Maybe you need to increase your marketing budget
Your marketing funnel works in conjunction with your sales funnel:
- Raising brand awareness,
- Promoting differentiators, and
- Bringing in prospective buyers so that salespeople can engage with qualified leads.
There are so many media components that might make up your marketing mix: market research, website, marketing automation, social media marketing, email marketing, PPC, SEO, PR, sales collateral, trade shows, speaking engagements, webinars, outdoor advertising, radio, mobile, and TV. These are just some of the more common tools that drive people into the top of the funnel to take some sort of action that indicates their interest. Based on the prospect’s actions, the salesperson can then engage the prospect to determine if there is a fit for the product or service.
Other areas that blur the line between sales and marketing initiatives might include telemarketing, referrals, and dealer/distributor promotions. You might search online for articles and forum discussions to help determine an appropriate commission structure.
Sometimes the costs of marketing activities are a shock, as many rely on advanced technology (requiring updates, IT support, and security initiatives), and, in all cases, creative emphasis and messaging must be adjusted to determine which point-of-pain resonates for the best conversion rate in a sea of changing audience and competitor interests.
So how much should I spend on marketing?
According to a 2015 report by Gartner, “The larger the company, the higher the marketing expense budget as a percentage of revenue — those with revenue of $5 billion or more reported 11 percent, compared with 9.2 percent for those with revenue between $500 million and $1 billion. Marketing budgets as a percentage of revenue varied widely, with 46 percent spending less than 9 percent of revenue, 24 percent spending between 9 percent and 13 percent of revenue, and 30 percent spending more than 13 percent of revenue. The 50 percent of companies planning an increase report their average 2015 increase will be 10.4 percent. Of those, the ones that report outperforming competitors said their planned 2015 increase will be 13.6 percent.”
I often advise my clients to allocate up to 8-10% of revenue as a budget for marketing. This is often a shock to them, but it is a percentage that growth-oriented companies use to move forward. Once you add up the scattered initiatives you are already doing, like yellow pages listings or sponsorships, you might realize the existing scope of your budget is somewhat bigger than you realized. It’s important to assess the productivity of each media channel in producing brand awareness, differentiators, and prospects.
Keep in mind that an underfunded marketing budget will interfere with the number of prospects that enter the top of the marketing funnel, directly impacting the number of opportunities for your sales team.