Which comes first: marketing or sales? It’s an age-old question – almost as old as the chicken and egg quandary.
Don’t you have to market to make a sale?
Don’t you have to make a sale to know your market?
The answer to both may be “yes”. Either way, what we know at 360 Consulting – from our experience of working with many businesses – is that marketing priorities must be driven by sales – particularly for B2B companies in the small to-mid size market.
Here’s why:
The Brand Myth
In recent years, there’s been a lot of importance placed on branding. Sometimes there’s the suggestion that without strong branding, you aren’t going to get anywhere. And it takes an immense amount of money to build a brand.
But for most B2B companies, the truth is that their customers don’t care about brand! Yet most B2B companies waste an enormous amount of money on marketing and branding with very little to show for it.
Guess what? Brand is actually built by delivering the outcomes promised by your products and services. What matters most are customer referrals, testimonials, and repeat purchases. And these are the result of a customer’s experience of your products and services, not your branding.
So what should the relationship between branding, marketing, and sales look like? It boils down to efficiency.
Efficiency Is Key for A Small-Mid Market B2B
The purpose of marketing is to influence buyers to favor your company over your competition and take action.
For most B2B companies in the small to mid-market size, every dollar and every sale is precious. These companies simply can’t afford to spend money on anything that doesn’t directly produce revenues or drive more profits. Therefore, the best results come from knowing your buyer and having a direct relationship with them.
And who knows this?
The sales team! They know who the target buyer is because they’ve sold to them and have direct contact with them. Because of this, the information gleaned here can – and should – set the direction for marketing so the marketers keep their focus on those specific buyers.
Sales also knows the specific messaging that resonates with buyers. This can then be used across all marketing campaigns.
For more tips on selling to the right market, check out this post!
How Can You Use Sales to Drive Marketing?
We’ve looked at the benefits of setting marketing strategy based on sales.
So now let’s take a quick look at some of the other benefits that come from having this more direct relationship with buyers.
Marketing teams can use customer feedback directly for:
- Marketing purposes via online reviews
- Using customer testimonials on websites (always ask for permission and do not reveal personal information!)
- Promotional emails
- Leveraging social media proof
With this information, the marketing team can also gauge the needs of customers in a given market area. Hence you will not only gain invaluable information about what products and services to develop that customers will want to purchase. You will also gain the insight required to know whether or not your current products and services continue to serve an important role in providing solutions to that market. If not, you switch things up. Market research is an ongoing process and the knowledge you need in marketing often comes via the sales team directly.
Selling the right solutions to your market creates easy and direct marketing messages, and this brings us back around to sales driving marketing.
Interested in learning more about how your company will benefit from sales-driven marketing? 360 Consulting can work out a strategy customized for your business. Schedule a FREE consultation here!
