Marketing has one purpose and one purpose only … and that is to support sales.

When times get tough in the economy, either the economy in general or a company’s individual economy, one of the first things that is cut or minimized is the marketing/advertising budget. The reason they give for making these cuts is because ‘there’s no way to measure’ the effects of marketing.

If your sales are down, look to your marketing as either ineffective or not being supported as a major part of your sales approach.

So how does your marketing support sales?

One of the first things to accept, within legal and or moral grounds, is that there is no single marketing technique that one can roll out today that will produce a sale tomorrow. A company may do some things that can shorten the time to ‘sales’ but for the most part, good solid marketing is a mid to long term approach, which in one way or another can be described as lead generation.

Lead generation is the process of attracting and converting strangers and prospects into someone who has indicated interest in your company’s product or service.

Once you determine your ideal prospect, you can then capture their attention by using an emotionally charged headline that speaks to their needs, wants and desires. This does not matter if it’s online, offline, inbound or outbound marketing. What matters is capturing their attention and connecting with them on an emotional level.

One of the best ways to attract and connect people to your business is to create good, quality content. Content that informs, educates and adds value at every stage of your prospect’s buying journey.

It’s important to remember that marketing moves the prospect, one step at a time, through the sales cycle to the point where they are ready to buy. At that point, your business becomes the most obvious choice because they have gotten to know, like and trust you. HOW? … because of that good, quality content to which they have been consistently exposed.

By following this marketing approach, the sales team not so much closes the sale as much as they become order takers. And what can be better than that!

If you’re not sure that your marketing collateral is being effective or where it can be improved, then connect with us. We’ll look at your web site, an online social media ad, a newspaper ad or a postcard and run it through our Market Leverage Analysis Process to see how effective it is and where it can be improved.

Remember always, that the purpose of Marketing is to support Sales and that Sales are the only way that money comes into your business. Everything else is an expense!

The following short clip is from Module 2 in our free video series about the 5 Essential Marketing Tools and it touches on the value and purpose of marketing.

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