In my previous blog I discussed that growth is the prime directive, and that there are three critical actions a “marketing leader” (ML) must take to address this directive. The first, as I discussed, was to “be, and be perceived as, the buyer expert.”

In this post, I’ll talk about the next two actions the ML should take.

1. Align on strategy, tactics and measurement
Internal alignment is fundamental for operational excellence to grow the business. The successful ML will invest heavily to align with the sales organization, not to mention sync up with other business units including finance, IT, human resources and operations.

Align with Sales with Focus on Customer
The ML should focus primary alignment effort on the sales organization. According to a recent MathMarketing study, businesses that enjoy strong sales and marketing alignment are outgrowing their competitors by 5.4%, are 38% better at closing sales, and lose 36% fewer customers each year.

These are huge gains based on strong sales-marketing alignment. Core areas for alignment include:
• Strategy, targeting and quota alignment – make sure sales/marketing and go-to-market strategies are aligned so both organization understand the goals, key initiatives and tactics.
• Messaging and materials alignment – make sure that the marketing team articulates the compelling need, addresses it, and delivers effective material for use by the sales team.
• Quality demand gen program – make sure that the demand gen funnel is active, and that the handoff to sales is consistent and as expected.
• Organizational capability – sales and marketing people share many skills, but possess a different mix of those skills. Marketing leaders should develop a relationship with sales leadership to comment on the performance of individuals in the sales team; and likewise for the sales team to comment on performance of marketing people.
• Metrics – above all, make sure goals, and regular metrics are aligned, communicated periodically, and that those metrics are focused on the growth directive.

Align with other organizations
To contribute positively, the successful ML builds alliances with others in the organization beyond the sales team. For each of these organizations, it’s important to understand their language, and communicate in terms familiar to them:

• Align with Finance – closely following sales as the team to align with. It’s important to understand budget availability, the budget cycle to build a successful team, how availability of funds correlates to revenues and profits, and to fund key programs.
• Align with IT – in many cases, the marketing technology budget will surpass the core IT budget. It’s critical to understand the capabilities and constraints of the IT department. And in most cases, the ML is completely dependent on the IT department to deploy technology.
• Align with HR – skill sets of marketing people are changing – content is king, mobile is dominant and analytical marketing technology is ever increasing. Skilled marketing people who can produce in this environment are key. HR is an important ally to make a great team.
• Align with Operations – the successful ML will know how the product is produced and delivered to the buyer.

For common, aligned measurements across all organizations, make sure those measurements are aligned at the strategic level, measuring business impact – not at those describing some kind of efficiency.

2. Embrace technology
Buyers consume a great deal of content prior to seeing a salesperson. Successful MLs build a team that can develop and deliver content by generating demand for company solutions. Many tools exist today to push content to buyers through email, social media, influential media, blogs, newsletters and other channels. But above all, it all comes back to communicating company solutions that address a potential buyer’s concerns.

Following a purchase, it’s all about customer experience. In many cases the ML is now taking responsibility for post-sale customer experience. According to a recent Opus Research report, 92% of companies are planning to increase budgets on customer experience technology next year. Of that 92%, 45% are planning spending increases greater than 10% – averaging about 15%. Marketing teams are spending sizeable amounts of money to grow the business through technology.

Much of this marketing technology is being used to purchase predictive analytics solutions whether for the pre- or post- sales environment. The ability to capture vast amounts of data on potential buyers, and current customers, and then use that to influence and drive actions are activities of many successful marketing departments.

Summary
It’s important for the ML to remain focused on how the marketing organization contributes to growth – with key focus on measuring and delivering business results. That focus on growth must permeate the team to deliver meaningful contribution to the entire organization. The marketing team must be the preeminent resource to understand the customer – the buying behaviors, the customer experience expectations and all things about the customer.

For operational excellence, the marketing team must embrace new tools and methods for delivering value to customers and internal consumers such as the sales team, using solutions such predictive analytics to develop programs and support customer experience.

With the growth focus in mind, and these three steps, marketing can contribute more.

Categories: Conversational Intelligence, Intelligent Assistants, Articles

Tags: CMO, marekting leader, customer expererience