360 degree customer view as future industry standard
Pretty pictures and snappy slogans have long been a thing of the past in marketing. Today, management increasingly demands a measurable share of revenue. This is especially true in the competitive electronics industry. The solution: better integration of marketing and sales and a 360-degree customer view. This also applies to the B2B customer journey!
A study by US consulting firm Demand Gen (Demand Gen Report 2018) shows:
Management is prepared to invest more in marketing activities in the future. One fifth of those surveyed even by more than 20 percent. But they also demand a clear return on investment. The fact that sales pressure in marketing is increasing has been observed for years, especially in the USA. This can therefore also be expected in Germany in the foreseeable future.
New KPIs for successful marketing
Interesting - and new: The KPIs for successful marketing are:
 not only Sales Accepted Leads, -> i.e. the prospects
who are ready for sales
|  but also the number of interested parties, who actually received an offer from the sales department. |
» What that means?
It is imperative that marketing gets feedback from sales to be able to call this metric: The 360 degree customer view
Gone are the days when marketing dumped a bag of leads on the sales department in the hope that "there's bound to be a hot lead in there." This is no longer the end of marketing's role.
It's no longer about the mass of sales prospects. As can be seen in the following graphic: For 73 percent of respondents - lead quality is more important than lead quantity.  |
But how is this supposed to work in indirect sales? There, only the sales partners know how many of the leads they received from the manufacturer were actually converted. The manufacturer, on the other hand, only receives global sales figures from the sales partner. Where exactly these sales come from is not known to him.
Complex products - long sales channels - difficult lead journey traceability
To make matters worse, most products in the electronics industry are complex. And therefore difficult to explain. And often expensive:
➥ Material testing machines
➥ 3D-printer
➥ Automation machines
➥ Control systems for production plants
➥ Internet-of-Things Solutions
An investment needs to be well considered. Accordingly, the decision-making process often takes a long time.
How can a manufacturer's marketing department still trace back which business deal can be assigned to which marketing activity, months after a marketing campaign?
This is only possible if a lead (i.e., a prospect) can be tracked throughout its entire journey: from initial contact, to handoff to sales, to close, and beyond.
The solution: A 360-degree customer view through Automated, Digital Opportunity Management
Tip:
360-degree customer view:
Lead tracking only works reliably over many months if the distributors - or the external sales team - constantly provide the manufacturer with feedback on the current sales phase:
✔ When was the first sales meeting?
✔ How did it go?
✔ Is there further interest? ✔ What materials and documents were requested?
✔ How big is the sales potential?
And, in case it doesn't close:
✔ Why wasn't the deal closed?
✔ Was it the price?
✔ The product?
Und, falls es nicht zum Abschluss kommt:
» Warum wurde der Deal nicht abgeschlossen?
» Lag es am Preis?
» Am Produkt?
» All this information helps not only to assign leads to each marketing action, but also to deliver an accurate return on investment.
Beautiful side effect:
The manufacturer can make a fairly accurate sales forecast.
What's more, feedback on the product can help to adapt product and marketing strategies. And thus create ever more accurate marketing messages.”
Sales software like leadtributor do just that: |
› Targeted escalation mechanisms encourage resellers and distributors to continuously register the status of a request at the click of a mouse and provide this information to the manufacturer in real time.
› At the same time, the manufacturer provides the sales partners with lead information and sales documents via the same platform.
› This makes a solution like leadtributor the central information and exchange hub between the manufacturer and its sales partners. For 360-degree tracking of the B2B customer journey.
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