A common challenge of a marketer is to determine which campaign results in the most sales for the company – typically called attribution. “According to [a Hootsuite] survey, 70% of social marketers aren’t using an attribution model, which makes it hard to prove the value of social compared to other channels.” {1}
These models would be useful in answering questions, such as which social media ad is attracting the most potential customers? Is the website form encouraging enough for future interaction with a visitor? Why have some people said yes to learning more about the company, yet the same efforts were ignored by others?
If there is a steady pattern of lead generation, it can be difficult to decipher which strategies are working the best and which aren’t living up to their expectations. After putting in time and money, how do marketers know if the resulting leads are in fact getting matched with the right salespeople, furthering their journey through the sales funnel?
There are many tools to help this process, but without closing the loop with the sales team, attribution remains elusive. By the time businesses receive useable data, the lines between which strategy worked and to what extent tends to get blurry.
CRM platforms do not provide such visibility – they are customer relationship management platforms, not lead management platforms. Instead, leads are coming in at many different angles and are then directed to salespeople manually. Only historical data provides analysis on marketing expenses at a later point in time – delaying immediate action (time is money).
Using software can shine light on leads in real-time: where are they coming from and where are they going. This can help to answer questions like what strategy is currently succeeding, and what expenses should be eliminated? This brings the opportunity to continue the behaviour of successful campaigns as well as to cut funding early or re-strategize campaigns that were disappointing.
Understanding which avenue your customers are taking to reach a salesperson today brings transparency to this “black hole of marketing”. Doing so is critical to developing an enhanced marketing strategy for future growth, direction and investments.
The following illustrates an example where this transparency provides a real-time status update on an incoming lead: John Smith (a potential customer) connects via Facebook to a business at a point in time and Jane Taylor (salesperson) acknowledges John as a lead and follows up accordingly within the appropriate response time limits. A situation like this provides not only an update to the sales manager that Jane is working on it, but also allows the marketing team to recognize that the Facebook ad is the doorway that brought John to the table of negotiation, suggesting that they continue that specific campaign.
Without this knowledge, how can companies make quick and educated decisions about 1) which expenses are worth the cost, 2) what sales employees are following up, and 3) what future direction should we head in?
Transparency is achieved through common data and proper attribution of the successful campaigns. It is the only way to build on marketing successes and shine a light on the often “black hole.”
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{1} The 5 Most Important Social Media Trends in 2020, Written by Sarah Dawley, January 28, 2020. Source: https://bit.ly/2GDW6IJ
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