Marketing + Sales 13: Your Questions

After 3 months on this topic we end as ever with the various questions sent in by you lovely readers, shared in the hope that they will be useful to others.

Why do you think Sales/Marketing get oddly side-lined in a business?

This is an interesting question actually, I have talked a lot about how important it is that the two teams integrate with the business but we haven’t talked about why they are side-lined in the first place! With sales there is a noise and travel factor. Sales calls by their very nature can be very loud and may go on for some time and especially where you have some element of cold calling it only makes sense to put that away from the rest of your business for practical reasons. This doesn’t happen with marketing as much although I might suggest that marketers being a soft and creative bunch will always try and get their own little space in any given setting. They have a tendency to find a quiet corner to nest in and decorate their desk. I think the reason that sales/marketing may be segregated from the rest of the business is that it’s important that they believe the company is good. It sounds odd but no business runs smoothly and all have their tricky customers and corner cutting, but for anyone working in sales or marketing and actively promoting your company, it could be more beneficial they don’t know..or at least that’s the reasoning behind it..in truth most sales and marketing people probably know more dirt than anyone else!

Why is it so hard to get my sales colleagues to use social media?

An often heard complaint from any marketing is getting the rest of the company to spread the good news/articles your sales/marketing materials. In some cases this is just because the company actively blocks social media (because obviously you can’t be trusted and would spend 80% of your day sending cat emojis if left to your own devices) and in some cases because they don’t see the overall value of doing so. It can seem like a hassle to take 10 minutes out of their day to repost your latest article, especially for those less technologically knowledgeable. As I’ve said before the main objective with any online marketing is really just keeping in front of people and although hard to verify “matt read our article and then bought from us.” will definitely have a positive effect. My advice would be to spoon feed people on how easy it is to help promote the company (for free) and the overall impact it will have.

How can marketing qualify its ROI?

In my article on goals I talked about how if your sales and marketing teams were pointed in the same direction to begin with, they were more likely to collaborate, problem solve and work closer together. Someone asks the question though if your sales person and your marketing person are side by side how do you justify their existence? Well in the lesson I suggested that you have a top 100 list of prospects you are aiming for. This gives both teams the same objectives with the same outcomes. Both sales and marketing need to try and reach these people, albeit by different means (sales is certainly more direct and quicker) and that will give you your comparison. If you have a copywriter writing blogs, well how many of your top prospects are reading them etc? In a more B2C setting you can still do the same only you have a niche target audience. This week you’re going after single mothers with cats or whatever…The jobs roles themselves will be different, but if their goal is the same it makes it easier to see which pieces of the puzzle are working.