If you read the last post, you saw the importance of tying revenue to results in both sales and marketing.

Let’s dig into some key steps to tie revenue to results:

1.        Adopt common language between sales and marketing on tracing inquiry to revenue – an exercise like this that is NEW to an organization has the potential to be tricky if expectations are not properly set in advance– the objective is not spend oodles of time on the adoption and process portion but to focus on the outcome of why this is needed.  The focus is aligning sales and marketing to measurable, tangible results at day’s end.  With common language, a baseline measurement can be established to make further improvements in and on.

2.       In advance of the above discussion, get buy in with key executive stakeholders on the measurements so baseline measurement is established.  As an example, it would be good to get buy in on the framework of what the outcome will look like in advance of digging into the details between sales and marketing.

3.        Once the framework and language is agreed upon, both sales and marketing can establish measurable goals to be held accountable to.   These agreements can be measured monthly, but the results will likely be in quarterly or half year increments.

4.       Create a lead flow process via marketing automation platforms (Eloqua, Marketo, Aprimo) to drive that delivery effectiveness (this will be the next series of posts).

5.       Avoid speaking in ‘Star Trek’ marketing language/speak in this measurement process – while the establishing of common language is important, it always needs to tie to revenue.  Marketers who talk in their terms (Inquiries, MQLs, SALs) can lose people in translation in companies that may not be familiar with that language.  This is particularly true with non-marketing executives which are typically less analytical in nature and board members who do not operate at the marketing tactic level.

What do you find that works?