Why Many Marketing Programs Fail at Delivering Sales Growth

Have you ever spent money on a marketing campaign, expecting to increase sales and been disappointed with the results? Many have! 

Far too many businesses are reliant on marketing efforts to fix their slumping sales. Marketing and sales go hand in glove, but they are very different processes. Did you know that? Many still cannot tell you the difference between the two processes and it leads to confusion when a company sinks a fair amount of money into a marketing campaign that fails to deliver the desired results in higher sales. The business owner is left scratching their head and wondering what went wrong.

So, “what is marketing?” you ask. According to Wikipedia and the American Marketing Association, “Marketing is defined as "the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large"

Sales is defined by Wikipedia this way, “Sales are the activities involved in selling products or services in return for money or other compensation. It is an act of completion of a commercial activity. A salesman is someone who sells products or services, thus generating sales.”

Simply put, marketing is analytical research about what happened or what will happen. Sales teams can use the marketing data to improve their strategies and sell more.

Can you sell with out a sales team? Sure. Almost every industry has examples of selling without a sales team. You can shop for things without speaking to a sales professional. 

Do you need a marketing team to sell? No. You can sell based on industry standards, experience, guessing or any method you want. The fact is most larger companies, that have stood the test of time have some element of both marketing and sales incorporated into their business.

As a 20+ year seasoned sales professional let me assure you that good marketing campaigns can certainly help drive sales as part of a combined sales and marketing effort. Marketing campaigns as a standalone fail deliver much in the way of sales in most cases. To garner the best results, the data from the marketing campaign is interpreted and then implemented by the sales team. This implementation of the marketing data is used to effectively drive future sales. 

Any company that lives solely with marketing teams or sales teams is falling short of their overall success potential. Truly the best performing teams will have marketing departments that work hand in glove with their dedicated sales team. The marketing team stays apprised of what has happened historically and works to predict future trends. The sales team armed with the data of what happened and what will happen can formulate informed strategies to help minimize wasted resources. By understanding what happened and having insight into what will happen the sales department will have an edge over competitors who don’t employ the same quality marketing research. 

What do you do if you do not have a marketing or a sales team, but you want to incorporate both into your future strategies? The easy answer is to hire someone or multiple people to fill the new role in your organization. If you do not have the budget to support new full/part time staff, you could also consider sourcing the work to a company. As a sales consultant for multiple firms, I help in a part time role at each to work on their sales needs. Another option is to hire a coach to help train a current employee or team member to do the sales or marketing work. I believe it is easier to learn sales than marketing, as many of us have some natural sales skills we can tap into.

The bottom line is that if you run a company and want to increase sales, it helps to have a sales professional or team of sales professionals involved in the process. If you’re spending good money on marketing research that is not helping translate into higher sales results, you likely are missing the key sales ingredient. The value of marketing comes from better knowledge. Allow a sales professional to help you take that knowledge and apply it to a sound sales process and you are far more likely to realize higher sales.

There is no need to let your marketing efforts go to waste. To prevent marketing campaign failure, ensure you have a sales team working with the data. Find the help you need on my website and hire me to help you bring together a marketing / sales strategy that will help you generate better sales results.