I was passively listening to one of the many podcasts to which I subscribe, and the guest said something along the lines of, “What good are you if you don’t ‘make it rain’ for your client?” Basically, if you’re not helping your client (or employer) make money, there’s no reason for you to be there.
Well that’s a stinging concept.
Fortunately, I do make my employer money. I am also fairly certain I’ve helped my clients make money, but I don’t actually track it… yet.
(I can’t believe I just admitted that, but it’s staying in the blog because it’s true.)
Until last week, I stuck by the general belief that the ROI of marketing is pretty elusive. How do you really know the people signed up for your webinar because we put it in the newsletter or on social media today? With that mentality, I didn’t even bother tracking much more than engagement and open rates.
“If you’re not making them money, why should they keep you?”
I’m taking that question as a challenge. Not only do I want to provide value for my employer and clients, but I have been working on expanding my experience. My skill set has grown significantly since I dropped into the market, and there are more skills I want to practice in order to truly feel I can provide a huge value. That’s probably why I latched on to this podcast guest’s rhetorical question.
I want to do a better job of connecting marketing activity to profit.
Marketing vs. Sales: Who gets lead generation and ROI?
Marketing = Purposeful communication to garner attention and purchases from an organization’s target market
Sales = Exchange of value in goods or services for money
Some organizations separate marketing and sales while others have one person expected to do both. I’ve been a part of organizations with various mixes and I’ve come to the opinion that marketing and sales should not be separated. I think they should act like married partners who support each other in agreed-upon goals and sometimes bicker over silly things.
My obsession over the last week has been lead generation. This completely steps on the traditional sales department’s toes. Or does it?
Nowadays, the content we’re putting out and the channels we use are primary lead generation strategies. Both of those activities are in the marketing department, and this is why I want to understand lead generation better. How can I gather qualified leads from my marketing activity and deliver them to the sales team? Speaking for myself, most of our sales don’t come from someone clicking a “Buy” button – I mostly serve organizations in B2B and service industries.
Tangent: Perhaps the goal is to see where marketing meets sales. Where does the lead/customer handover happen? What is the best way for the marketing team to send customers across that line to buy? To the buyer, it should be seamless. The sales team should feel prepared to meet the buyer’s needs. Marketing and sales should be talking to each other at all times. Wouldn’t that be perfection?
I fully plan on my next obsession to be calculating return on investment. I mean… I know how to do the math. It’s those darn elusive numbers that I need to make the equation work. I’d love to type up a report with solid numbers for two reasons. I would be…
- Showing the value of the marketing activities.
- Learning which marketing strategies are successful and which to scrap.
Neil Patel and a number of other marketing experts have stated that technology keeps making it easier to track the success of our marketing efforts. Well, I didn’t jump on that train earlier because I’m not naturally tech savvy, but I’m buying the tickets now. I’ve researched and highlighted tools that might be useful and now I’ll be trying them out. I’m determined to learn how to track my marketing efforts and deliver real numbers to my employer and clients.
You may not have learned anything from this blog post, but I hope it gave you something to think about. If you don’t have a method of tracking and reporting marketing activity, how do you move forward? How do you know what to keep doing, what to change and what to try next? If you do track your marketing, and can connect your activity to sales, please share your wisdom! I have a lot to learn.
Thanks for reading!
Best,
Amber
Amber Heiden's Marketing Services 