I have grown up in a small business environment and have found that marketing is most useful when it is supporting the sales or revenue generation activities of the company. First, the sales strategy leads, then the marketing strategy is built to support the sales effort. This way, the marketing effectiveness can be gauged by sales results. Like most small businesses, budgets are finite and you want to ensure you are getting the biggest return on your investment. This may sound quite simple but in reality, what often happens is marketing leads the sales efforts which in some cases result in a misalignment where the sales goals are not being supported fully by the marketing effort.
To best support your sales team with marketing activities, first determine what your sales team needs. To do this, you need to ask a series of questions:
What Are Your Sales Goals? – Short, Medium & Long-Term
Your sales goals can include revenue targets, client acquisition or retention numbers, events to be attended, and new markets to be developed.
What Products or Services do you Want to Focus on?
Depending on the product or service you are selling and the verticals you are selling to, marketing activities may have to vary to best support getting that product or service on prospect’s radar. In some cases, case studies could be most relevant. In others, event speaking opportunities could be a key strategy.
What Verticals do you Want to Focus on?
B2B sales efforts always take time. I tell most people to expect the sales process to take between 6 to 18 months in many cases. Different verticals and industries have their own nuances from a sales process, sales support and sales timing perspective. Large government sales efforts take a different type of approach in some cases than large industrial sales.
What Specific Companies Are in Your Sales Funnel?
Companies in your sales funnel today are moving towards a close. These closing activities need to be supported by the sales team but can also be supported by the marketing team. This can be through the use of marketing automation, select event attendance and speaking opportunities, specific media relations activities etc.
Where do Your Prospects and Customers Look for Information Pertaining to Your Product or Service?
You want to be found. A marketing budget can be allocated to a content marketing strategy incorporating SEO, or it can be utilized for ad placements or articles in key trade magazines or even specific content pieces in national or regional newspapers.
Once you have a good understanding of the sales goals, your marketing strategy and activities can be refined to ensure they are providing direct support.
If you are in need of strategic or ongoing part-time sales and marketing assistance feel free to contact me. I would be happy to see if we can help. Alternatively, if you are simply looking for a source of excellent sales and marketing information, please feel free to sign up for our newsletter or follow us on Twitter.
