Category: Blog

There is an open question posed in this title, “what is the purpose of marketing?” This may seem obvious – you may answer;

“to shout about your brand”, “to run social media”, “to create websites”, “to create campaigns to generate more interest”, “to reach your target market”, “to get your brand into magazines and papers with PR”, “to improve your search rating within Google”…

Essentially, these are all activities conducted by a marketing team, either internally or outsourced, but what really is the purpose of marketing in the eyes of the key stakeholders?

Sales Team

The sales team have a tough job on their hands. Most are tied into high targets which have a competitive monetary influence on the salary that they take home, this can both motivate and cause stress depending on the individual. So, in order to maximise their own success or reduce the pressure of the job, what are sales teams looking for from a marketing team?

Most salespeople I have met (and trust me, I work in the same office as 50 of them) need marketing to be aligned to their sales goals, supporting them to achieve their targets. But what does this mean in real terms?

• Marketing messages should be closely aligned to sales messages
• Marketing should be assisting sales in collateral support, such as pitch decks, proposal documents and sales collateral, ensuring it is on brand but also fit for purpose
• Marketing should be using intelligent techniques to create demand for a company’s product or service, when executed correctly this delivers marketing qualified (warmer) leads which the sales team can progress, rather than having to fish for cold leads
• Marketing should be using intelligent techniques to nurture and score leads, allowing them to determine when an opportunity is ready for a sales call, therefore only utilising the salespersons time when leads are most likely to convert

Marketing Team

Marketing is often a juggling act, balancing the key deliverables of your long-term marketing strategy, with ad hoc priority projects thrown into the mix, alongside the trialling of new technologies and theories. For both internal and outsourced marketing teams, it can at times feel like a thankless job, due to the age-old perception held that marketing is intangible and unable to report on the impact of activity or ROI.

But what would marketing tell you their purpose was? From my experience, this is a really interesting question, as it can differ depending on the focus of the team. For creative, brand driven marketing teams – they want to be trending, they want to win awards for their creativity, and they want their brand to be talked about across the digital space for maximum brand awareness. For campaign and opportunity focused marketing teams – they want to be maximising ROI for their spend on campaigns, generating exciting opportunities for sales teams and maximising customer spend through trackable campaigns. Ultimately in real terms this means:

• Demonstrating the importance of marketing for the whole organisation
• Enhancing metrics, whether this be in delivering opportunities or growing brand awareness and traffic
• Creating a smooth, brand cohesive user journey for prospects and clients

Business Owner

A business owner is often working long hours to make the business a success, pulled on by many people within the organisation as the ultimate decision maker, when it comes to spend and investment. Time is therefore very previous but also very scarce.

A business owner thinks less about the separated individual functions (and therefore activities) within the business and more about how these functions work with each other. Results focused, a business owner is looking for increased opportunities to be generated, and client/customer spend to deliver more revenue, whilst maximising the profit margins of the business. This is one of many functions within the business, and so they are likely to be seeking the guidance of a marketing team, internal or outsourced, to deliver the right activity to meet the desired metrics. What does this mean in real terms?

• Marketing should be working closely with sales to deliver tangible results for the investment
• Marketing should be building intelligence on competitors and the market before coming up with creative ideas on how to reach the target audience in the most effective method
• Marketing is a central function within the business and should be involved in cross-function conversations on communication and brand

What does this mean?

To sum this up into a neat conclusion for this article, the purpose of marketing can differ depending on the stakeholder who is viewing this function. There is, however, one common theme that runs through all three – that being alignment to opportunities generated for the business. Sales need these opportunities as part of their prospecting, a business owner needs to be assured of return before investing and marketing want to prove that their creative ideas can deliver results.

Why do we care so much about this? Because Roots to Market are a Demand Generation agency with a sales attitude. Born from a sales background, we develop strategies that are focused on delivering marketing qualified leads (MQLs) to sales teams using a mixture of direct, automated and inbound marketing.

Are you in need of more opportunities and looking to partner with a marketing agency who are serious about results and driving opportunities? Get in touch today, 01392 796702, or email verity@roots2market.co.uk.

We may be an ambitious and hungry start-up but we are anything but inexperienced. Collectively we have over 20 years of marketing knowledge and have worked with many businesses that struggle with marketing, both large and small within numerous industries.

Our experience has revealed that when it comes to marketing there are a number of circumstances that affect businesses and prevent them from really reaping the rewards that marketing can offer. We know that marketing activity can make a big difference to your business in generating leads, nurturing a sales pipeline and, importantly, creating revenue. For Roots it’s a matter of working smarter and delivering marketing that drives results…

We have identified the top 5 reasons why businesses struggle with marketing. So if you want to break through the marketing barriers experienced by businesses today, read on…

1. Strategy

Marketing has come a long way in the last 20 years; with advancements in technology there are now hundreds of ways to market your business. From hashtags to direct mail and search engine optimisation to email nurturing, there is a lot to get your head around and it’s difficult to know what works and what doesn’t. Is it any wonder business owners struggle to figure out where to start?

It may sound obvious, but like most things in life you need to start with a strategy and a plan. Working your way through all of the elements of a robust marketing strategy will help you to navigate todays marketing landscape and this will then identify what marketing tools to use, how to use them and when.

Your marketing strategy should highlight how you aim to build and nurture prospects and customer relationships for the long term. Identifying all the marketing activity that reaches out to your prospects, and guiding them through the sales funnel until you finally convert them into an engaged customer, a process known as Demand Generation.

2. Consistency

Even with a strategy in place and a better idea of which marketing tools to use, things will not be as straight forward as you think. As a business owner you will want to see instant results for the efforts of your marketing, but the best results come in time.

All too often we see companies panic and, in a desperate bid to increase sales, implement reactive marketing campaigns. In most of these scenarios, strategy goes out the window and time frames become unrealistic, as companies desperately try a whole range of activity to create leads and close sales.

The key to marketing is persistence and consistency.

If you have taken the time and the trouble to create a brand, and all the things that come with it, then the existence of your brand and offering deserves continued and prolonged attention. This helps your prospects to identify you and what you do in the market against your competitors. If you are also consistent with your messaging and marketing activities, your market will begin to trust you and when the time comes they will come to you for what they need.

Once you have a solid flow of consistent day to day marketing activities, it is important to keep trying new things, testing and measuring, learning and developing to improve the impact of your marketing and your results.

If you focus on using a mixture of proven marketing tactics to reach your target audience and produce marketing qualified leads for your sales team, you can start to prove the difference that great marketing can make on revenue.

3. Dedicated marketing resource

Marketing is one of the main areas of any business and as such should be treated accordingly. So many people don’t get started with marketing because they don’t have a dedicated marketing person to do the job, or it becomes part of someone else’s role.

There is so much to be done by a marketing team, and therefore marketing needs to be owned – implemented by someone who is going to get the work done. In order to be a success, it needs someone who can dedicate the time and resource to it, building knowledge about what works and what doesn’t.

Your dedicated marketing resource can facilitate implementing strategic Demand Generation techniques, to bridge the gap between the sales and marketing functions of your business, delivering leads that your sales team crave whilst also building your brand within the market. A Demand Generation strategy focuses on drawing in marketing qualified leads (MQLs) to your business who are already engaged with your brand. This helps align marketing to sales, who will be under pressure to seek out new opportunities, developing their own pipeline and convert sales qualified leads (SQLs) into new customers.

4. Time

Many businesses and business owners confess that they don’t have the time, or they don’t dedicate enough time to marketing. Business owners want to increase revenue and profitability in the most efficient manner but are quite often a central resource for many different individuals within the business. Detrimentally, in many businesses marketing lies at the bottom of the priority list and consequently is the last thing to get done, if at all.

Just like accounts or sales, marketing is an important business function and deserves dedicated time. You can have the best product or service in the world, but if you don’t spend time telling anyone about it by marketing it effectively, you’re not going to get the results that you’re looking for.

Demand Generation is a measurable strategy to invest in which will have an impact on both your marketing and sales departments. With the aim to drive leads into the business and to make an impact on your revenue. Delivering warm, MQLs directly to the sales team, allows the team to spend more time working on converting warm leads, rather than just prospecting cold leads which overall can save the business time.

5. Money

Many business owners think they need a lot of money to implement marketing activities, but surprisingly it doesn’t have to break the bank.

If you want to see ROI from your marketing efforts; you must trust and work from your strategy. By investing in a dedicated resource, you can ensure momentum and consistency are maintained.

Born from a sales environment Team Roots understand the importance that marketing has on all teams within a business, especially those responsible for generating revenue. We understand that seeing ROI is important to you and how marketing can slot into your business to save you time. If you’re looking to partner with a company that delivers intelligent marketing with a sales attitude– give us a call on: 01392 796702 or email: contact@roots2market.co.uk. Visit our services page for more information on the services that we offer.

On a daily basis, prospects are bombarded with generic sales and marketing activity from businesses claiming to solve all of their problems and offer services that are tailor-made to suit their individual needs – but are businesses communicating their value to prospects, or are their voices drowning in a sea of sales noise?

Prospects can now find all of the information that they need to make a purchase online, be it through web searches or social media, so it is vital that all marketing activity has a clear message that stands out. With more tools than ever at their disposal, businesses should drive prospects through the sales pipeline with targeted marketing that engages, hooks and helps sales teams to convert them. The easiest way to do this? Simply tell your prospects how your product or service can be of value to them, as an individual.

At the end of the day, buyers are only interested in the value of a product or service – does it help them to achieve a goal or solve an issue? Whether you’re sending your prospects an email, speaking to them via telemarketing or directing them towards content that you have written, tell them exactly what you offer and how it solves their problems. Your offering may be ground breaking and exciting, but if you don’t communicate its value and how it can help them, they simply won’t be interested.

An inability to communicate their Value Proposition is one of the biggest inhibitors to businesses when looking to attract new customers and reach sales targets, with only 24% of organisations agreeing on the definition of their target audience. So how can you avoid that and make your value known?

1. Understand your offering: Make sure that you and your sales team have a clear understanding of exactly what value your offering can bring to your prospects. If you and the people selling your product or service don’t understand the true value of a product, how will your prospects?
2. Be customer-centric: Before even attempting to market your product or service and begin the sales process, it is vital that you know your target prospect inside and out – what are their pain points, industry, business size, etc. When you truly understand your target audience, your sales approach will appear more personal leading prospects to trust you and take the value of your offering seriously. This allows you to engage in proper conversations and address problems a potential customer may not be aware they were struggling against. By making every effort to show you understand them, you may just go that one step further than a competitor that they are also talking to.
3. Hire well: If you want to demonstrate the value that your product brings, then you need to ensure that the right people are delivering this message. You need to attract, train and retain exceptional sales people. Ask yourself, would you trust your sales team if they were selling to you, do they engage you?
4. Use the human voice: Encourage your team to use their voice well. By this we don’t mean having endless conversations but having quality, credible conversations. Are they assertive, demonstrating their knowledge with a confident voice? Or do they lack confidence and allow upwards inflection to creep into their voice and make it sound like they are questioning what they know? If the sales person sounds doubtful in the value of your product or service, the prospect simply isn’t going to buy into what you’re selling.

If you’re looking for a confident, driven sales team to communicate the value of your offering to prospects, get in touch today. Email: contact@air-marketing.co.uk or call: 0345 241 3038

To put it bluntly, if you don’t invest in marketing, you won’t make progress. You may have the next big product, but without any marketing activity you will reach a standstill. From small start-ups to big corporations, every type of business in every industry can benefit from the increased brand awareness and heightened sales that marketing activity can bring. You only have to look to major companies, such as Apple, to see big business returns that come from one simple tactic – make a great product and market it well.

We know that sales are important to business success and that marketing is often an afterthought, or an add on when times are good, however with at Roots to Market, we combine sales and marketing. We call it marketing with a sales attitude and we provide sustainable brand awareness and delivery of marketing qualified leads.

What can marketing do for you?

• Increase sales – When you invest in marketing your business, you invest in your business success and future profitability. Customers like to absorb information about a product as they make their way through the buyer journey, so it is key that you advertise your products or services. Using these advertisements, you can test, measure and refine your offering very quickly. This allows you to tightening your marketing efforts and, ultimately, obtain better results.
• Raise brand awareness – Raising awareness is vital, so don’t be dismayed if sales aren’t instant. Customers may see an advert many times before they make a purchase but without putting marketing materials out there, they won’t see you at all. The markets are crowded, so it’s vital to make yourself heard.
• Understand your metrics – Even if a campaign doesn’t reap amazing returns instantly, it will have provided you with vital data which will, in time, put you in the position to grow your sales. From understanding how much to bid on an advert, to how long your average customer takes to buy, understanding your metrics is key.
• Build trust – You wouldn’t trust a total stranger with your money, would you? No, so why would a customer trust someone who has no presence? Customers will want to get to know you as a brand before even engaging with you, let alone making a purchase. The earlier you market your business, the longer your audience will have to follow your story and buy into the brand.

At Roots we have the advantage of being closely aligned to our sister company, Air Marketing Group, who specialise in outsourced B2B sales. Born from a sales environment, we are a marketing agency with a sales attitude and our results speak for themselves. Unlike other marketing agencies, we don’t solely focus on the ‘fluffy’ aspects of marketing. Whilst we know that those elements are important to build you up as a business, we integrate proven marketing tactics into activity to achieve not only brand awareness but also marketing qualified leads, including targeted content creation, intelligent direct marketing and lead scoring, so that you know exactly where prospects are in your pipeline and how likely they are to convert.

So, how can our marketing services help you? Here are just a handful of examples:

• Social Media – Having a social media presence is a sure-fire way to grow brand awareness. As consumers are turning to social media and the internet to conduct their own research before making a purchase, it is vital that you have an online profile of some kind, even if it is just a space to push company news and updates. In fact, 91% of marketeers say that they noticed an increased in their brand visibility by spending a few hours a week on social media. We know how to get you started and implement a social media plan that gets you to where you need to be, a recent client saw a growth of 3122% in their prospect reach on Facebook.
• Email Marketing – Email is a faithful friend of ours. Whilst some people may see it as a dated means of communication, now that many companies are investing spend in social media marketing, 73% of millennials prefer communications from businesses to come via email. Email marketing is an adaptable and engaging way of communicating with potential and current clients. Whether you are looking to introduce yourself or nurture warm leads, email marketing is a direct way of getting your product in front of those you want to see it. Our team will get you seen, in a recent email campaign, for a client looking to target the health sector, we beat the industry average open rate and secured them 50 opportunities to nurture.
• Marketing strategy planning and implementation – In order to get your business to where you want it to be, it is vital that you have a plan in place. According to Professor Richard Rumelt, there are 3 key elements to reaching your goal; diagnosis (what is the challenge you are facing), guiding policy (how will you deal with the challenge) and coherent action (what will be done to achieve this). We can help you come up with a solid plan that will gain tangible results for your business, in fact we did just that for our sister company, Air. With a marketing strategy in place that was implement by us, they saw a growth of 245% in just their second year of trading.

If you’re looking to invest in intelligent marketing that drives tangible results, get in touch with Roots to Market today. Call 01392 796 702 or email contact@roots2market.co.uk