Legendary basketball coach John Wooden once said, “Never mistake activity for achievement.” Just tying marketing-generated activities (e.g. clicks, opens, downloads) to campaigns isn’t enough to demonstrate value, as marketing is often asked to demonstrate the impact its activities have on other functions – especially sales.
A primary way that b-to-b marketers can demonstrate how activities have translated into results is by linking them to sales through key performance indicators, such as marketing sourced pipeline (percentage of total pipeline that marketing has uniquely created) and marketing influenced pipeline (percentage of total pipeline that marketing has touched during a set time period).
This can often be challenging because, though marketing can automatically associate activities with individual contacts, sales must associate contacts with opportunities. This connection is required to complete the link between marketing-generated activities and sales pipeline.
Though many sales organizations are initially reluctant to add more process and data entry requirements to the sales force automation (SFA) system, several of our clients have noted these additional benefits: