thefunnel

This one is a continuation to a couple my earlier posts in relation to the different functions of marketing. On it’s simplest level some organizations have a hard time figuring out where to draw the line between outbound and inbound marketing, in addition to understanding how tasks should be split up between “creating value”, “providing value” and “communicating value”. Not intentionally, but in large organizations, with a lot of change, if roles and responsibilities aren’t clear it will create a problem. But things gets more complex than this, because marketing also interacts with both sales and business development and there’s the grey zone between marketing – sales, sales – business development, and business development – marketing, as illustrated. I think the obvious areas that warrants some more conversations are: The role of marketing in customer retention activities versus sales as a “farmer” function. The role of sales as “hunters” versus a business development function. The role of a business development function as a “value provider” or “value communicator” versus inbound marketing or marketing communications. The sweet spot is in the middle where you have a good balance between marketing, sales and business development.

There are lots of words in marketing.  Strategy, objectives, vision, goals etc. , but what is really required for marketing to be successful? One of my managers, a few years back explained this by saying, “there are five key questions, to which you always need to have the answer,  and if you do, it will help you to be successful  marketer”. These five questions, permanently stuck into my mind are:

• Do you know the size of the market, customer segments, customer buying cycles and the your current position in the market?
• Do you have clear priorities?
• Does your plans align with, and reflect the goals of the sales organization?
• Are there clear measures of success and failure?
• Do you have a vision of the most outstanding growth opportunity?

Why do companies chase away customers and then complain about having to find new business? Doesn’t the concept of “Lifetime Value” work for them?

Shortsightness, lack of a customer focused strategy, difficulties in measuring LTV and no assurance that the customers will remain loyal.

It’s unfortunate but in many companies marketing doesn’t have a seat at the big table and therefore decisions are made purely on short term financial basis. There’s lots of talk about customers, brand and loyalty, but not necessarily deep understanding. Companies need passionate marketeers high enough on the ladder. Lack of metrics is another factor. Particularly true for non e-commerce, complex and long sales cylce B-2-B, where the debate about direct marketing contribution and influenced marketing contribution is still in its early phase. Thirdly, I believe many companies under invest in technologies and infrastructure that would enable better customer management and better marketing, and even if they do a reasonably good job, the data is often in silos