What Should Marketing's True Purpose Be?
I was on a marketing technology panel yesterday with the most relentlessly positive person I know - Sam Gupta. Part of the discussion wandered into the conflict between sales and marketing.
The goal of marketing seems to be one of those fundamental friction points.
To the typical salesperson, the goal of marketing is to drive leads. Of course, the leads are always either non-existent or crap. In 20 years I have never heard positive things from sales about lead flow. It's like fulfillment performance: zero complaints is 100% satisfaction. But one complaint means the entire operation is terrible.
This misses the broader goal of marketing. Let's remember why we're here - to drive revenue. People buy and want to work with companies they know, like, and trust. Trust is the pinnacle.
If #sales pings a prospect and they already know, like and trust the company, who. is the hero here? In most organizations it's sales, and marketing will get no credit for this sale, despite doing 80% of the hard work.
What does this tell us?
Marketing should spend 80% of their time working on these 3 elements - know, like, and trust. Then 20% of their time focused on collating the signals of "know, like and trust" into leads that can be qualified and funneled.
Most #marketing teams are oriented the other way, and it shows.
If you are oriented around leads, then your message becomes "please buy, are you ready?" (which is about you) versus "let me help you understand the problem you've having" (which is about the market).
