Should Marketing and IT Departments Work Together?

When was the last time you and your IT department willingly collaborated on a project? The truth is, probably never.

The reality is in today’s environment, the customer is taking control of the engagement, and marketing’s challenge is how to get to the customer faster and more efficiently (customer-centric). Customers are turning away from companies who can’t provide the experience, channel of engagement and immediate service they need.

The CMO Council recently did a study sponsored by Accenture called Driving Revenue Through Customer Relevance, that outlines ways CMOs and CIOs can achieve Agile Intelligent Marketing together.

Now marketers may not be known to be the sharpest pencil in the box, but we do have a good sense of what the customer’s needs are (and all needs are not the same), while IT is usually all B/W.

According to the report,”CMOs must take a greater ownership of the customer experience and assume a leadership role in embracing digital marketing practices, data-driven strategies and new marketing process integration platforms across their organizations.” Technology now underpins and shapes the entire customer experience. IT departments need to take strides to be a stategic enabler rather than an operational cog.

The reality is working with or without IT, marketers are doing tactical things with e-mails,website analytics, lead generation, etc. with the ever-increasing pressure of ROI on marketing dollars no matter where they are spent. Beyond the spend, you need to look at what’s really the end game? It’s to get a new customer or make an existing one happy.

The moral of the story is for Marketing and IT to play nice. Remember, your pay checks come from the same account and together you can make a better impact for the company.

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Increase Your Sales Revenue by 20% Using Your Existing Inquiries

Sales leads and what to do with them has been an age old problem. Today though, there are programs and processes available to help you monitor and mine those precious sales leads. I’ve been associated with Russ Hill from Ultimate Leads for over 20 years. He “gets” the closing the loop issue and I’m glad to share with you some of his thoughts.

According to the CMO Council/BPM Forum survey in Marketing Today, corporate officers who were polled in an online survey believe revenues at their companies could increase by more than 20 percent by improving their prospect cultivation and management techniques. Marketing and C-Level executives are dissatisfied with the way they generate new business, yet more than half lack formal process to correct the problem.

And my guess is that they are not alone. According to the Advertising Research Foundation, 67 percent of industrial product inquiries are from real prospects with real needs, yet 72 percent NEVER hear from a sales person.

Clearly these executives are onto something. Does this sound like your sales team?

Haley Marketing Group cites recent studies indicating that more than 50 percent of sales people stop working a prospect after the first call. The percentage grows to 65 percent after the second call and 80 percent after the third call.

A whopping 90 percent of sales people call it quits by the fourth call. Here is the troubling part – some 70 percent of prospects won’t make a decision until after the fifth call. Are these sales slipping through your fingers too?

To some degree these numbers are easy to understand. Most sales people are like gunfighters interested in the “quick kill.” The study suggests that while companies may be good at generating large volumes of business leads, most opportunities languish because sales people all too often focus on only closing the most promising and qualified short-term opportunities.

Marketing and C-level executives are dissatisfied with the way they generate new business, but still more than half lack a formal process to correct the matter.

Sales and Marketing teams often point fingers at each other as companies struggle with reaching their sales goals. Sale people complain about receiving too many or too few unqualified leads and marketing complains about poor follow-up, lack of feedback, and wasted dollars. In our 25-years-plus years of experience in sales lead management and CRM services, this lack of synergy can usually be traced back to three specific things:

1) A lack of training about each function’s role and challenges

2) Utilizing agreed upon methodology for generating, qualifying and following up on leads

3) Getting everyone to keep their “eye on the prize.”

If Marketing’s job is to identify target markets, communicate the “right” company message and generate viable sales opportunities, then it is Sales’ job to cultivate and sell those opportunities. Who qualifies a lead and when should it be handed off to sales is an important question. Sales and marketing need be in agreement to be successful. Failing to address this important issue can trap management in something I call “the Transition Zone.”

Marketing and Sales Synergy

When marketing and sales management work together to establish mutually agreed upon processes and goals, then train their teams to continuously work to both improve practices and to work together, good things can happen – more business can be captured from existing opportunities, ROI improves…and that is good for everyone.

So, the next time you are considering where to look for new business, take a fresh look at your existing prospects and sales leads. Improving your opportunity management practices may be your first and best means of growing your business.

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