Archive for the ‘Customer Acquisition’ Category

Identify exactly how marketing can reduce the sales-cycle time and nurture prospects to action

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

We are now up to fourth way marketing automation provides job security for marketers from 5 Ways Marketing Automation Provides Job Security for Marketers.  Below is the excerpt from the white paper:

“4. Identify exactly how marketing can reduce the sales-cycle time and nurture prospects to action.

When was the last time you sat down and mapped your marketing collateral to your prospects buying cycle?  Funnel analysis provides marketers with quantifiable data, reflecting the rate at which prospects are advancing through your sales process. This report answers the most important question a marketer has to answer – “At what rate are my prospects moving along the lead funnel?”  Marketing automation can transform this analysis and benchmark it over time delivering key metrics, such as the rate of conversion between first contact-to-conversion or lead-to-opportunity. This analysis can help marketers beef up nurturing and campaign initiatives accordingly.

Funnel analysis gives marketers visibility into the sales cycle and helps identify how marketing can do a better job educating prospects from lead to sale.  Marketers can use funnel analysis as the basis for collaborating with sales by working together to build programs more efficiently at each stage of the pipeline.  Marketers can then support the sales process with thought leadership or specific campaigns while sales may be able to provide key insight about the customers’ buying triggers.

Did you ever want to know how many days it takes for your prospects to move from one step of your sales process to the next?  Marketing automation can empower marketers with dashboard analytics on marketing and sales cycles.  Insight into the funnel progress enables marketers to know exactly how long it’s taking for prospects to move along every stage of the sales cycle and lead funnel. The ability to benchmark this metric over time further extends the power of this reporting tool. This information can be used to build better budget forecasts for finance and help the marketing department become more responsive to unpredictable market conditions.  A sudden change in the sales cycle could alert marketing to changes in the competitive landscape or macroeconomic environment.  The quicker marketing can take advantage of these changes, the more valuable they are to the organization.

Job Security Scorecard:

  • Benchmark the lead-to-sales conversion rate over time.  Identify when campaigns or initiatives drive above average close rates.
  • Forecast more accurately by benchmarking the total number of leads it takes to drive revenue targets at the bottom of the funnel.  Set realistic achievable targets for marketing and sales during strategic planning sessions with the CFO and CEO.
  • Identify what roles are most likely to evaluate products and services and how to meet the unique needs of these individuals based on role, region, or industry.
  • Identify how long it will take for prospects to convert to revenue based on historical averages.
  • Identify bottlenecks in the sales cycle.  Are sales reps incapable of addressing specific objectives?  Does marketing material address all of the buyers core needs?”

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Identify which marketing channels, or combination of marketing channels, have the greatest impact on lead conversion and revenue

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

Following up on my blog post last week, we are now up to third way marketing automation provides job security for marketers from 5 Ways Marketing Automation Provides Job Security for Marketers.  Below is the excerpt from the white paper:

“3. Identify which marketing channels, or combination of marketing channels, have the greatest impact on lead conversion and revenue.

With so many marketing channels, it’s difficult to tell which combination of channels to build into the marketing mix and how much budget to allocate to each of them.   By measuring customer acquisition across marketing channels, the CMO can determine which channels are more likely to impact top-line revenue and allocate budget more effectively based on tangible results.  Conversations with the CFO become much more meaningful when the cost per customer acquired can be linked to expected revenue targets and to the marketing spend.  It’s difficult for finance to reduce overall marketing budget without also reducing revenue targets when marketers can demonstrate the relationship between cost per acquisition and revenue.

The marketing mix can be analyzed based on the tangible impact specific marketing channels have on cultivating prospects.  This allows the CMO to make better decisions about where to allocate budget based on tangible metrics, not gut feel.  At the same time, marketing automation tools become a central database with marketing campaign information and sales information allowing organizations to calculate return on marketing investment by campaign, period, or marketing channel.

Job Security Scorecard:

  • Justify marketing budget by demonstrating exactly which marketing channels drive the highest conversion rates.
  • Calculate customer acquisition by marketing channel
  • Forecast more accurately by linking customer acquisition rates to overall marketing budget.  “If we spend this much money in the following channels, history tells us we can achieve the following revenue.”

Download a free copy of 5 Ways Marketing Automation Provides Job Security for Marketers

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