Three Simple Tips for Developing Marketing Content

Marketing content is used daily by content marketers, because it is one of the premier ways to engage with customers. Unfortunately, many marketers are not great at developing content, so they don’t know how to get started. To help, here are three simple tips:

1) Before you begin developing anything, use the 5 W’s to make sure you know and understand:

• WHO is the intended consumer of the content 
• WHAT exactly does the content need to accomplish 
• WHEN does it need to be delivered 
• WHERE will it be delivered (i.e., what channel(s) will be used) 
• WHY is it needed

2) Unless it is not needed (i.e., for an informal piece), always use proper grammar, punctuation and spelling.

3) Be sure that your ideas and information are communicated in a clear and concise manner, as that will make your content easier to digest and understand.

By following these three simple tips, your marketing content will be well-written, more professional, easier to understand and your content marketing will be more effective.

Sales and Marketing Alignment – The Secret to More Revenue

Overview

This article will explain what Sales and Marketing alignment is, explain the benefits of Sales and Marketing alignment, and provide best practices to help more fully align your Sales and Marketing departments.

What Is Sales and Marketing Alignment?

Sales and Marketing alignment is the process of having the two departments as fully integrated as possible. Alignment helps them to know and understand what they have in common, what the differences are and what they need to provide to the other department to ensure a productive relationship. Indicators of strong Sales and Marketing alignment include:

• Having regular, ongoing communications and meetings
• Understanding the roles and responsibilities of the other department
• Knowing and understanding the other department’s goals and objectives
• Providing regular feedback and input to each other
• Defining and agreeing to definitions (such as MQLs, SALs, SQLs)
• Creating and agreeing to SLAs
• Participation/representation in each other’s staff meetings
• Sharing account planning activities
• Sharing participation in customer meetings and visits

Why Do I Need Sales and Marketing Alignment?

Everyone knows the Sales and Marketing departments fulfill fundamentally different roles within a business. Sales is responsible for selling the company’s products and services, while Marketing produces the content and materials that trains Sales, educates the customer and helps enable the sale. Both are customer-facing functions (Sales typically more directly than Marketing) and both are essential to the success of the business.

However, due to the silos that exist within most businesses, Sales and Marketing departments, instead of being tightly aligned and engaged, are often far apart and do not communicate or interact on a regular basis. This can lead to inefficiencies in both departments, which in turn can translate into lost opportunities and lost revenue.

In reality though, Sales and Marketing are actually two sides of the same coin. In many companies, both departments roll up to the same senior executive, who has a vested interest in ensuring both departments perform to the best of their abilities. Both departments have responsibility for driving sales. Both have goals to increase the size of the customer base. Both interact with customers. All of which ultimately helps generate increased revenue for the company. The main difference between the two departments is in how they accomplish their respective tasks.

Breaking through the silos helps both departments become more productive and efficient, which in turns helps the business. In fact, a recent report by the Aberdeen Group¹ indicates that businesses that have adopted Sales and Marketing alignment best practices see significant increases in attainment of sales quotas (38%) and YoY corporate revenue (13.1%) over those that do not.

That is why your Sales and Marketing departments need to be in alignment.

Steps to Alignment

While Sales and Marketing alignment may seem difficult to accomplish, and is often time consuming at first, there really is no secret. It is basically a matter of reaching across the table and establishing communications between the two departments. Once communication is established, engagement, interaction and understanding will follow.

The following list of best practices (by category) provides simple guidelines to begin the alignment process, or help ensure that any alignment you currently have continues to strengthen and grow. Depending on your situation, these guidelines can be used individually or combined into a larger, more structured process.

COMMUNICATION BEST PRACTICES 

• Allow Marketing to take part in regularly occurring Sales meetings when and where possible. This provides Marketing with insight as to what is important to the Sales department, allows them to learn how Sales deals with customers, and better understand what Sales needs from Marketing.
• Allow Sales to take part in regularly occurring Marketing meetings when and where possible. This provides Sales with insight into the type of information that Marketing needs from them, helps break down barriers between the two organizations, and helps correct and remove any misconceptions.
• Define and develop procedures between the two departments to provide input and feedback

CUSTOMER INSIGHT BEST PRACTICES 

• Allow Marketing to attend in-house customer briefings with the Sales team. This provides Marketing with more insight into how the customer views the company and shows Marketing how Sales uses the materials that they develop
• When and where possible, allow Marketing to accompany Sales on customer calls or visits
• Have Sales and Marketing define and develop an “ideal” or target customer profile together

GOALS, OBJECTIVES, METRICS, PROCESSES BEST PRACTICES 

• Ensure that Marketing understands the Sales goals and objectives
• Clearly determine how the Marketing activities will support and align with the Sales goals and objectives
• Define and develop KPIs and metrics in support of goals and objectives
• Ensure both departments understand and agree with the metrics to be used
• Determine any common goals and objectives
• Define and agree upon common definitions used between departments (such as MQL, SAL, SQL)
• Define and agree to the lead hand-off process
• Establish agreed-upon SLAs
• Define and develop reporting processes

MARKETING ACTIVITIES AND CAMPAIGN PLANNING PRACTICES 

• Allow and/or assign Sales people to get involved (as possible) with Marketing activities and campaigns
• Allow and/or assign different Sales people to get involved (as possible) with Marketing activities and campaigns
• Involve Sales from the beginning in the planning process for any Marketing activity or campaign
• Ask Sales to attend the regularly occurring Marketing meetings to hear and learn about Marketing activities and campaigns
• Build in a feedback loop with Sales during the Marketing development process
• Ask Sales to provide feedback and inputs throughout the development of the Marketing activity to help ensure that what is being developed is on track and hits the mark (avoids the “marketing development in a vacuum” problem)
• Involve Sales in metrics and data review (as possible) during and after the Marketing activity or campaign
• Continue these Sales and Marketing alignment activities even after the launch

SALES ACCOUNT PLANNING AND ACTIVITIES BEST PRACTICES

• Allow and/or assign Marketing personnel to get involved (as possible) with Sales account planning and related activities
• Allow and/or assign different Marketing personnel to get involved (as possible) with Sales account planning and related activities

Sales and Marketing Alignment Benefits

As Sales and Marketing alignment increases, numerous benefits will begin to accrue, including:

• Eliminates Sales and Marketing working in isolation
• Improved and/or increased communication between departments
• More accurate reporting by both departments
• Improved quality of leads
• Enhanced productivity due to better and/or shared use of technology between departments
• Marketing materials become more tightly aligned to the needs and requirements of Sales
• Enhanced customer experience due to more targeted Sales and Marketing materials

Sales + Marketing = More Sales = More Revenue

 

While Sales and Marketing alignment may initially be time consuming to implement, in the long run it truly is the secret to more revenue.

© 2015, 2020 Richard Hatheway, Catalyst Strategic Marketing

All rights reserved

1 – The Aberdeen Group, Research Brief, Sales and Marketing Alignment: A Primer on Successful Collaboration, March 2014 (http://v1.aberdeen.com/launch/report/research_briefs/8803-RB-Sales-Marketing-Alignment-Collaboration.asp)

The Complete Guide to Developing a Marketing Budget

OVERVIEW

Marketing budgets are a business critical tool, as they help you determine what the costs will be for the various campaigns, programs and activities that the Marketing Department runs throughout the year. Unfortunately, most marketers don’t know how or where to begin creating a budget. While business courses in college may have touched on the subject, the reality is that most marketers learn how to develop a budget on the job, often through trial-and-error.

This blog will provide an overview and outline of the basic steps needed to develop a marketing budget from scratch.

MARKETING BUDGETS AND PURPOSE

Each company has its own budgeting process. Depending on the company, marketing budgets may be developed at the beginning of each new year, at the beginning of a new fiscal year, or even on an as-required basis. The process for allocating the budget dollars may also be different and may include being developed based on determining all  the associated costs, allocating a specific percentage of revenue, increasing the amount by a predetermined percentage over the previous year’s budget, or even by matching the competition’s marketing spend.

The basic reason why a Marketing budget is created is to help provide guidelines for planned expenses. But what is the purpose of the Marketing budget?

Marketing departments are involved in numerous different types of activities designed to inform and engage customers, as well as help move them through a sales funnel. Depending on the industry, these activities can range from more traditional types of marketing, such as email, print and events, to more digitally-focused activities such as blogs, videos and social media.

All of these activities, whether inbound or outbound, share one common trait – they are all very complex and have numerous moving parts.

The Marketing budget is designed to provide not only guidelines for future expenditures, but also to ensure that you have taken into consideration all the costs involved in developing and executing the various planned marketing activities throughout the year.

THE BUDGETING PROCESS

All Marketing budgets are developed following the same basic steps:

1. Know the business goals
2. Determine what marketing activities will be used to support those goals
3. Include recurring marketing activities, such as conferences, blogs, etc.
4. Research
5. Determining the costs
6. Develop the budget

Let’s briefly review each step to help you understand.

STEP 1 – KNOW THE BUSINESS GOALS

Marketing activities are critical to the success of a business. Whether focused on driving revenue, increasing the number of accounts, or acquiring new leads, the Marketing organization plays a key role in accomplishing every one.

However, in order for marketing activities to be successful, the Marketing organization needs to know what the business goals are. These goals must be communicated by the business leaders to the Marketing leadership in order for the Marketing team to determine which activity or activities will be used to support and meet the business goals.

STEP 2 – DETERMINE MARKETING ACTIVITIES

Marketing is one of the most flexible functions within a business, because, depending on the business goal, it has a broad pallet of activities from which to choose to help accomplish the goal. Once the business goals are known, the determination of which specific marketing activities will be used to support the business goals is typically made as part of the GTM strategy development process.

The various marketing actions and activities are the tactical component that enables the business goals to be met.

STEP 3 – INCLUDE RECURRING ACTIVITIES

In addition to tactical marketing activities, Marketing organizations often participate in annually recurring events, such as conferences and trade shows. There may also be other types of recurring activities that Marketing uses, such as webinars, publications, or blogs. These events and activities are included as part of the overall GTM strategy and may be used to accomplish more than one business goal.

Due to the recurring nature of these events and activities, they must be included and budgeted for in the annual Marketing budget.

STEP 4 – RESEARCH

Once you know the business goals and which type of marketing activity will be utilized, the next step in the budget development process is to do some research. This research provides you with a deeper view into your market and customers, your sales funnel and conversion rates, as well as time frames for completion of activities.

The categories below outline the type of information you need to know to develop the Marketing budget.

1)    Market information

• Who is the target audience or customer
• Who is the competition
• What is their product
• How is their product priced and positioned
• How is your product priced and positioned relative to the competition
• What is your competitive advantage
• Which marketing channels do your customers use or are active on
• Which events are important to your customers

2)    Sales funnel information

• How many leads are generated per month via the various lead generation activities
• What are the customer touch points throughout the funnel
• What type of information is needed at each stage of the funnel
• In what format is that information
• How much lead nurturing is required
• What is the conversion rate to SQLs (sales qualified leads)
• What is the sales close rate

3)    Deadlines and time frames for

• Business goals
• Conferences, events, trade shows
• Recurring activities
• Tactical marketing activities

STEP 5 – DETERMINING THE COSTS

Once you’ve completed the research, you need to determine the costs that will need to be factored into the budget. This includes the costs of the various activities and events, recurring costs, vendor costs, as well as related business costs. This information provides the foundation for developing the actual budget.

Depending on your company’s accounting practices, items such as head count, travel and expenses may also need to be included in the budget, so be certain that you understand your corporate accounting requirements.

Costs may include:

• What is your business’ average cost per new lead
• What is the average total customer acquisition cost
• What is the cost of the marketing activities being considered
• What are the associated labor costs
• What are the associated material costs
• What are the associated vendor costs
• What are the other costs (travel, lodging, food, etc.)

STEP 6 – DEVELOP THE BUDGET

Once you have completed the necessary research and gathered the required financial information, it’s time to develop the budget.

The easiest way to calculate the total annual budget request is to add all of the various costs together to determine the overall budget number. This reflects the amount of money that Marketing needs to have budgeted on an annual basis to accomplish all of the business goal(s) and recurring events as outlined in the GTM strategy. If you require a more detailed breakout, use the cost estimates you have gathered to develop budgets for specific events or activities.

In addition to the total cost, you may want to include an overage factor in the budget. Although this is often not considered part of the “formal” budgeting process, it does reflect reality. Note that if you do include this, you need to identify it as such; do not try to hide it in other categories. This overage factor is used to account for unplanned expenses that may develop throughout the year. Depending on your industry and the planned GTM activities, this amount may be from just a few percent on up into double digits.

SUMMARY

The Marketing budget is intended to be used as a tool to provide a general guideline for the expenses related to marketing activities throughout the year. That’s why when you develop a budget, it is important to include as many components and factors as possible to accurately reflect the cost.

Bear in mind that in many companies though, Marketing expenditures are not considered an investment, but instead are viewed as an expense. This means that the total requested budget amount may or may not be approved, may be reduced or modified, or may even be given to another department.

However, by following these guidelines, developing a Marketing budget will be much easier.

© 2020 – Richard Hatheway, Catalyst Strategic Marketing

All rights reserved