At the MAFSI Conference 2016 last month, I was amazed by the incredible amount of marketing specific break-out sessions, talks about social media, branding, aligning sales and marketing, some of which were presented by marketing professionals. But where the f--k was marketing?
A majority of the attendees have the title VP of Sales & Marketing. Several manufacturer rep companies have 'marketing' in their business name. Yet, there were no marketing folks in attendance. Nada. Nichts. Why does it seem as if marketing is left out of the foodservice equipment industry? I believe it's a disservice to any company, and I'll tell you why.
It's 2016. Today's marketer has the ability to create Sales Qualified Leads for sales people (amongst a host of other deliverables). At the end of the day, marketing should be sending sales the best leads possible, and determining the ROI of each bucket of the marketing budget. They should be very analytical. They should double-down on what's working and what's generating the most ROI for your company.
But Sales & Marketing are not aligned...yet. (see my previous post about Aligning Sales & Marketing at MAFSI 2016) It's going to happen. It's inevitable in the day and age we live. What sales person doesn't want the most qualified leads sent to them to close? I know I did when I was on the front-lines (and still do today for my marketing agency).
Let's look at it from a rep's point of view. What support do they receive from their factories' marketing departments? Is the factory creating new and relevant content (stories) for the rep to share with their target market segments in specific regions? Are they blogging fresh valuable content on their website so the rep can funnel this content down to the dealers and end users? Look, creating a brochure is just not going to cut it anymore.
How can a manufacturer's marketing department provide the reps the best ammo to sell? They need to become a content machine by publishing blogs, creating valuable content offers, and sharing this content via social media and email.
But it's not that easy, especially if marketing is not aligned with sales. Marketing needs to be brought into the sales fold as it is on business cards today. I would expect to see a paradigm shift over the coming year(s) to where key marketing staff will be a part of MAFSI. Hell, TMC will be more than happy to help drive that initiative. It's GOT to happen to stay ahead of your competition.
Factories are going to quickly find out that they can keep doing it the hard way, or they can learn how to best leverage today's digital marketer, which will dramatically improve a company's bottom line. What company executive doesn't want to know the ROI of the sales & marketing budget?