We do a fair amount of partnering with marketing firms who will bring us in to assist them in providing follow ups to some of the projects they are running. For example, they may write white papers for their clients and then set up a system so prospects can download these white papers. They will then have us provide initial follow ups on these leads that were developed and then pass the hotter leads on to their sales team to close the deal.
I was in a conversation recently where a question came up about return on investment when it comes to marketing. I think that the breakdowns will definitely change based on industry and how much attracting clients plays a part in growth compared to a company that is more sales oriented.
We are finding that more clients are looking closer at return on investment for their particular form of marketing, although some are easier to track than others. It is relatively easy to see who downloaded a white paper from your website and then follow up on those leads to turn them into business, but a little harder to track the client you cold called who then Googled the company to find your website, Facebook page, Twitter account, LinkedIn profile, etc. and based their decision to even talk to you partially on what they read there.
Sales and marketing have always had a close relationship, often like brothers and sisters: sometimes they fight, other times they try to ignore that the other exists, but they always work better when respecting what the other brings to the table so they can work together.
Tags: Business, Facebook, LinkedIn, Marketing, Sales, Social Media, Twitter
June 5, 2011 at 2:35 pm |
[...] my experience, the best programs combine both marketing (attracting) efforts with sales (finding) efforts. Sometimes it is as simple as one follow up call to the targeted prospect who downloaded a white [...]