When Engaging in Lead Generation for Lighting Manufacturers, “Sales” and “Marketing” are NOT Mutually Exclusive
by Vin DiGioia
Glengarry Glen Ross, 1992
As a B2B strategic marketing firm, we are often sought out by lighting manufacturers looking to help boost flailing – and sometimes non-existent – lead generation efforts. Services we offer to these companies can range from a simple website redesign all the way up to full rebranding/positioning. Regardless of the extent of the engagement, most often our efforts in lead generation for lighting manufacturers require us to work with the internal sales and marketing teams to help execute the campaign and ensure optimal results.
However, in dealing with both of these groups at various clients in the lighting industry, they can have different – often disparaging – views of each other’s roles in the overall process:
What the Marketing Staff Thinks:
- PERCEPTION: “The sales guys are mercenaries who only care about their quotas and commissions.”
- REALITY: In actuality, the sales staff often serves the most critical role in the sales process: closing the deal. Without that, all the lead generation for lighting manufacturers in the world will net your company zero at the end of the day.
What the Sales Team Thinks:
- PERCEPTION: “The marketing department is a bunch of prima donnas whose talk about ‘branding’ and ‘positioning’ does nothing but add superfluous minutes onto meeting agendas.”
- REALITY: The marketing team is more than likely responsible for generating most (or all) of the leads that the sales team is calling on.
While some or all of the above may be true to an extent, one thing is certain:
In order for lead generation for lighting manufacturers to work, sales and marketing teams must be in lockstep.
Here are three important things to consider, which can help bring sales and marketing teams together:
- Proximity: It sounds almost too simple, but it is important to make sure that the sales and marketing teams are not physically separated by a great distance. (Think: opposite ends of the building or, worse, different facilities altogether.). At the very least they should be in adjacent areas, but ideally, you should try intermingling desks or cubicles to help eliminate any physical barriers that could hinder the communication process.
- Meetings: A regularly scheduled meeting (daily/weekly/bi-weekly) can help to make sure everyone is on the same page. Since most sales teams already meet on a regular basis, it can be as simple as including the marketing team on the meeting invite and/or tacking on an additional 15 minutes to the meeting for marketing-specific agenda items.
- Technology: The exchange of data between sales and marketing is of paramount importance to the success of any business. There are scads of Customer Relationship Management (“CRM“) solutions on the market today that can help bridge even the widest gap in your organization. Finding the best solution for your team is nothing more than a Google search away.
At the end of the day, the job of the marketing team is pretty simple: generate qualified leads. They will do this by working with the sales team to identify who or what constitutes a “qualified” lead for your lighting company. This could start with something as simple as a particular geographic region or industry vertical, and get as in-depth as specific job titles; from there, all efforts will be tailored toward attracting those types of individuals. (Think: IBM’s classic BANT formula, except much more refined, so as to meet today’s hyper-evolved sales and media landscape.)
Subsequently, the primary task of the sales team is, obviously, to turn those qualified leads into sales. Beyond that, though, the sales team should also be providing constant feedback to marketing on all the leads that are coming in. This will allow marketing to optimize their efforts, establishing a continuous cycle of improvement where all marketing efforts are regularly audited/optimized for effectiveness.
The thing to keep in mind here is that one does not happen without the other! In order to achieve success, lighting manufacturers must have the efforts of both marketing and sales working together in unison, not running on separate tracks. Without that collaboration between the two, the prospects for growth will always remain limited (at best.)
Learn more about how M//G B2B’s experience with lead generation for lighting manufacturers can help your business thrive. Drop us a line today!
Tags: B2B lead generation, B2B marketing, b2b sales pitch, building B2B leads, commercial lighting manufacturers, sales cycle