Indianapolis BMA

This month BMA Indy is excited to have Jill Snyder and Jenny Vance as presenters for January's BMA event. Jill and Jenny are presenting on Revenue Marketing and how to create and execute your revenue marketing plans. Indianapolis area business marketing members are sure to learn a ton with this month's event. 

We couldn't wait till next Thursday's event to see what was coming, so we sat down and asked both Jill and Jenny a few questions to get you prepared for their presentations. Read below as we scratch the surface of revenue marketing and lead generation.

First up is Jill Snyder of Marketing Minds on some best practices for marketing planning:

Why is Marketing and Marketing Planning exciting to you personally?

JS: I label myself as a ‘revenue marketer’ because I am dedicated to utilizing marketing to drive demand and revenue. Once you architect a plan to help drive sales, it’s rewarding to implement and measure tactics that drive results that are critical to your business’ success.

What’s the one critical component your marketing plan needs?

JS: Every demand generating marketing tactic needs to be tied to revenue.

What research/planning should you do prior to putting your marketing plan together?

JS: Past marketing tactic metrics are critical to your current plan. If you have them then you have the foundation you need to put together a successful plan. If you don’t have them, start with your best guestimates and start measuring from here on out. I think you’ll be surprised on how close many of your guestimates will be.  Focus on leads generated by marketing tactic and revenue generated by lead marketing tactic, if possible.

Who should be involved in your Marketing Planning?

JS: It’s important to involve individuals in your marketing plan both up and down the organization and across into the sales organization. The individuals that perform the marketing tactics for you will have a lot of insight into what works and what doesn’t (this will also include individuals from your marketing agencies). Executive management should be on board and in support of your plan and provide you the revenue targets to hit (keep them updated regularly on your progress). And the sales organization should be involved in all you do. The sales organization needs to convert your leads to revenue to make your plan successful. Talk to them all the time.

Next we spoke with Jenny Vance, President of LeadJen about the importance of good
lead generation.

Why is *good* lead generation important? 

JV: Many many many reasons…At the highest level, lead generation programs offer the largest scope of live dialogue with prospects across the market place.  If it’s not done right, then there can be a negative impact on the brand.  Also, because lead generation is probably the largest live dialogue in the market, it should be one of the most strategically informative areas of marketing.  If it’s done right, while working to uncover qualified leads/appointments, lead generation programs can have a natural byproduct of information about responsiveness by industry/leadsource/geography/title path/ company size/ etc, what message is resonating the best and what message isn’t.  What personnel are having the most success and why.  
How is technology changing lead generation? 

JV: Technology allows lead generation teams to actually get this market survey information as a natural byproduct of a campaign.  Without technology, the feedback would be all conjecture and would be based on the most recent prospect feedback vs. the most frequent.
What affects has Social Media had on lead generation? 

Questions that used to be asked and answered on Google searches are now being posed over social media.  Monitoring those social media sites for key words is just as important as Google PPC.
What about lead generation and the technology surrounding lead generation excites you?

JV: Lead generation is so exciting because companies are starting to realize the power of the live dialogue happening at this level of the company.  Traditionally sales wins would dictate much of the strategy.  That’s a problem because it’s a lagging indicator.  Lead generation teams surveying the market can provide an early indication of changing market conditions.

To learn more about Revenue Marketing and to see case studies on how companies have implemented lead generation and revenue marketing in their businesses, Register Today for BMA Indy's January Event.