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April 08, 2016 By Hendrik-Jan Francke

The Marketing Metric that Proves Whether You’re Impacting Customers

Show sales teams and CEOs that marketing has an impact on buyer behaviors

Sometimes, sales and marketing teams aren’t on the same page. Sales teams get the credit as “closers” and revenue drivers. Marketing teams on the other hand struggle to directly tie their work to new customers. This often creates a divide between two essential teams.

Bridge the Divide: Sales and Marketing Team Alignment is more important than ever.

“Smarketing” (Sales + Marketing) is a key strategy of aligning sales and marketing to reduce cost per acquisition through teamwork. Effective teamwork between sales and marketing can:

  • More than double revenue;
  • Improve retention and sales;
  • Reduce overhead expenses.

A spirit of collaboration between sales and marketing starts with proving marketing's undeniable ROI. That requires teams to quantify the impact of their work in ways top decision-makers can relate to. Luckily, there's a metric that can do it in one fell swoop: Marketing Influenced Customer Percentage.

Marketing Influenced Customer Percentage Proves Marketing Nurtures Leads Long Before Sales Closes the Deal

Traditional sales methods are losing their influence over B2B decision-makers. Cold calling is dead. Other traditional sales-initiated methods are going out the door.

Personalized touch-points are the focus in building strong customer relationships.

Sure, sales teams gain insights through direct customer interactions. But the hand-off to sales is the endpoint in a marketing-driven process of nurturing customers. Many leads have had hours of contact with marketing collateral before they buy.

But how can you demonstrate just how influential your marketing is?

That’s where marketing influenced customer percentage comes in.

This metric measures marketing's influence on leads throughout the buying cycle.

It shows executives that marketing is out there generating leads, deepening existing relationships, and supporting sales. It's the “secret sauce” behind great quarterly sales figures.

How Do You Find Marketing Influenced Customer Percentage?

If you have good lead tracking in place, the formula to find marketing influenced customer percentage is easy:

  • Take your total number of new customers who interacted with marketing.
  • Divide them by the total number of new customers within the same period.
  • The figure you get is your marketing influenced customer precentage.

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Inbound-focused enterprises will find almost all their leads interact with marketing. Whether in the form of a blog, infographic, video, or whitepaper, they've encountered marketing.

Marketing Influence Lowers Cost Per Acquisition

Done right, inbound marketing cuts cost per acquisition – a metric you should always follow with a solid cost per lead formula. Why is inbound marketing cheaper? When the lead meets the sales team, they're already warmed up to your company and what you have to offer.

Companies focused on conventional sales may find marketing has less influence on leads. That points to opportunities to strengthen prospecting, illuminate customer needs, and speed up the buyer journey.

Repeatable success in B2B marketing means optimization. Optimization starts with metrics.

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