What is the single biggest threat to any marketing campaign?
Is it time, money or the quality of the end result?
Time, Cost and Quality is a delicate balance – you can’t change one without changing the other. That’s why, when planning your campaign it makes sense to set expectations at the outset.
In an ideal world we all want the best results for the lowest cost and we want it yesterday. In order to achieve this, would it be sensible to just set our expectations lower?
Well, don’t lower the bar just yet! The key is to set expectations within your team at the very start and then have an agreed strategy that everybody has bought into on how to deal with problems as and when they arise.
Setting Expectations
Whether you manage all your marketing activity in-house or you work with an external agency, these fundamental principles of setting expectations should apply. What often complicates the marketing and sales process is the number of stakeholders involved in the mix, all with different expectations. The quality and frequency of sales leads will always be a bone of contention for sales people and sales management whereas finance teams and senior managers will be more concerned with the cost of sales and getting a good ROI. This is why communication and the management of expectation are so important in the marketing and sales environment. Without this coherence, strategies can soon go adrift and targets missed.
Take the scenario of a telemarketing appointment-setting campaign whereby telemarketers are making appointments for a team of sales people who operate in the field. It’s crucial that expectations should be established between the senior management team, the sales team and its marketing department/agency before the campaign launches. In the very first meeting, the following items should definitely be on the campaign management part of the agenda:
What is the budget for the campaign, what are the timescales and what are the objectives?
How will leads be qualified?
What is the average revenue that is expected to be generated from each lead that converts into business? How will conversion data be passed from sales to marketing to determine success?
What will the process for feedback between sales and marketing look like?
How many leads will need to be generated to ensure a successful ROI?
Is this volume of lead generation feasible given the remits of the campaign?
How will intelligence about customers be captured and used in the future?
If you start to obtain answers to these questions from the outset of your campaign then expectations of all the stakeholders can be managed effectively.
Managing Time, Cost and Quality
After setting marketing and sales expectations you shouldn’t expect to hit them over night. What’s important at the start of a campaign is that you’re measuring results, identifying improvements, and forging best practice. Once the campaign is in full swing you can start to hone in on what steps need to be taken to meet the objectives, and achieve the ROI you are looking for.
Time, cost and quality can be managed but it takes time, good communication and everybody who is involved in the process being on board with the game plan. That is why if you are thinking about outsourcing your marketing to an external agency you should find one that understands these issues and speaks the same sales and marketing language that you do.
