Why B2B Marketing Firms Need to Own Sales Figures

Marketers can sometimes get too focused on the day-to-day of marketing execution. With so many tactics underway, marketers can get mired in the detail and lose sight of the bigger, business picture. This often happens with sales figures.

Having worked with over 200 B2B companies, we’ve seen many instances where companies, as well as their marketing team if they have one, don’t have a system for measuring robust sales figures. And by sales figures, I’m not simply referring to leads and revenue. There’s much more that needs to be measured, overseen by management, tracked by sales, and understood and followed by marketers.

Why am I stressing the importance of B2B marketers ‘owning’ their company’s sales figures? Because in B2B, marketing and sales must go hand-in-hand. The success of both requires strategic focus, collaboration, and ongoing communication and recalibration. Marketers shouldn't be responsible for tracking those metrics (or at least, not all of them), but they should know what metrics the company measures, how it is measured, and when metrics are reported on. They should also be able to offer recommendations on which new metrics to track and why.

As marketers, we need to move beyond focusing on activities metrics – the number of press releases completed, email click-through-rates, unique website visits, etc. – to include more business results metrics.

Here is a list of key sales metrics that B2B marketers should know:

• # of leads per week, per month
• Leads by source (including referrals)
• # of active customers
• Revenue by top customers
• Revenue by product/service
• Close rate# of quotes/proposals
• Capacity of sales team (activities that can / are made on a weekly basis)
  # of outbound calls
  # of face-to-face meetings

As a B2B marketing firm, we know that The Mezzanine Group plays a critical role in our client’s growth. Taking an interest and ownership role of metrics makes us better marketers, give us greater insight into the business, and ultimately uncovers opportunities for future growth.

Looking for more help to make marketing work in your B2B company?  Get proven tips in PROFITGUIDE’s Special Report on The Radical Sales Shift.