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Most recently I published a blog titled Valuable Metrics for Sales and Marketing Teams You May Be Missing. We unpacked three areas; size, leads and cost; as you can imagine all three are essential areas that require our attention and yield valuable data.
But, let’s not stop there; let’s take it a step further to help marketing teams craft more effective marketing initiatives based on facts, not guessing. Now that’s a novel idea right? Let’s jump right in.
Total
The first area may sound a little vague, but really, it’s not. Total is a numerical value that represents a number. It’s tied to your market, your sales leads and even your social media — things that you need to consistently have your eye on.
- Total Addressable Market (TAM): Let’s talk about total addressable market (TAM) and total leads. The two are linked because one provides a number that is the ceiling for your market or industry and the other is a prospect lead number that is fluid, and marketing performance has the power to change that number based on performance. It’s always good to have an idea of TAM, otherwise, your forecasts could be unrealistic, and your idea of how much market share you have and/or want to achieve will not be accurate either. Additionally, if you want to grow your sales team to reach desired numbers, TAM is an essential number to wrap your arms around.
Here’s an example. If your TAM expands because your industry is on fire, but your lead volume has shown signs of trending lower and lower over time, this may be a tell-tale sign that the market demands something different that your brand isn’t offering. You may also take a hard look at your advertising and marketing initiatives, content, messages, and buyer’s journey to name a few; They may also need some attention. (TAM) impacts the marketers, sales team, and even the business plan. So, make sure they’re all based on the same foundational information and connected with the right data.
“Total addressable market or TAM refers to the total market demand for a product or service. It’s the most amount of revenue a business can possibly generate by selling their product or service in a specific market.”
- Lead Total: This was mentioned in our last blog. We are bringing it up again here because you should take a closer look at your lead total compared to your TAM. By understanding both of these, you will be able to be far more realistic and accurate when reporting numbers month-over-month and, year-over-year. Lead Total is also impacted by many triggers. Hopefully, you have a close eye on your lead sources and continue to look for new ways to attract and convert new customers.
The Lead Total number and attribution for those leads should never be attached to a marketing plan that is “set it and forget it.” Nowadays, marketing is fluid, fast and focused and should pivot on demand.
- Social and Email Vanity Metrics: If you’re just reporting vanity metrics, stop wasting your time, it only fuels your own need to see positive numbers. Once in a while it’s nice to see these, but don’t plan on making revenue generating marketing decisions based on them – they won’t move the needle on business goals. Facebook and Twitter — fans/followers and email open rates are a few.
Social and email have a specific place to interact with the customer. Make sure you’re paying attention to the types of customers you are communicating with and where they are in the buyer’s journey. Don’t beat yourself up over this — many marketers record vanity metrics. I am suggesting you take a closer look at social and email metrics that are more important, like social engagement and email CTR. PRO TIP: if you’re also running Google PPC campaigns, CTR is one of those metrics that are also very important.
What Next?
Today’s marketers are called upon to have the requisite experience in both data strategy as much as they are asked to be content creators and strategists. PRO TIP: Keep your eye on your key data points above in TAM, leads and social– combined they will provide insights into your customers. Here’s the interesting part – your most important data is right under your nose; you just don’t know how to access it and translate it.
Next, we’ll talk about profiling and how that plays an integral role in sales and marketing success.
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Scott MacFarland is the Director of Marketing for HMY Yacht Sales in Jupiter, FL. He’s an advocate of exciting new ventures, digital marketing and transformation, learning new things, and how to continue to be his best in today’s fast-paced digital marketplace. Scott has had the opportunity to work with some amazing business leaders, all of which were instrumental in his perspective and desire to continue growing through business change.
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Sources:
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/total-addressable-market
https://www.socialinsider.io/blog/social-media-metrics-that-matter-2019/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/valuable-metrics-sales-marketing-teams-you-may-scott-macfarland/
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