Building
They learn what types of customers are most likely to buy from them and what kind of message or approach works best with each of them.
They find out who the real decision-makers are and learn which influencers can help or hurt their efforts.
Most importantly, they’re aware of how their customers and the needs their product meets are changing in real-time.
Marketing, on the other hand, is prone to acting as if everything is static and unchanging. Websites and other marketing programs are still thought of as being completed instead of being seen as works in progress.
When you look at your website, content, SEO, social media, and email marketing as part of your sales team, you realize they are never completed. And just like a salesperson, those marketing efforts have good days and bad days.
How often do you hear marketing tell you that a program failed? Salespeople win and lose sales every day, but marketing always seems to win somehow. There’s a reason for that, and it’s not because marketers are better than salespeople.
The only way you always win is by playing it safe and evaluating your results based on anecdotal opinions instead of measurable performance.
Digital marketing allows marketers to work in real-time, the way sales happen. If you want your marketing people to be more successful, get them to start acting more like salespeople. Make it clear that a marketer’s job is to learn and that learning is never done.
If you want your marketing to be more effective, start asking your marketing people a different question. When you’re checking in with them, don’t ask, “What did you get done today?” Instead, ask them, “What did you learn today?”
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