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One of the main challenges of marketing managers today is the overwhelming amount of marketing tactics and technologies. Most marketers are busy trying to figure out how to implement the latest marketing tactics, gimmicks and glittering trends they discover. But the clearest of all is that most of today’s CMOs just don’t have a clearly planned and measurable customer conversion strategy. Often, management will end up frustrated by the gap between the opportunity and lack of results. This, of course, is where the CMO finds him or herself feeling defeated.
When management has an engineering or financial-based background and not marketing oriented you can expect a lack of patience to see results. Small disappointments in marketing results can immediately impact the entire marketing department. Budgets are cut, and the frustrated marketing managers find themselves looking for a new challenge in another company.
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Yes, there are things we must accept, it’s not always up to you. There are CEOs and owners of well-established, successful companies that do not “believe” in marketing. They’ll say we have a solid existing customer base that we need to be loyal to and that’s enough to sustain the business. You can also expect to hear something about what worked “in the good old days”: personal relationships, a quality product that’s worthy enough to strive on word of mouth. All of which is great of course but limited as a single strategy for a company’s growth. The likelihood of these companies succeeding or even holding up in the coming years is not high.
If you’re an ambitious marketer looking to create an impact, you must consider if you’re in the right place to do so. And so, if you feel you don’t even have the desire to deal with this kind of management, I would suggest that you simply look for another place with management that is ready to give you a chance.
But if you have confidence in your manager and you want to succeed with your marketing plan in the company you work for, here are the 5 Keys to success. Following these will help you strengthen your position as well as the entire marketing department within the company.
Your CEO wants to know that you can increase revenue for the company’s bottom line and how you can go about doing that. CEOs’ commonly express their frustration when marketing managers consistently demand additional budget. The problem is there’s never a straight-up explanation of how that budget will actually make more money for the company (ROI). Therefore, my advice for gaining management’s understanding is to communicate that your priorities are aligned.
You can begin by building a marketing system that clearly presents how your marketing activities directly influence the company’s sales and profits. You must be able to prove that marketing has a direct impact on sales. Determine measurable and accurate marketing goals and commit to meeting those goals.
Even if you fail to reach the exact goals you set, the growth process that you put in place will present you as a professional that is devoted to the company’s success.
It’s Crucial to identify if your management is not marketing oriented. That means you have to limit the usage of marketing jargon and limit going into depth on the marketing side of your plan. Instead, you’ll want to focus on the revenue side – and say “This is how we will grow and make more money”
Specific: Calculate how much traffic you need to reach sales goals.
Measurable: Use real numbers you can track
Attainable: Be reasonable with setting goals that you can reach
Relevant: Set the marketing goals to align with the company business plan
Time-bound: Set the time table and KPI’s so you can track your progress
At the same time, it is very important when setting goals to involve the entire team and senior management. It is important for everyone to be in sync and up-to-date on what final purpose marketing serves.
Professionals have a plan to succeed with a clear route toward achieving their goals. A common mistake is to build a complex program, full of details and descriptions. It’s a mistake because it’s these complicated plans that are difficult to understand and execute.
What’s interesting to me is, when it comes to creating a marketing plan the most successful ones are usually the most simple.
You’ll find yourself asking “what methods should I use?” “Which tools and strategies are right for my company?” ”How can I effectively communicate the plan to management so that I get enough budget approved”?
To build a good plan, you need to know what needs to be done to succeed.
Pareto’s 80-20 rule is well known but not put into practice nearly enough. The rule says 80% of the outcome comes from 20% of input. The principle is to identify the best assets and use them efficiently to create maximum value. 20% of the marketing activity you do will produce 80% of the results. The same is usually true with customers – 20% will bring you 80% of the profit. If you know how to focus on 20% of the most profitable activities, you can grow quickly.
Working with a digital marketing and sales platform that has the ability to monitor results with accurate metrics will empower you to figure this out. (Hubspot for example) With such a system in place, you’ll be able to connect your marketing activities with sales and analyze the entire customer acquisition process. From the content familiarization process to the closing of the transaction and service delivery.
Applying SMART goals to your digital marketing plan will be the basis for creating a system for tracking and measuring results. You’ll be able to analyze the entire customer acquisition process. From the content familiarization process to the closing of the transaction and service delivery. If your company doesn’t currently have SMART goals in place – this should be the first priority to first focus on for your marketing plan. This is the most significant investment you can make for the long-term and is sure to cement your legacy in the company’s future.
The goals you set and the plan you create will serve as the company’s compass. However, the real measure of success is not necessarily meeting the goals. The main goal of a company that is just starting out in digital marketing or still in its early stages, is to build an infrastructure and a marketing system that consistently produces positive momentum in the company.
When there’s a system in place, the momentum can be continuos and build upon itself. And so, the main goal is to build a systemic marketing and sales processes that create a setting for continuous growth.
The system and momentum have to be built and it’s up to you to do it.
You can lose weight and become fit with exercise and good nutrition but there has to be consistency and commitment to a plan. With patience and perseverance, your weight loss success transforms from being a goal you achieve to you becoming a new person in the process. The person you become doesn’t only weigh less. You form a new determined mindset that nothing can stop you from reaching your weight loss goal.
You won’t lose weight after two workouts in the gym. You do know that if you persevere, and work out in the gym for six months, you are sure to strengthen your body and lose weight. What’s important is to recognize the progress which creates momentum. A win is a win. One win gives you encouragement and confidence to go get another.
Two Most Important Metrics for Generating Growth in the Company
In the marketing world, this would be Performance and Brand.
Simon Sinek talks about meeting the Navy Seals and what he learned from their process for deciding the best candidates to make the team. What’s interesting is the balance between the deciding factors. It boils down to performance and trust. Which do you think would take precedence?
Obviously, the ideal candidate is the high performer and the guy who can be trusted in any situation.
It comes down to these two qualities: There’s the soldier who aces every test and has extraordinary skills and ability. However, when it comes to trust, there are question marks. The other soldier is someone that you’d trust with your wife and children but has low scores across the board. Who do you think makes the team? High performer with low trust or the weak performer with high trust?
The Navy Seals always choose the high trust candidate.
In the marketing world, these are exactly the same questions the customer asks. Today more than ever, the customer weighs not just the quality of service or product but also the brand.
It is, therefore, essential to take both of these sides into account when creating a digital marketing plan. How to improve metrics and performance, but also answer the question – how to strengthen the brand in the market? Your audience must trust your brand and not just come your way because of a specific feature of the product you’re trying to sell them.
In the world of B2B, measuring results is a very big challenge where the sales process is long and often complex. Many companies don’t possess the tools to track and measure their ongoing activities accurately.
It’s important to maintain a healthy perspective when setting goals. It’s not all about hitting that specific KPI. (If you do that’s great). Your overall goal is to create consistent and systematic growth of the company’s marketing and sales.
You need to know what the status is at any given time. You should be able to clearly see how your current status compares to the goals you set. The progress must be consistent and measured periodically.
Metrics are important to you as the CMO, but they’re especially meaningful to management. Metrics can be used as a powerful tool for building trust if correctly communicated to management. Metrics that are presented each quarter with an explanation of how they impact the bottom line can be your key to management’s trust.
In order to build a metric analysis infrastructure, you need simple, easy-to-work technology tools. It needs to be easy to implement. And lastly, it must synchronize between the company’s marketing and sales systems.
This is a very big challenge for companies in growth stages. The platform we believe to be most advanced and also most simple to implement and operate is – Hubspot.
With Hubspot you can track every step of your customer’s acquisition process. From the initial digital interaction to the final steps of the deal being closed. The entire process will be documented in the system. The platform offers options for analysis and measurement to examine any direct and indirect impact of marketing on the company’s bottom line results.
When that trust builds, you will have more freedom, more credit and support. This paves a path to promotion and in a positive spirit. If you want to upgrade your salary, get promoted or simply validate your success, there’a no better way than having proof of how your work positively affected the entire system and there is nothing more fulfilling and exciting than knowing you were responsible for it.
There is nothing more fulfilling and exciting than seeing how the activities you have designed and implemented, brought results to the company, increased revenues and profits, and brought the company to a new place, both in terms of revenue and positioning the company as a market leader. With proper work and perseverance, it’s all thanks to you, and you can get credit for that too
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