From our recent "PR Perception Gap" survey:
"Only 45 percent of companies surveyed regularly provide their sales teams with information on competitive trends. Meanwhile, more than half of sales respondents spend 1 - 5 hours per week searching for competitive information, while another 19 percent spend more than five hours..."
Isn't that time that could be better spent on outbound sales calls?
If Marketing's "Job #1" is "Opportunity Creation" (call it Lead Gen, or whatever ya want), doesn't the task of Competitive Intelligence also fall under this jurisdiction?
Hmm. Maybe "Marketing" actually is a cost center!?
The Sales & Marketing Disconnect
My firm, SHIFT Communications, recently conducted a survey with Launch Pad to discern the differings views of Public Relations by Sales and Marketing pros.
The results were dramatic.
I'll write more about this in coming weeks, but clearly, there is a disconnect between the disciplines of Marketing and Sales. The VP of Marketing intuitively knows that PR can impact Lead Generation, but he doesn’t have the data, the methodology or the clout to make the PR:Sales connection.
Get this:
**Over 50% of all respondents said PR impacts Lead Quality.
**About 50% of all respondents said PR impacts the length of the Sales Cycle.
**About a quarter of all respondents said PR can increase the size of a first-time order.
**49% said that Lead Generation was the best measure of PR success.
Yet just 30% of all respondents felt that Lead Generation is a function of PR!
And fully 36% of respondents "sometimes" to "never" use PR in the Sales process!
Marketing pros in general and PR pros in particular are missing out on a huge opportunity to ensure their seat at the table by demonstrating bottom-line results.
Trust me, no one will care about "Share of Voice" when the revenues are in free-fall. But what if the PR team can show that sales leads that came through the PR channel are the only leads to consistently make it thru the Sales funnel to the deal close??? In that case, PR can be salvaged at the expense of other programs; today, we’d be the first to be cut.
Am I missing something? I feel like the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind. Then again, they made that fella king, didn't they?
I guess that ain't so bad.
The results were dramatic.
I'll write more about this in coming weeks, but clearly, there is a disconnect between the disciplines of Marketing and Sales. The VP of Marketing intuitively knows that PR can impact Lead Generation, but he doesn’t have the data, the methodology or the clout to make the PR:Sales connection.
Get this:
**Over 50% of all respondents said PR impacts Lead Quality.
**About 50% of all respondents said PR impacts the length of the Sales Cycle.
**About a quarter of all respondents said PR can increase the size of a first-time order.
**49% said that Lead Generation was the best measure of PR success.
Yet just 30% of all respondents felt that Lead Generation is a function of PR!
And fully 36% of respondents "sometimes" to "never" use PR in the Sales process!
Marketing pros in general and PR pros in particular are missing out on a huge opportunity to ensure their seat at the table by demonstrating bottom-line results.
Trust me, no one will care about "Share of Voice" when the revenues are in free-fall. But what if the PR team can show that sales leads that came through the PR channel are the only leads to consistently make it thru the Sales funnel to the deal close??? In that case, PR can be salvaged at the expense of other programs; today, we’d be the first to be cut.
Am I missing something? I feel like the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind. Then again, they made that fella king, didn't they?
I guess that ain't so bad.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)