Technology has greased the wheel and has exponentially accelerated the business process in the last several decades, and more so - in the last several years. Yet, in an ever-evolving environment, what has remained the same is the vital role that the marketing exec plays in the successes of both the marketing and sales teams.
It’s easy to pick the best sales exec out of a lineup: just look at the numbers. But when you try to pinpoint the best marketing exec, it’s not as easy to do if you aren’t employing marketing best practices. Let’s look at what differentiates top performing marketing executives from those that lag behind and what it takes for a marketing exec to propel the marketing and sales teams to success.
Employing Marketing Automation (MA)
Marketing execs that want to push their teams to the next level know that technology will get them there. In fact, over 60% of marketing execs planned to increase spending in Marketing Automation in 2014, according to 2014 State of Marketing. In order to produce more efficiency, boost performance, and increase revenue, MA is that enabling force that makes it happen. Eloqua, a leading Marketing Automation platform, has found that, on average, deal close rates increased by 30%, company revenue increased by 18% and revenue per deal increased by 17% using automated techniques like lead nurturing and lead scoring[i].
Employing Sales Enablement
In order to deliver the right message to the right customer at the right time, both marketing and sales teams have to work together, and, better yet, be aligned. In the Sales Enablement world, marketers are empowered to craft messages based on the process of closed loop marketing; Sales rep goes on Sales Call, captures data on their Mobile Sales Enablement platform, and that data gets relayed back to marketing for further message refinement. Sales Enablement works to empower the marketing process, and, consequently, the marketing exec.
While Marketing Automation and Sales Enablement are the two key prerequisites that work to empower the marketing and sales teams, it’s important to define the qualities that make for a successful marketing exec.
Here is our round-up of the top 5 qualities that top performing marketing execs embody.
- Visionaries
- Strategic Thinkers
- Digital Gurus
- Customer-driven; and,
- Brand Champions
Best-in-Class marketing executives are just as responsible as sales execs for bringing in revenue into the business. Their duty is to enable their team to roll out newer and stronger campaigns each time. Building a high-performance marketing team not only means employing the right technologies, but also employing a leader that embodies the right character traits.
How effective is your marketing exec? Have you considered these two prerequisites; marketing automation and sales enablement, to empower your sales process?
[i] The Business Case for Integrated Demand Generation. Oracle, 2009.
