The Holy Trinity Of Any Marketing Recipe — Marketing, Leads & Sales
By Christine Alfano, Vyne (Vyne Corp)
People often think of marketing and sales as one and the same when in fact there are many job titles that combine the two — especially in the software industry. And while this may be an approach that works for some, based on my experience this combination of roles can lead to a slippery slope. Sales-driven marketing organizations may stray from the true definition of marketing, leaning more in the direction of sales support and lead generation. While these are necessary parts of a marketing plan, if they become the focus of a marketing team, it makes it easy to lose sight of the other strategic functions of marketing.
One such strategic function that often gets overlooked is messaging. Software marketing experts know messages for digital campaigns, websites, social media posts, collateral, etc. don’t just drop out of the sky like a gift from above. Messaging is an art form — when done well it can be a tremendous asset to any company. Conversely, if a business’ messaging is off-track or misses the mark in resonating with prospects, it can do more harm than good. Without impactful messaging that hits the mark telling a story, solving a problem and promoting a solution, there is no lead generation from any channel.
Another marketing challenge facing the software industry is clutter. Think about how many messages you’re hit with every day. With so much messaging clutter around the millions of different applications and software tools available in today’s business world, delivering an effective message to any audience can be a challenge. Lucky marketers have a well-defined target market audience and an equally well-defined strategy for reaching them. The days of “shotgun blast” marketing are over. Reaching the right prospects for a solution is a methodical process.
Once you reach those prospects you need to drive them to take action that qualifies them as a lead, an entirely separate part of the marketing process. While lead generation is always a goal for a marketing team, it’s important to keep in mind marketing encompasses everything that you do to reach, educate and persuade prospects to engage further. Lead generation is a part of marketing, it should not be the measuring stick by which all marketing efforts are measured, however, it is a result of effective marketing.
Marketing campaigns that drive website visitors to view a product demo, download a white paper or request more information provide the demand generation for sales teams to then take and follow-up on to further nurture those leads to sales. Handing-off leads to sales is where marketing stops; the lead has been generated and qualified, now sales takes-over, working to close the deal. Strategically combining the efforts of both marketing and sales, then striking the balance between expectations at this critical juncture is the secret sauce.
For some septicity, I find producing thought leadership webinars is the most impactful way to generate leads. By working with consultants to present on various educational topics we are able to produce monthly webinars that work very well for lead generation. The key is the consultants co-market the events to their audiences as well as we to ours, so we are able to grow our marketing database by engaging prospects from those other sources. We also can provide our prospects with free educational resources that, based on feedback, are very much appreciated. Thus, we’re able to fill an educational need in the sector while also marketing our products to them, in very subtle ways.
Our webinars are meant to provide a valuable service to those we serve, but are not intended to be commercials. It’s regular for hundreds of attendees to join us on these monthly events, which help us engage current and potential customers while providing them something worthy of their time.
About The Author
Christine Alfano is the senior director of corporate and dental channel marketing at Vyne (Vyne Corp).