The recession has been officially over but to many people, companies, and marketers, it still feels like hard times. This means the basic challenges, and opportunities of marketing in a recession still apply.
The key in this post-recession economy is to focus on growth. Over the last few years, businesses have cut costs and streamlined processes to improve their bottom line. Now it’s time to reap the benefits. With all these new efficiencies in place, each dollar of top line revenue can flow to even more profit and shareholder value. And new winners and losers will emerge as a result.
Where will this post-recession growth come from? In particular, companies looking for revenue growth should look at the where the revenue team, e.g. marketing and sales, comes together.
Most CEOs would agree that the average sales team wastes 45% of its time on inefficient tasks. In such companies, Marketing and Sales operate in separate silos; Marketing generates leads and unloads them onto Sales. For sales people, this is baffling: what should they do next? Should they educate or nurture these new leads, or move them forward as opportunities? Is it time to close? Needless to say, inefficiency reigns.
This is a fixable problem. Marketing departments can now do much more in the marketing funnel to ensure they pass only qualified leads and opportunities to Sales.
Buyer behaviors are changing as fast as corporations have transformed their business processes. In the past, Sales was the face of a company; they were a potential buyer’s first interaction with the brand. Today, buyers create their own brand preference by conducting research online, particularly within their own social networks, before they even touch base with a sales rep.
The companies that transform the way marketing and sales work and work together will be the industry leaders of tomorrow. They’ll grow faster and generate more cash. They’ll innovate more often. And they’ll take market share from companies.
No comments:
Post a Comment