How to increase marketing ROI: By leveraging your sales team to create an effective sales platform

If you’re a marketing director or C-Level exec, take some time to ask your sales team – those guys in the trenches – two simple questions: 1. Do you use the corporate sales/marketing tools? 2. Why not?

Find your voice to develop sales tools that work

An increase in your marketing ROI (return on investment) starts with assuming that your targets/prospects are confused, lost, frustrated and undereducated about you, your company and especially about the uniqueness of your offering. How do you change this situation? Start with your sales team.

In today’s business environment, sales reps need to be communication experts, masters of relaying your brand essence simply, clearly and consistently to every, single prospect. To test the effectiveness of your sales communication platform, ask each of your sales reps the following questions:

Who are we as a company?
What is unique about our company?
What do we offer/sell?      
What is unique about what we offer/sell?
Why should our clients choose us over the competition?

If your sales team is unable to effectively explain who your company is and what’s unique about your offering within 10 seconds, the responses are inconsistent, incoherent, confused or you find yourself saying “so what” to their responses, consider seeking a qualified advertising/branding agency that specializes in communication design.

A good advertising/branding agency will have a process to extract your brand essence quickly, develop a singular selling voice (communication platform) and create a simple, consistent elevator pitch that is both effective at opening doors as well as converting and closing leads.

Shifting focus to this area is the key to increasing your return on investment for marketing. The process itself can be a bit unnerving because change within your organization is inevitable. But it’ll pay off tenfold down the road when you have a consistent platform that acts as a sounding board to drive the creation of all other marketing related materials and initiatives. Over time, this effort will prove to be the most valuable investment your company can make towards increasing marketing ROI. See how LeeReedy developed a brand identity and created an effective sales platform for StorageTek.

For more on extracting brand essence, creating a singular selling voice, and brand positioning drop me a note anytime kreedy@leereedy.com.