Marketing Builds the Road that Sales Drives On
Marketing builds the road that sales will eventually drive on. Marketing is an investment – not an expense. Executives who complain about not seeing immediate marketing results are missing the point. If you don’t invest ahead of time in a highway, your sales team will be forced to bump along on a dirt road. If your business plan calls for revenue growth tomorrow – you must build the conduit for delivering it today.
Many things must be true for a sale to happen.
Prospective buyers must be motivated. They need questions answered. They must trust you. They need social validation that the decision they are about to make is a good one. If your sales cycle is six months, how long before that did you need to start cultivating references? If your buyer has 30 questions, how long did it take to learn what those questions were, prepare persuasive answers, and figure out how to get them to interested buyers? How long did it take to build a website that inspires curiosity and confidence? How long did it take to build an online presence that sparks when buyers search for answers? How long did it take to understand customers and tailor experiences that serve? How long did it take to nurture a reputation so solid that when the wobbly buyer balked, someone trusted stepped in to assure, “Don’t worry. They’re good people”?
It takes years.
Like investments made in a retirement account, marketing pays off after its value compounds over many seasons. A marketing portfolio’s value derives from hundreds of contributions consistently made year after year. Like investments made in a retirement account, payoffs are probabilities, not guarantees. Executives often wish that marketing were more like a candy machine. Put your money in and out pops the treat you expected. However, markets (for both products and stocks) are determined by human behavior. And, well, we’re kind of crazy.
Scientists describe markets as complex systems. The capriciousness of markets derives from the same kind of turbulent environment as weather or traffic. Many interacting agents - buying teams, competitors, influencers, social networks, regulatory entities. Situations change rapidly. Numerous feedback loops. Many unknowns. Unpredictable.
Sales are never guaranteed, but the road that marketing builds gives you your best chance.
While marketing will never deliver the fast, guaranteed, payoff some hope for, businesses don’t need to settle for a black box. Marketing science improves predictability. Investors depend on analysts with huge datasets to inform their choices. Engineers apply rigorous methodology to assure a fast highway. Today, the best marketers are scientists. They seek to understand customers and markets. Curious - with a willingness to observe, experiment, and adapt when new information emerges. Systematic – acquiring and applying information from many sources, sharing outcomes for review, testing, critique, and correction. Accountable.
Market early. Market often. Market scientifically.
Marketing is your long game. The longer you play the game, more data that you can analyze, the more accurate your predictions about marketing outcomes will become. Building the highway for sales is not quick, cheap, or certain. Yet, without it, your sales team must slowly build the road to revenue one shovel-full at a time while they are trying to sell. (That is, if they even get an opportunity to drive - given today’s digital and social world).
If your business plan calls for revenue growth tomorrow – you must build the conduit for delivering it today.
A version of this article was first published on the LinkedIn website.