I often write about the importance on numbers in B2B marketing success. A recent blog post titled Marketing Analytics – Measuring Most What Matters in B2B Marketing, covers this in subject in greater detail.
As marketing black belts, we constantly slice, dice, analyze, tweak and report on the numbers in order to create the most effective marketing model. We measure cost per inquiry, cost per lead, cost per new customer acquisition, cost per new sale and cost per whatever else is important to a particular client.
But of all the numbers in B2B marketing, there is one that stands far above the others, and that number is ONE. Every great B2B marketing model includes:
- One powerful and relentlessly presented brand promise.
- One consistent go-to-market strategy.
- One version of the truth when it comes to the definition of a qualified sales lead.
- One service level agreement (SLA) between marketing and sales.
- One great strategy for qualifying and nurturing your leads.
- One dependable leader who motivates the entire marketing department.
- One more action that you take every day to improve your results.
- One marketing and sales automation system to optimize every part of the process.
We sometimes have a tendency to over-analyze what we do in B2B marketing. But instead of dealing with a cacophony of competing numbers, it is sometimes helpful to bring it back to the number one. So what’s the one thing you can do to have a better marketing model? And when will you make it happen?
