It looks like 2013 could be “The Year of the Marketer,” according to the CMO Council. Their recent “State of Marketing Audit” results revealed that CMOs are reporting a strongly positive outlook on the role of marketing in 2013.
However, it will take a lot more than optimism for marketers to see 2013 become their year. Before that can happen, a demand generation process transformation needs to take place A recent post by Carlos Hidalgo, contributor to Software Advice–a marketing automation systems reviews website–outlines four major changes that will pave the way. I have add my own at the end….
1. Take a Customer-Centric Approach
Every facet of the organization, even beyond content creation, must adopt customer centricity. Customer now have access to a wealth of product and company information via the Web. Marketers have to appeal to customers who doesn’t necessarily depend on them for their information, and will have to align themselves around the customer’s specific needs and processes in order to do so.
2. Be Revenue-Oriented
Marketers should take an outcome-oriented approach. The ultimate goal here is to provide and receive the most value from of a customer over the course of the buyer-cycle. To do this, we need to identify, qualify and convert customers into sustainable revenue. Marketers will have to evaluate their process and structure, and make sure they are taking each step with the end goal in mind.
3. Align Marketing and Sales
Marketing and sales have to learn to work together to effectively nurture leads. Buyers are going to respond better to a team of marketing and sales professionals who engage them in dialogue and work together, rather than two disunited groups “handing off” the customer just to qualify them and seal the deal.
4. Clarify Terms
As basic as it may seem, Marketing and Sales need needs to sit down together and spell out the meanings of key terms they will use in the lead generation process to avoid ambiguity. Much can become lost in translation when terms such as “campaign” and “inquiry” are not clearly defined. In order to better align marketing and sales teams, everyone needs to have a clear understanding of these terms and strip them of their ambiguity.
5. Measure your Marketing ROI
No doubt this remains a challenging area for marketers, but marketers need to continue to make more progress in this area in order to really demonstrate the value of marketing to the business.
Without a good framework and willingness to know more about how marketing activities drive the bottom line, marketers will continue to be locked in a cycle of constant activity rather than effective action. More on Marketing ROI in this post and at this event. Plus if you want tools to help you visit our EasyLearn Site
What else do you think needs to happen to make it the year of the marketer?
