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?  You are not alone!

Far too many businesses are reliant soley on marketing efforts to fix their slumping sales.  Marketing and sales go hand in glove, but they are very different processes.  There are many in the business world who cannot tell the difference between the sales and marketing.  The confusion between the two functions leads many to frustration!  Companies that sinks money into a marketing campaigns that fail to yield higher sales, are disapointed. The management team or business owner is left scratching their head and wondering what went wrong.

The answer is obvious to me.  Marketing is not a substitute for sales.  Marketing results can be used by companies along with their sales efforts to increase overall success.

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”

Wikipedia defines the sales process as, “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.

To be clear, I’m not saying that you cannot sell with out a sales team.  Almost every industry has examples of non sales team, sales processes.  You can shop for things without speaking to a sales professional and many people prefer that.

Do you need a marketing team to sell?  No.  You can sell based on industry standards, experience, guessing or any method you want.  Some companies sell millions of dollars in products each year without a dedicated marketing staff or services working on their behalf.   You will find most larger companies however do 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 or sales team are likely 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.  If you need help, consider hiring a sales consultant to guide you.