Marketing Clique

As the alliance between marketing and sales becomes more prevalent and increasingly interdependent, there's mounting pressure for marketing to contribute to the bottom line. While all companies measure their success by revenue and profit, there are varying tolerances with revenue-producing timelines. Typically sales is on the front lines and held responsible for driving the lion's share of results. But what about marketing? And how does this fit in with the new world of marketing's direct role in driving B2B lead generation?

Public companies are laser focused on quarterly results with a lot of emphasis placed on monthly numbers. Sales managers are asked to update forecasts on a weekly basis, if not daily, all with the aim of submitting more accurate forecasts. Shareholders are anxiously waiting for their ROI and company management is eager to demonstrate its ability to hit its number. The pressure on sales and marketing is clear, but sales and marketing still struggle to find the best way to attribute revenue. Was it a sale that originated because of a lead generation campaign that was birthed in marketing? Or, was it the pure grit of sales that muscled it through and got it closed before month-end? Who should be held responsible if target number isn't reached?

Many private companies are bank rolled by investors who are looking to hit an annual target. And public companies answer to the shareholders and board members. Encouragement from investors is correlated with how far along the year has progressed. If it's the 4th quarter and the numbers look iffy, investors are calling for board meetings. Re-orgs are right around the corner and heads might roll! Small businesses are focused on monthly performance but even more excited about what can be done to increase revenues year-over-year. By the way, it's easy to forget that 99% of businesses in the United States are small businesses.

What this means for marketing and sales

The marketing timeline should absolutely be correlated with the sales timeline. Lead generation efforts and marketing activities should be carefully mapped to company requirements to show revenue. New product announcements, events, and client/prospect communications should always be arranged in consort with sales campaigns.

Also, marketing efforts need to be rewarded. And since marketing and sales are increasingly working together in true team fashion, that means management may want to re-examine how to incentivize marketing and sales.