YES! I say this with a renewed respect for marketing leaders who have implemented methods of understanding revenue impact and influence. These are the ones that deserve a commission. Laying this foundation isn’t easy, and the challenge is best addressed through persistent and tenacious leadership most often driven by Marketing.
I want to share with you some stories that illustrate how marketers are earning their keep with regards to laying a lead management foundation and my perspective of the mountain they have to climb.
Lead management foundation - collaboration
I just wrapped up marketing campaign meetings with a 150 year old company that is experiencing substantial growth. This company is one of many that is sales driven i.e. they see marketing as the entity that creates brochures, websites, events and other content. We’re prepping for a large event investment with 70+ employees traveling and attending. I asked them, “How will you know if this campaign is a success?” The answer was nebulas and common. The desire though to know their revenue influence was huge! So why the disconnect? This team happened to be a campaign sub-committee focused on one aspect, event lead capture and distribution to sales. Many times I interact with influencers that become leaders. I saw that here in their desire and willingness to drive change. This team is about to call a meeting within their own marketing department to discuss the importance of leveraging components of their CRM system and educating Sales on why they need to use these components. Why? So they can better understand their revenue impact. This sub-committee is comprised of Leaders and Innovators. It takes collaboration between Sales and Marketing in order to understand marketing revenue impact and influence. In some cases this takes a tremendous amount of collaboration. This effort seems to always be led by someone in Marketing.
If any deals go down from this campaign, they deserve credit!
Lead management foundation – Technology
In a B2B market you need to track leads through their lifecycle in order to understand revenue impact. This requires technology, process and collaboration which most always is led by someone in Marketing. From a CRM perspective certain components need to be in place such as campaigns and opportunity forecasting. These components allow for a company to forecast revenue production and marketing campaign contribution. Adoption is a challenge for many companies and it takes time. We are working with a marketing leader in Texas dead set on laying their lead management foundation so they can understand marketing revenue impact. It took her 12 months to convince that company to utilized CRM and Marketing Automation for this purpose. I’m certain the adoption part will take another 18 months. The value of her efforts though will be tremendous.
Every company I speak with has a genuine interest in understanding the revenue impact and influence of their marketing efforts. This task can be likened to pushing a rope and I’ve discovered marketing leaders everywhere that are pushing and doing so effectively. I am a huge fan of these marketing professionals and find them to be tremendous leaders and innovators.
I have many more stories of marketing leaders driving change. This post is purely in recognition of them. Are you driving change as well? Tell us how!
