As a marketer, it appears to me that one of the top
questions that is always asked is, "Can we really link any of this marketing
data to sales?"
This can sometimes be done by collecting fake spreadsheets
and data, but without a single source of information for marketing and sales,
answering this question can be difficult. And if marketing and sales
measurements are not aligned, it can be very difficult to protect marketing
spending.
That's why we're here to share the top 5 ways marketers can
justify spending in 2022. We hope these strategies will help you demonstrate
the impact of marketing on your business once and for all.
1. Don't assume that decision makers know what you do.
Unfortunately for marketing, many people in organizations
like to think they can get the job done in marketing without even having the
skills. So teaching and explaining your marketing strategies and tactics and
why they are important can help them understand how much you are really
contributing to the business.
As a reminder, it's good toward remember that each person on
the executive team wants to see different metrics. So for further
understanding, it can be helpful to compare your results or provide different
dashboards to each manager. For example, a CFO may only care about where the
budget is allocated, while a CEO is only concerned with how marketing
contributes to overall revenue.
2. Make sure sales and marketing are on the same page
Some of the most successful B2B sales and marketing teams
have one thing in common: they have constant discussion and dialogue between
sales and marketing.
Having regular meetings to discuss metrics and understand if
you are on track or not can be key to determining where you need to change or
reallocate your budget and schedules. It's also important for sales besides
marketing teams to align SLA definitions and other metrics, use a comprehensive
funnel metrics tool, and make sure Salesforce syncs properly with your
marketing solutions.
3. Be flexible and use a combination of proactive and
reactive planning
Some marketing teams plan for the next year at the finish of
the year, while others start planning at the beginning of the year. Sometimes
you have to plan some times a year because the business is constantly changing.
In any case, some fragments of planning are reactive and others are proactive,
allowing for a more flexible approach.
The best metrics to look out for in reactive planning are
demand waterfall metrics or funnel metrics. This will mean that you should take
a look at your lead management process and look at volume, speed, and
conversion rates to see where you can optimize fast. Expression at these
metrics based on the different crusades you run and then you can optimize your
lead management process.
One way you can proactively optimize scheduling is by
looking at sales to deliver leads. Ask yourself how well you track leads. What
happens to them? Is the sales team meeting its SLA? What channels and messages
perform best over time?
Understanding the answers to these questions is essential to
figuring out how to protect your spending.
4 - Turn your team into ambassadors equipped with correct
information
He's inordinate if your marketing operations professional
knows what's going on with marketing measurements, but it's even better if
everyone in the marketing organization knows what's going on with metrics and
whether you're on target.
You can arm your promotion team to be ambassadors in your
sales conversations to help you streamline the activities that are taking
place. Some of the most successful marketing teams are arming their teams with
key marketing data.
5. Make sure you have a single source of information for
marketing and sales.
If marketers are looking at one set of data and sales are
looking at another set and they don't match, it's very difficult to have a
reasonable dialogue between marketing and sales.
It's important to keep your data in one place like
Salesforce to keep all your data clean and create robust reports and dashboards
that all teams agree on.
Marketing measurements allow you to become a great team
player in your company. So to protect your marketing costs, make sure you speak
to your executives in their language, make sure sales and marketing are on the
same page, be flexible, turn your team into ambassadors, and make sure you have
one source.