Magnus Marketing Blog

Don't get me wrong, advertising, telemarketing, branding, all have a place and a right time. I think another problem with marketing folks is that they just don't get the gist of what they are being compensated for. A salesguy I used to work with at Hexaware drilled into me - NO LEAD IS A GOOD LEAD UNLESS IT RESULTS IN CLOSED BUSINESS. Sometimes, salesguys mess up and don't close a good lead, but usually a good lead will result in closed business. Marketing is about getting leads and generating revenue, it is an investment in more future business. Expend money on tactics to generate 1, 2, 3, 10X the amount. Tactics, activities, aren't done for FUN - they need to generate business in the end. How do you measure tradeshows? Amount of leads that resulted in tangible dollars. How do you measure advertising? Amount of leads that resulted in tangible dollars. How do you measure branding? The amount of leads that resulted in tangible dollars. Hard to do, but doable. Tracking the actual cost of a lead, that is hard also.

Anyway. This is my new marketing ecosystem for business development:

Layer 1: Advertising, Branding, and Telemarketing
Generate company awareness and pull low-hanging fruit business in. The messaging should be about the company and its differentiators, positioning, reasons why one would do business.
Layer 2: Tradeshows and Events
Generate the face-to-face with warm prospects and visibility and positioning to the marketplace. Generate second-level leads.
Layer 3: Research-based marketing/account-based marketing/strategic prospecting
Select target companies, select low-hanging fruit leads, or target accounts within a vertical and deep-dive on them.

Sales is busy nurturing customers and closing on warm to hot opportunities. Sales provides feedback to marketing consistently to help refine the lead definition, customer profile, and driver definitions. Sales helps uncover customer patterns and needs.

Marcom should be a support mechanism. Let's can the features/benefits and "optimize the efficiency" b.s. that no one cares about and make it relevant to the company, industry, and market operated it. Marcom should be about value and business, not about flowery language. Someday, I will tell the story about a Marketing Manager who actually wrote "Hexaware puts the "O" in outsourcing" and burned more than $300,000 on metallic brushed brochures highlighting Y2K services that would not be needed 1 year from the date of printing.

I put the "B" in business development or maybe the "M" is more appropriate. M = money! ha-ha.