Sales and Marketing: working towards greater commercial impact
Making the difference In theory, marketing has the opportunity to make a real commercial impact. Customer retention programmes translate directly into bottom line performance over the long term. Partner recruitment programmes can add real value to a company’s capability. Marketing campaigns and communications that nurture leads have a major influence on the complex, lengthy purchase cycle that characterises technology markets. And brand differentiation can create a vital competitive advantage that underpins all the other sales and marketing processes. That’s the theory, but, in reality, is commercial awareness a key consideration when companies recruit marketing staff, or is the emphasis still on specialist “operational” skills? And is the training and development available to marketing people contributing to greater commercial awareness?
Sales sets the pace Historically, it was sales who wanted to be in on the “marketing action”, but the changing balance of power means that it is now marketing that needs to be in on the “sales action”. This has become even more critical in the current turbulent economic climate, and marketing now needs to demonstrate commercial awareness and impact throughout the purchase cycle. With the emphasis on survival, marketing is in danger of losing respect within the organisation, compared to the sales team who are perceived as directly responsible for making money. Sometimes, that “creative glow” can be misconstrued, with marketing viewed as “fluffy”, or only responsible for events and campaigns that take money rather than make it.
Mind the gap Okay, creative marketing activities raise awareness and get the company noticed. But is that enough? The real aim is to build profitable long-term business, and that’s where marketing has often failed to make a real impact. Today, the board wants to know why leads are not turning into revenue and profit. With the board demanding return on marketing investment, just meeting targets for lead generation is no longer sufficient. Marketing now needs to demonstrate direct bottom line responsibility to win that vital respect. This changing perspective is partly reflected in the relative importance of different job descriptions. Responsibilities such as field marketing have been around for a while but, until recently, they have not been particularly visible within the marketing department. We are also seeing terms like “sales enablement”, “customer relationship management” and 'lead automation' appearing more frequently in marketing recruitment ads. Emerging responsibilities like this are an indication that, today marketers have to be closer to where the selling happens.
Time for technology Another strong indicator of change is the adoption of technology for marketing management. Sales teams have been making use of sophisticated support tools for more than ten years. Although marketing has been using technology to create dynamic new ways of communicating, to date, there has been little change in the use of technology to manage marketing processes. Marketing professionals can utilise emerging tools such as marketing resource management, prospect relationship management or lead automation to provide a more solid and scientific approach to their activities. The process has already begun, and marketers are now regularly found using programs such as Salesforce.com which, until recently, have traditionally been regarded as sales tools.
Towards greater integration This scientific approach is critical in the technology sector where the decision-making process is growing increasingly complex, requiring a go-to-market model that matches. In a typical scenario there may be six to nine key influencers and a purchase cycle that could last twelve to eighteen months. Marketing teams must utilise technology that enables them to support a more integrated, dynamic process in which sales and marketing engage in a collaborative process focusing on all prospect influencers and decision makers. This new model is essential to close the gap between sales and marketing, enabling organisations to deal with the complexities of considered purchases involving multiple influencers and decision makers. In this collaborative model, marketing can drive a bigger impact on sales and demonstrate its commercial awareness. That gives the marketing department a greater stake-holding interest in target revenues and closed customers, enhancing its visibility and accountability in terms of return on marketing investment.
Respect for marketing By reducing the gulf between sales and marketing and creating a greater commercial impact, marketing can help to build credibility and trust. And, by demonstrating the link between revenue stream and demand creation, marketing can engage in dialogue at a more strategic level. Rather than the traditional roles of “fee earners versus enablers”, the emphasis for both sales and marketing teams is on profitable business development as a long-term revenue generator. Measurement and metrics will play an important role in this transition. Marketing professionals who understand ROI are in a better position to justify marketing spend and demonstrate value to the business - a factor that is key to gaining more respect within the organisation. The appointment of marketing professionals and the purchasing of marketing services is driven completely differently today, than say five or six years ago. Today, organisations buy in to the results as opposed to the product or process of how to get the end result. With the current economic climate, marketers today have to be much more “business ready”. In short, they have to represent a truly quantifiable benefit to the business. And, just as marketing people need to become more commercially viable, the marketing recruitment and training processes must also evolve to reflect the new reality.
