Data-Driven Marketing on the Roadmap to Revenue [Infographic]

We don’t just happen upon effective marketing initiatives, or strike it rich with successful campaigns by hapless strokes of luck.

Great marketing is engineered. It’s built out of a better understanding of our buyers and a bolder focus on delivering value. We don’t leave our audiences to wander aimlessly on their buyer’s journey; we build roads to speed them to their desired solutions. To chart such precise pathways to purchase decisions, however, it takes equally precise insights into what’s happening in the marketing and sales pipeline. In other words, this road to marketing-sourced revenue is written in data…

Get out of marketing gridlock: 58% of marketers report being unsatisfied with the quality of data in their databases. 53% of marketers also report dissatisfaction in the overall quantity of contacts as well. Like having too many bad drivers on a highway with too few lanes, when we neglect data quality and quantity, we end up charting a chaotic course for our buyers as well as our own initiatives. Perhaps that’s why on average, only 5% of website visitors convert into marketing-engaged contacts. When we double down on insuring data quality within our marketing database, and enrich our existing data with additional contacts, fields, or attributes, we can more effectively attract and direct the right buyers onto our marketing roads.

Lead scoring for lane assignments: Different buyers move at different paces. 22% of marketing-engaged contacts convert to become marketing-qualified leads, and from those marketing-qualified leads, 36% become sales-actioned leads – meaning they fit defined criteria for meriting action by sales. But what about the 78% who don’t convert into marketing-qualified leads (MQLs)? Is there a portion within that 78% who might still convert or mature with longer or different marketing touches that we could provide? We may consider an MQL to be on the fast track to a closed deal, but on average, it still takes 10 marketing touches to convert a prospect into closed-won. For slower moving leads, it can help to have more appropriately paced nurture paths. Not only does data-driven lead scoring help prioritize fast-lane MQLs for sellers, it also allows us to automate longer lasting nurture lanes for less-ready prospects.

Create continuous routes: A little under a third of sales opportunities (29%) become closed-won deals on average. The road, however, doesn’t have to end for the remaining 71%. With proper lead management and closed deal dispositions, we can recycle lost opportunities that just weren’t as sales-ready as we thought, while also setting up competitive takeaway or win-back campaigns for closed-lost opportunities.

As you can see in the complete infographic, the road metaphor is an apt depiction in the way we engineer effective marketing programs. Like any system of roads, there can be multiple routes to any given destination. The science of engineering the right routes can be a challenge, but one that data-driven marketing can effectively solve.

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