many of those presentations turned into proposals, and how many of those proposals turned into closed sales. Each month we know exactly how much we are spending on marketing and exactly how much revenue was generated from that spend. As a result, we can easily calculate our ROI on our marketing spend.
If not measured to this level, marketing can easily go through the motions and do lots of things, but all those things may not be fruitful. Marketing must have a very specific focus. This focus is determined by your company’s goals and objectives.
At the end of the month, sales reps are measured on one metric and that is closed business. We don't care how many calls they made, we don't care how many meetings they had, we don't care how many presentations they did, we don't care how many proposals they generated, we care about how much revenue they closed. We become interested in the sales rep’s activities when they are not selling. It is then that we begin to analyze their calls, meetings, proposals, work ethic, etc.
Sales reps metrics are somewhat easy to monitor because it always ends up on closed sales. Marketing metrics however, if not managed correctly, can get a little gray. That is why we need to have a very defined metric for them.
I believe marketing is now part of sales. They simply focus on the front part of the sales process. I started and grew a business with its sole focus on the front part of the sales process. Our customer’s goal was for us to generate qualified leads. One of the first things we had to define with every customer was what constitutes a qualified lead. Before our leads could be sent over to the customer, it had to go through an approval process to ensure it met our client’s lead criteria.
Each month you must measure and monitor your marketing group’s activities and effectiveness. You cannot do this by asking the sales reps what they think of the leads that are being generated. Sales reps will always want more and better leads. Marketing must be measured independently of sales. Marketing cannot be responsible for closed business; they must be responsible for generating qualified leads.
Like sales, I think marketing must have a quota. They must be responsible for quantity and quality. You require your sales reps to close a certain type of business and a certain quantity of business. You do not want or allow your sales reps to close any type of business. No, you want them closing the type of business you can support and the type of business that you can sustain. The same should hold true for marketing.
Define the type of lead you are looking for and the quantity you want each month. Obviously, you must be realistic with both. Your lead criteria may include things like:
Company size
Geographic location
Industry
Size of sale
Scalability and growth potential
Budget
Timing
Decision maker
Etc.
Lead quantity and lead quality will drive your marketing behavior. Keep in mind, you only have a certain amount of dollars to spend. That is why we must ensure our marketing efforts are as effective as possible.
When you are setting your lead criteria, review it with a few internal and external sources to ensure it is realistic. Setting an unrealistic quota can really cause some bad decisions and knee jerk reactions. When you give your marketing group a budget, a quantity quota, and a quality quota, they will be forced to analyze where they are going to spend the dollars. They will not have the luxury of just going through motions and doing a little bit of everything.
A seasoned sales rep knows where to spend their time. They are always calculating in their mind where they are going to get the biggest bang for the buck. A seasoned sales rep does not want and will not spend time in places where they know is not going to generate commission. You want your marketing department to have the same mentality.
Do not allow your marketing department to simply do marketing. No, their efforts must be very strategic and very focused. Their efforts must be calculated, efficient, and effective.
Things to consider:
Everything marketing does must be focused on generating revenue.
Track all marketing activities.
If marketing is spending time on market awareness, it better be in a market that can and will buy your product or service. Who cares if people know about you if they are not going to buy your product or service?
If marketing is spending time redesigning your website, your website better generate more revenue than it is today.
If marketing is continually posting on LinkedIn and Facebook, it better be posting content that is going to drive people to your website to buy your product or service.
If marketing is spending dollars on Google ads, they must be able to demonstrate the activity generated is turning into sales and the sales generated is more greater than the dollars spent.
Every marketing dollar spent must be accounted for.
We do not have the luxury today for marketing or sales to be going through the motions. All time spent, all dollars spent, and all strategies must be focused on generating sales.
At the beginning of this article I asked: what is the role of marketing and how should we evaluate our marketing efforts? For me, marketing is now an extension of sales. It is a major part of the sales engine. We will have another blog on the sales engine. Marketing has a very defined role and that is to generate leads that turn into sales.
Support your marketing group by clearly defining their goals and objectives. Give them the tools they need to succeed and hold them accountable for the goal and objective they are tasked to achieve. Staff your marketing group with qualified personnel. Provide them with a realistic budget and clearly defined goals and meet with and monitoring their activity monthly.
A properly managed marketing group may prove to be one of the biggest assets your company has.