Construction Marketing/Sales Lead Generation Gap
Date Posted: September 3, 2014
Posted In: Ideas, White Papers,
by Joe Sullivan
Partner, Gorilla 76
I hate inefficiency, but I stare it in the face often. As a marketing consultant who specializes in generating leads for industrial companies, I witness missed business development opportunities in the construction industry all the time. And the root of the problem is a lack of alignment between marketing and sales.
I talk with a lot of companies that spend marketing dollars on trade journal ads, fancy printed folders, event sponsorships and trade show displays. Meanwhile, they spend their sales dollars (and time) on travel, lunches and rounds of golf with prospects, trade shows, cold calling and following up with long prospect lists. Now, I’m NOT arguing about WHAT these dollars and hours are spent on. My beef instead lies with how these marketing and sales decisions are made, and more importantly, the complete lack of goal alignment between them all.
Ultimately of course, the end game for any marketing or sales investment is the same: produce new business. But if that’s the case, why does the sales team so rarely play a role in developing marketing strategy? And why are marketing spends made with intangible goals (like brand recognition) in mind, rather than bottom-line-driven goals that contribute directly to sales (like lead generation)? Why do those in charge of sales and those in charge of marketing rarely communicate?
What I see is a big, wide, gaping hole in the construction industry that lies between marketing and sales. The marketing guys do marketing stuff. The sales guys do sales stuff. Everyone wants to promote the business and win new jobs. But they want to do it their own way. Why is that? Let’s take a closer look.
Why that big ugly gap between marketing and sales exists
Years ago, marketers had only intangible metrics, such as estimated ad impressions from nameless magazine readers, to decide whether to continue running a $3000/issue print ad. So they designed a sleek ad, put a phone number at the bottom and hoped the phone rang. And if the phone rang more than usual, they might presume the ad played some part. And shoot, even if it didn’t play a part, it was establishing great brand recognition, right?
Since brand recognition was all that marketing could deliver in years past, why should sales really care? I get it. But that was then. And today things are very, very different. Whether or not your company has come along for the ride, we’re officially living in a new era of marketing where information is gathered online more than anywhere else. And according to Google, “Today’s business buyers do not contact suppliers directly until 57 percent of the purchase process is complete”. So what does this mean for you and your business?
Today, the smartest construction companies don’t sit around waiting for phones to ring after they run those quarter page trade journal ads. They instead make use of their team’s collective knowledge and experience to actively produce business. They build smart strategies – marketing and sales teams working as one. Together, they identify the problems their prospects need solved. They write educational articles on their websites that will help answer questions and solve those problems. They equip those articles with keywords their audience actually searches for in Google, and those articles attract qualified website visitors daily. They offer helpful, educational white papers, case studies and tools to their website visitors in exchange for contact information. And as a result, they generate real construction leads with names and phone numbers.
Today’s smartest marketers earn the respect and trust of their sales teams because they produce tangible results that feed their companies real business opportunities. And in turn, the sales teams at these companies listen and participate in their marketing strategy. Don’t buy into it? Our clients do. And their businesses are reaping the benefits.
Closing that big ugly gap
So how do you close that long-standing gap between the marketing and sales folks at your business? Start by sitting down in a room and talking. Go out to lunch together. Lay down the goals you’re each trying to accomplish and figure out what aligns and what doesn’t. Discuss who your audience really is – both the companies and the people within those companies. What needs do they have during their buying process? What problems do they need solved and how can your business provide a solution? Once this conversation gets started, you’ll be on the right track to laying out a plan of attack to attract, educate and convert prospects to leads.
About the author
Joe Sullivan is a parter at St. Louis marketing firm Gorilla 76. Gorilla helps B2B industrial companies generate website traffic, qualified business leads and paying customers using their website and other online media. To learn more about converting strangers into website visitors and visitors into leads, download their Hardworking Web Marketing Guide for B2B Industrial Companies.