Are marketers doing an equally effective job in promoting their contribution to the organization as they do to its prospects?
Justification is important. The global pandemic is the latest in a line of events that has disrupted the equilibrium of the state of “business as usual”. Expense scrutiny has intensified, and marketing will generally be near the front of the queue having budgets scrutinised. Can improving the perception of marketing within an organization help reduce the impact? As pessimistic as it might be, Covid 19 is just the latest episode in a long drawn out series of economic impacts that will result in scrutinization of marketing’s’ worth.
While it is flattering to gain the kudos of stakeholders for publishing great articles, having a slick website, insightful collateral, delivering entertaining events, helping to win awards and so on, they are the means to an end. The number of hits on a website, rise in followers, visitors on exhibition booths, are important factors in measuring impact, but they are not the answer to the question of value. If a small business invested £500 to invest in marketing, the expectations are that at least £600 is returned. To suggest a website was built attracting 1,000 visitors still means a current return of zero. As obvious as that is, are your marketing metrics missing those important numbers?
B2B financial services marketing can be a complex business and it is not always easy to place a monetary value on ROI. It can sometimes take anything up to two years to win new business. Many CRM systems have been tailored over the years for sales, relationship management and finance use. Marketing automation technology has alleviated some of the challenges in capturing monetary KPI’s but are expensive to fully integrate into a dysfunctional CRM. As a result, the full potential of automation may not be realised as the operational elements of the technology, e.g. for mailshots and publishing collateral, are only being utilised and therefore resulting in the same non-monetary metrics.
Consequently, every lead generated by marketing efforts is an opportunity for the sales team to take full credit. As flippant a comment as that might be, consider the customer journey. Marketing devises and pushes campaigns by leveraging multiple channels and prospects react. More promotional assets might be distributed while sales are informed of the lead. The salesperson follows-up leveraging other marketing tools; pitchbooks, demos, etc. using the messaging and USP articulated by Marketing. Brand activation, product promotion and further content continues throughout the sales lifecycle inspiring confidence with the prospect. Marketing metrics might have reported the lead eighteen months. Sales will have consistently informed on the lead from prospecting to bringing it over the line and in monetary terms. They might have even leveraged senior management in the final pitch only enhancing their reputation in contributing to the business.
Marketing need Sales as much as Sales need Marketing. It must be a strong collaborative and transparent partnership to effectively win business. Sales reporting their pipeline consistently is expected too so the only broken cog in the wheel is marketing by not ensuring there is appropriate attribution within the pipeline metrics. It is marketing that need to prove their worth more in measurable terms. If a salesperson does not meet their targets, they are questioned. If marketing does not justify their value effectively, then a business has every right to ask the right questions. Similarly, with appropriate metrics in place, it is an opportunity for sales to work with marketing in defining strategies if leads are not originating from that source.
It is crucial that B2B Financial Services Marketers partner with sales in justifying the worth of both professions. While it is a priority to have a fully integrated and effective marketing automation and CRM in place which will deliver meaningful insight, if not already in place, it could take some time to implement. As a result, other more manual methods need to be defined to ensure marketing has the data and mechanisms to effectively prove their worth to an organisation at any time anywhere. The more insight that can be delivered will additionally help the debate in why investment into automation and CRM is required.
The landscape has changed and will continue to do so. Financial Services – banks and asset managers in particular, are under close scrutiny from their clients as disruption from new entrants and other alternative options are everywhere. Without “marketing Marketing” to prove its worth, it is not unrealistic to expect drastic action to be made both internally and by prospects.
Comments