Solving the sales and marketing gap is no easy task. Too often marketing efforts are focused on making the first page of google or working on the perfect social campaign that will go viral. Is your marketing department sending out teddy bears with the hopes to warm up noninterested prospects? These are certainly positive activities (at least intended) but are these activities tied to SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time bound)?
The role of marketing in the b2b world is changing – from creative project managers to geeky numbers driven coffee drinking creative thinking and writing techies. We’ll have to attribute this change to an explosion in technologies that not only automate digital efforts but add a whole new level of analytical driven intelligence. While many companies have modernized their marketing projects they have failed to modernize their marketing strategy. In other words, that really cool looking web page or brochure you just created means absolutely nothing if the right audience is not engaged with it.
For companies that embrace the modernization of marketing technologies, presents the perfect opportunity to perfectly align marketing with sales goals. Here’s how.
- Hire marketers that are geeky numbers driven coffee drinking creative thinking and writing techies
- Invest in marketing automation and analytics…there are even some good freebies out there.
- Assign a marketing quota based on cost of client acquisition (COCA).
- Example: 100 top funnel awareness leads, 75 marketing qualified leads, 25 sales qualified leads, etc
- Compensate marketing based on performance. Base plus performance bonus…or purely performance based.
- Prioritize performance over creative. Creative will help performance but performance will not help creative
Instead of shooting for the first page of google, shoot for a specific number of inbound leads and new sales opportunities. If getting to the top of search engines is going to help support that goal then great! If you make the first page of google but you’re not driving new leads or opportunities then who’s accountable? Sales reps are assigned a quota, they are hungry with a “hate to lose” approach, so in today’s modern day marketing, why should your marketers be an exception to your growth goals?
Interested in driving new leads from social sites like twitter or LinkedIN? Check out our workbook on Social Prospecting here or click Download below.
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