Marketing, Not Sales, Must Get the Big Money Spent

Small Business in particular is guilty of not giving any thought to marketing let alone give money to it. We, do the same thing everyday and hope to see new results tomorrow. Marketing we think is an expense that must not receive money or cut to the bone, because it is un-necessary, at-least so we think. That could not be further from the truth.

Steve Jobs one of the world greats led the ultimate turnaround in corporate history, taking a near-bankrupt Apple and turning it into one of the largest and most profitable companies in the world … but he didn't look that great on paper. He wasn't an engineer. He couldn't write a line of code. He didn't have an MBA. He had no college degree at all. He wasn't a great manager, in the conventional sense. When it came to the bureaucratic aspects of running an organization, he was useless.

So what made him great? His gift, simply put, was marketing. In the words of Guy Kawasaki, who worked under Jobs at Apple: “Steve was the greatest marketer ever.”

According to Forrester Research, buyers are anywhere from two-thirds to 90 percent of the way through the buying process before they ever contact a vendor or sales person.

In many cases, both business-to-business and business-to-consumer buyers wait until the last possible minute to contact a sales representative, relegating sales to mere order takers. What force people to eventually buy into your product has got to do with marketing.

For a moment, just think about your own buying experiences. To what lengths do you go through to avoid talking directly to a sales person?

Consumers today are in complete control of the buying process, and are engaging in information to become smarter at a torrid rate. According to Google’s Zero Moment of Truth research, in 2010 the average consumer engaged with five pieces of content before making a buying decision. In 2011, that number doubled to more than 10.

Google is projecting that this number will continue to increase as consumers engage in even more media. Of course it will. According to comScore, in November 2012 the penetration of smartphones moved beyond the 50 percent mark in both the United States and most of Europe. That means the majority of us have content-gathering tools with us at all times. It also means that buyers can increasingly avoid salespeople when and if they want.

To sum up, Forrester analyst Lori Wizdo states that:

Marketing now owns a much bigger piece of the lead-to-revenue cycle.

But if marketing is much more responsible for the buyer’s journey, why do sales get more of the money?

A Mindset Shift

The majority of marketing and sales leaders will not disagree with the research above, but it seems our pay structures need a serious wake-up call. For example:

According to Salary.com, the median salary for a sales director in the United States is $140,205 USD, but a marketing position at the pays $119,836 USD, or 15% lower.

The top sales executive in a US company makes an average of $233,381. The top marketing executive averages $207,564 USD (a difference of 11%).

So even though marketing is responsible for a conservative 70% of the buying cycle, sales gets a more significant portion of the salary allowance. And think about it…the 70% doesn't take into the account the post sale nurturing that marketing is responsible for in the form of loyalty, customer retention and brand evangelist programs.

Don’t get me wrong…I'm all for compensating salespeople. And this is not another sales and marketing alignment post. The problem here is that we are using traditional pay scales that have not in any way adapted to the changing nature of the buying cycle and the more critical role that marketing plays today.

No longer are marketers merely “sales helpers” that puts together pretty brochures and brand awareness programs. Marketers, in order to position the brand as a go-to informational resource, to get and keep customers, and to even create better customers, are more critical than ever before.

All I ask is that those in charge of the budgets take a realistic look at the importance of the marketing role in enterprises today. It’s time to get out of the past.