Gareth Richards, Managing Director, Ogilvy Primary Contact
At the last Marketing Society B2B dinner, one speaker expressed the view that social media had finally closed the gap between Sales and Marketing. It was a bold statement, but in our experience it does seem to be coming true of one key area.
The lead management process has always demanded good alignment between Marketing and Sales. Traditionally, Marketing nurtures a lead until it is ‘sales-ready’ and then hands over to Sales. Roles and responsibilities on either side of that hand-off are usually quite distinct.
Social media and other content channels are, of course, blurring this distinction. Now, prospects “nurture” themselves, seeking information and making their own way through the marketing funnel. Marketing can actively encourage this process by building “thought-leadership” sites.
It’s obvious that Sales can benefit from the content provided by Marketing. But the relationship is two-way. In our experience, an authoritative sales person seeding content via their own social media profiles on LinkedIn and other social sites can be one of the most efficient ways to generate engaged traffic to a thought leadership site.
I use the phrase ‘engaged traffic’ carefully. Total traffic will be lower than from other digital channels such as paid search or e-newsletters. But the level of engagement – pages viewed, content downloaded, visit duration – often proves to be higher. We’ve even found that sales-seeded content can outperform digital display adverting in terms of both overall traffic and engagement. And, as a channel, it’s effectively free.
What’s more, it gives Sales and Marketing a joint sense of ownership of the lead nurturing process and content strategy. And it enables the brand to demonstrate true “joined up” thinking.
There are many areas where Sales and Marketing can work together better. But the data certainly suggests that social media are one way to make this happen.
Read more from Gareth Richards.