DLT Solutions' Christine Schaefer on the Benefits of Cross-Training Your Marketing Team

July 21, 2010 By Heather Fletcher

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CS: The sales division leaders set their revenue goals for each fiscal year, calendarized. They then share that information with marketing, which uses historical conversion metrics to determine the number of leads needed at the beginning of the sales cycle in order to achieve the sales goals.

A strategic marketing plan is created and tactical marketing activities entered into the system to calculate lead forecasts. If the forecast is insufficient to hit the lead generation goals, then the plan is adjusted and additional tactics are added to the plan. Similarly, as the campaign is under way, actual results (for example, Web hits) for individual activities are compared against predicted outcomes. If there is a shortfall, the campaign is then adjusted again to ensure success in achieving targets. Post-campaign lead conversion is monitored in real-time through the sales process to evaluate campaign effectiveness. Data on lead conversion from direct marketing campaigns that underperform are used to determine whether that campaign will be repeated again. Because the DLT marketing team is supporting multiple sales divisions, various campaigns and activities are starting and stopping at different points. Typically, campaigns run from three to six months. Because of the length of the sales cycle for most DLT products and services—whether it's Autodesk, Oracle, Google or any of our other brands—campaign effectiveness typically can't be measured until at least that much time has passed.

With thousands of marketing activities being completed by the team throughout the year, I have found that treating the marketing department like a factory (with input/output forecasting, real-time monitoring and production changes) has made their results very consistent in our lead generation from direct marketing. Leads are generated and processed through the sales cycle at a steady rate with rare peaks and valleys.

TM: Why did DLT approach its direct marketing strategy this way? How much has DLT been able to increase the number of leads for its vendor partners?
CS: Like many marketing organizations today, my team and I are challenged to demonstrate that our direct marketing is more than overhead; it drives revenue and contributes to the bottom line. By monitoring each activity for effectiveness [in] real-time, resources are pulled from activities and channels that are not producing and reallocated to ones that are. Ultimately, that means a better bottom line.

For example, a couple of years ago, my team produced a monthly newsletter for a certain division. For many years, it was effective in generating Web hits, which converted into leads. Then, the account team saw the response rates drop one month. It only took a couple more issues of the newsletter production to see a downward trend. At the same time, we saw an upward trend in the effectiveness of a direct mail program. The funds and the man-hours for the newsletter were quickly reallocated to the more effective tactic.

Similarly, I have been able to effortlessly allocate man-hours of my team members to accounts that need additional support to take advantage of unexpected opportunities—a new market opportunity, a new partner, an industry trend or similar event that can be leveraged for additional sales. This is not unlike a factory making quick modifications to respond to new customer orders.

DLT works hand-in-hand with partners—our flagship partners include Autodesk, Google, NetApp, Oracle, Quest Software, Red Hat and Solarwinds—to help them with their government sales and marketing, acting as an extension of their own team. … My marketing team needs to not only produce results, but also be able to communicate those results (we share our dashboard reports with vendor partners) and repeat them reliably …

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