Marketing is key when it comes to business success and prosperity. A brand may be announcing the next must-have gadget, or a cinema the latest blockbuster, but it’s all in vain if nobody knows about it.

Employees can be a company’s biggest brand advocates. Every interaction an employee has with somebody outside of the company contributes to the brand’s reputation. And an interaction isn’t just a phone call or an email – it’s a tweet, a LinkedIn post, or an entry on the company’s blog.

These interactions are all marketing, but marketing teams can’t manage them all. To enjoy the most efficiency, marketing teams need to focus on certain areas to both maximise impact and prove its contribution to the wider business. Part of this means identifying where other teams can take control and handing over the reins.

Marketing teams of today have to focus their efforts on understanding buyer behavior to make sure every interaction they have with a customer is relevant to that individual. Leveraging data is crucial to doing that. Consumers are leaving bigger data trails than ever before, offering marketers access to a whole new level of information and invaluable insights into content which appeals to them. Marketers need to make the most of the information that’s available to understand their customers’ behaviour and create more relevant and meaningful conversations.

A recent review by GlobalDMA and the Winterberry Group found that more than three quarters (77 per cent) of marketing professionals are confident in the opportunity data-driven marketing offers for future growth. Modern consumers operate cross-device and require different content on different screens. Those brands which give consumers the content they want at the right time, on the right device, and in the right formats are the ones which will succeed. Marketers investing in data-driven strategies have the best opportunity to understand their customers. The clearer image of their journey they have, the more impact marketing will have.

Data keeps brands competitive. According to a recent survey by Turn and Forbes Insight, 74 per cent of marketers were able to maintain a competitive advantage in capturing customer engagement and loyalty, while less than a quarter (24 per cent) believed they were able to do the same with strategies led through limited data. Marketers need to identify how buyers are behaving within the market and take data analysis one step further to see how they behave throughout the buying journey if they’re to enjoy the most success. Once marketers establish a solid understanding of their customers’ behaviour, they have the greatest opportunity to convert leads into wins. Leads result in revenue, which in turn proves its contribution to the wider business.

To ensure marketers can focus time on gaining the most in-depth profile of customers, marketers need to ensure the IT team is in control of sourcing and implementing tools and solutions to boost efficiency. The more efficient the team can be, the more opportunities they can pursue and convert. Working alongside the marketing division, an IT department’s investment in data storage solutions, for example, reduces unnecessary expenditure by scaling to both gradual and rapid growth. Marketers need to be prepared to hand over control. Once they’re happy to do so, they can focus on the priority activity for them.

In the same vein, sales teams need to be in control of representing the brand they work for. While it’s important to ensure collaboration between sales and marketing teams, sales professionals need to proactively take the time to understand marketing goals, develop a plan and take it upon themselves to deliver on commitments. They need to ensure there’s no room for miscommunication so the relationship can thrive and business results can continue to grow. Once this solid, trusted relationship is established across business functions, marketers will have the greatest opportunity to succeed.

 

James Foulkes, Director and Co-Founder, Kingpin

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