For years, marketing positions were filled by "creative types" whose contribution to the bottom line was difficult to measure. But a lean economy and a competitive marketplace have mandated that marketers take a more engineering-based approach to their roles: That is, marketers need to quantify their value to the organization.

Though sales reps triumphantly declare how many deals they close, marketers face three challenges: determining what to measure, how to measure it, and how to improve results so Marketing is recognized as a revenue engine.

 

What Marketers Should Measure

Sales leads are the most obvious candidate for what marketers should measure.

The relatively low cost of email marketing programs has made it easy for companies to blast messages to prospects. Unfortunately, the low barrier to entry (i.e., low cost) means every business-to-business company takes the same approach. As a result, it has become harder and harder for Marketing to produce enough leads to satisfy the sales team. Moreover, marketers are beginning to get pushback from Sales for sending poor-quality leads.

Nevertheless, Marketing can and should focus on the identification, and subsequent qualification, of leads. It's the easiest and most predictable marketing result, and it's the one deliverable that can be tracked through to revenue.

Measuring Sales Leads

In search of a solution to the problem of too many poor-quality leads, sophisticated marketing departments began implementing so-called "inbound marketing campaigns." Inbound marketing is based on the premise that if a marketer creates relevant content, prospects will themselves seek out the company and engage with it.

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Analyze This: Marketers Must Focus on Analytics to Increase Their Value

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

image of Adam Blitzer

Adam Blitzer is a co-founder and VP & GM of Pardot, a salesforce.com company.

LinkedIn: Adam Blitzer