This post is aimed toward heads of marketing, heads of sales, general/division managers or CEOs. It’s specifically toward a head of marketing who is considering what measurable impact her/his team has on the business and is in a situation of implementing a marketing automation platform (which many companies are these days)…
Here’s a newsflash – your CEO does not care about your marketing automation platform, the technology, it’s capability, and all the mumbo jumbo “Star Trek speak” or the latest in social media! She cares about the answer to 2 critical questions (and these questions are likely shared by your head of sales:)
1. What revenue are you consistently contributing to our bottom line? (i.e. what can we count on from you?)
2. Can you accelerate revenue recognition faster or more cost effectively than our next best (manual) alternative?
It’s tempting to think that the marketing ‘Star Trek speak’ of marketing automation and it’s associated pipeline acronyms are readily understood by your CEO, head of sales, and board of directors. However, many of these other functional leaders readily understand the two questions above, not the ‘Star Trek’ speak. Your job as head of marketing is to translate and answer the questions.
It’s also tempting to think technology is the panacea and the ‘ANSWER’ to both of the questions – companies get themselves into trouble buying a platform and not really think through objectives clearly. The marketing technology platform itself is a means to an end. It first starts out with outlining a process with CEO and head of sales buy in – what does the roadmap look like to answer these two questions, how can you impact these two questions and how soon can that happen? There are a variety of tactics that complete the thought process – what marketing automation platform are you likely to buy and why, what is the lead flow process, have you thought through content and nurturing strategies. To me, these are all tactics. Answering the two key questions are critical to a head of marketing’s survival.
If you are a head of marketing or know a head of marketing in this situation, what questions do you think are critical to answer?