Marketing Best Practices

Like any other business issue or problem you can break down Marketing as a business function into three key components...

- People

- Process

- Systems

... and all three components should be considered when setting up the marketing capability for your business. The problem is these days that business quite often leave out at least one of these categories from their thinking. Because of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) , Marketing was also one of the first areas to be cut in terms of funding. As the GFC subsides and businesses start to build up their Marketing functions again they should have a re look at how they build that capability and make sure that they cover off all the components under People, Processes, and Systems as they begin to reinvest...

People:

From a people perspective your should consider...

- Selection: Are you treating the selection of your marketing staff correctly? Do you see these resources as being strategic or are they glorified administrators. Do they have the seniority, creativity and also bottom line focus that a successful marketer needs.

- Job Definition: Have you made it clear to them what you expect? Is you goal generate business marketing or awareness or some combination of both?

- Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Are the KPIs that are set relate back to the job definition. Are they SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Time based)? Have you set specific goals in terms of Lead Generation and qualified what a "Good Lead" is? Do you use the BANT criteria (Budget, Authority, Need, Time Frame) to generate a "Marketing Qualified Prospect".

- Remuneration: Is there remuneration tied to their KPIs. I don't think variable compensation is used heavily enough in marketing organizations.

- Performance Feedback: Is your feedback that you are giving to your marketing team, direct, honest and bottom line focused. You are not paying them to generate pretty PowerPoint but to generate results.

Process:

From a process perspective your should consider...

- Strategy: Is it clear to your marketing team which markets you are going after. Have you prioritized. Is the message that you want to convey to your client base both on a Micro and Macro level clear to them? Do they understand what is a good deal or good customer vs. a not-so-good deal or customer?

- Campaign Prioritization: Do you use "closed loop marketing" analysis which estimates the payback to your individual marketing investments to understand what has worked and what hasn't?

- Campaign Execution: Are the processes to drive a campaign well laid out with clear roles and responsibilities and easy access to the requisite resources?

- Data Quality and Lead Quality: Are their processes in place to ensure that your marketing folks are getting good qualify data for them to execute their campaigns against. Once the campaign is executed is the correct Lead information being trapped. Are you focusing not just on leads but on other data that can be used for future campaigns?

Systems:

There are different levels of sophistication here from the "Crop Duster" to the "Jet Fighter" to the "Rocket Ship" that from a systems perspective could be put into place. The key though is do you have the people and processes in place to support the systems and then select the right systems for your organization. Marketing systems these days can provide...

- Data Quality by providing automated de-duplication detection and elimination

- Automated Content Management which is important for Marketer productivity. Huge amounts of time can be consumed by marketers doing basic things around preparing web pages, generating EDMs (Electronic Direct Mails), preparing brochures, etc.

- Marketing Automation in terms of campaign execution. Generate EDMs from templates, automatically distribution them and track responses. Integrate your web site with your lead generation and your CRM system. Track the campaign planning tasks. Track lead generation and manage lead allocation.

- Take your marketing systems to the next level with Automated Lead Nurturing and Lead Scoring eliminate the Sales persons little black book and the need to diarize tasks. Take work off your sales team by having leads which are "not ready yet or are immature" and having them managed by your systems automatically interacting with the leads in relevant ways until the Lead has a sufficient score to say they are ready and waiting for human intervention.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM combined with certain Add-ons can provide all of the above but you need to look at what your business needs and have a plan to build your marketing capability incrementally as your business grows.

The important thing to do is consider the People, Processes and Systems as you build the Marketing capabilities within your business.

David Goad is the Managing Director for eSavvy – Microsoft Dynamics CRM Gold Certified Partner. eSavvy is an award winning Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner staffed by some of the most experienced solution and technical architects in the Microsoft partner channel. We build and deliver relationship management solutions based on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform for large enterprises as well small and midsize businesses in Australia.