publications

Forget ROI, Let's Show How We're Making Money
(or, how to integrate communications and sales efforts)

Whether it is a media placement, an advertisement or a trade show presence, senior management almost always wants to see a measurable return on their marketing communication investments. While companies like VocusPR and Biz360 have helped create stronger, more quantifiable research tools for marketing communication, executives still often complain about the lack of understanding of how a given activity actually drives sales. Tools like Biz360 provide valuable, quantitative metrics that show the effectiveness of a message and how it is being distributed -- and the companies do it in real-time, too. But what these tools don't do, however, is show how much marketing communication efforts are supporting revenues and driving sales.

An easy solution? Integrate the two teams.

From a marketing communication perspective, simply receiving feedback from a sales team can help your team answer most senior-level frustrations. From the perspective of a sales force, understanding marketing efforts (and how those efforts actually work) aids in everyone's ultimate objective: securing sales.

Sales team feedback -- coupled with other ROI methods -- is proving to be a solid combination. For example, senior sales executives at Ironport, an anti-spam hardware company, recently attended a conference where their CEO was presenting. Not only were they able to judge the audience quality themselves, they were able to initiate relationships that may turn into sales leads. In this case, we can easily see that integration helps both teams productively assess and leverage the other's efforts from a common platform.

Sure, full integration is rarely easy. It may not seem possible or even practical in some cases. But in terms of driving sales and quelling executive frustration in today's economy, integration is becoming more and more vital.

Below are seven tips for playing pretty.

1. Start integration at the beginning. As sales teams can bring a strong customer perspective to the table, involve them in the early stages of your communication planning. (Likewise, request to have your team at their planning sessions.) Sales executives talk with customers and prospects everyday (or, at least, they should), and they often have valuable insight into what messages and programs drive customers to look at a particular brand.

They can also help research initiatives under consideration by going out and asking the customer base what programs and messages would be most effective and why. Not only is this valuable research for your team, it also saves time and gives their team a stronger stake in the success of your communication programs.

2. Extend programs that are traditionally focused on brand awareness to create opportunities for the sales team. For example, media relations programs can be extended to include the creation and distribution of reprints to prospects. Reprints of articles can be far more effective in pushing along the sales prospects, as this is some of the strongest third party literature available.

3. Develop a formal recognition program. Contrary to popular belief, sales people are interested in more than money. Recognizing members of the sales force for their contributions to marketing efforts not only distinguishes sales team members on a broader business level, it adds a little heart and soul to your combined efforts overall. Examples of recognition programs can include something as simple as an award for the sales executive that has secured the most customer testimonials to a dinner celebration honoring the executive that has best leveraged customer case studies for new sales development.

4. When presenting plans and results to management, involve the sales team in your presentation. This is key to showing upper management that not only are the two teams working together, but marketing communication programs are even more directly dedicated to building sales prospects and securing new customers.

5. Hold training sessions for sales and communication teams so they better understand one another's jobs. Team-building exercises, comparable presentations and "internships" (sending executives to different departments) helps develop stronger insight into what drives the other. It also furthers a truer appreciation of what each member does on a day-to-day basis.

6. Obtain feedback from sales teams on what works and what doesn't. Be prepared to be open to the latter as it's the most important to raising the return on investment. Likewise, provide feedback to the sales force on how they are helping, and they can further strengthen the results of marketing communication programs. For example, once sales teams see how customer testimonial programs can help fill the pipeline, they may well secure more agreements from their customers to participate.

7. Show and tell. Show how pipeline fulfillment (opening markets, creating sales prospects, etc.) has secured company sales as part of your measurement presentations. When your yearly presentation is due, show how you (and cooperating teams) are not just creating prospects and customer awareness, but also creating sales opportunities. As stated before, this report should be compiled and presented with the sales team. Not only does this report show the value of the marketing communication programs, it also tells senior management that the functions of your team are directly tied to growing revenues.

As with many initiatives, the first step is the most important. Before trying integration, get the teams together for a planning meeting as the first step to buy-in. This meeting should be used to introduce the team, cover the benefits of integrating efforts and get feedback from team members. Use this type of launch meeting to get everyone to see the objective and start developing a team chemistry to help reach that objective. Then go sell.


Ephraim Cohen is a principal founding member of The Fortex Group, a business-to-business marketing communication services firm. Prior to The Fortex Group, Cohen was a General Manager of Edelman's Global Technology Practice. Ephraim specializes in designing programs that combine PR and marketing to both drive companies' reputations in front of targeted audiences while filling the sales pipelines. He lives and works [wonders] in New York City.


Discuss this topic with other IABC members at: www.iabc.com/memberspeak.