The Revenue Marketer - No Longer an Oxymoron

Two years ago, using the term "revenue" and "marketer" together was an oxymoron - a phrase in which two words of contradictory meaning are used together for special effect, e.g. "jumbo shrimp" or "wise fool." In 2010, it is no longer an oxymoron, it is a special role in marketing that is making a measurable impact on revenue

With the business imperative to drive top-line revenue growth in 2010, businesses are exploring all options to achieve this goal. This business driver paired with the new marketing automation tools that are now available to marketers, create an environment where, for the first time, marketing efforts equate to revenue production.

This is an epic change in the world of marketing and one that requires the successful Revenue Marketer to have a revenue focus and a unique set of skills across the Revenue Marketing Team. In 2009, I interviewed 12 leaders for my Demand Generation Essentials series and these Revenue Marketers had amazing stories to tell in how they re-shaped the role of marketing in their companies. You can listen to these interviews at http://pedowitzgroup.com/dgassets.htm.

Here is a synopsis of the key roles for a Revenue Marketing Team:

1. VP of Marketing Revenue

• Obsesses over driving revenue through marketing effort
• Works closely with sales to align marketing and sales initiatives
• Manages a lead funnel and has a predictable run rate for leads to the sales funnel
• Understand the customer's buying process and digital body language
• Focuses on revenue oriented metrics to measure success

2. Business Analyst

• Focuses on improving the performance of campaigns that lead to revenue
• Responsible for reporting and dashboards

3. Power User

• Sets up and executes campaigns
• Fully leverages the technology

4. Revenue Creative

• You will need a lot of creative but the creative needs to be focused on driving a dollar of revenue
• Think about creative as the way to invite and create a digital relationship

5. Content Maker

• Content is king in the world of the revenue marketer. It is what fuels campaigns and helps set up the view the the client's buying process
• Your content, third part content -anything that creates an exchange of value

The numbers are in. Revenue marketers around the globe are making a measurable impact on revenue. Key metrics for the Revenue Marketer include:

• # of Marketing Qualified Leads passed to sales
• Conversion rate of an MQL to an Opportunity
• Conversion rate of that Opportunity to close
• % of the sales funnel contributed by marketing
• Length of sales cycle

The Revenue Marketer is certainly no longer an oxymoron in 2010. It is a marketing role that is here to stay.

What have you experienced?

What DG Marketers Can Learn From Charlie Chaplin

We can learn a few things about how to appropriately staff for demand generation from Charlie Chaplin in "Modern Times."

As a factory worker on the line, he was over-worked in a highly manual process. The result? Poor product and a very frustrated worker. Now I know that you aren't going to go out and tear down your existing lead generation factory, but imagine if the character had had the benefit of a great automated system. How would his job change? What would happen to the result? And, how would he feel about his new role?

As marketers take on marketing automation systems in order to produce high quality lead generation, they are discovering that a new set of skills is required to support new automated techniques. Just this morning I had a conversation with one of our clients around how to properly staff for demand/lead generation. Here are the 4 key roles I outlined for her. For this blog, I thought I would continue to use Mr. Chaplin's manufacturing analogy. After all, you are in the Lead Production business!

1. A System Power User - Someone who will be the Power User of the marketing automation system. This person is responsible for building the emails, landing pages, forms, list segmentation and lay-out of campaigns. They are also responsible for building the work flow of the campaign and for suggesting ways to improve the overall campaign structure.

A good analogy for this role is the person responsible for the line in a manufacturing facility. They use all the machines and technology to ensure the production run produces as envisioned and designed.

2. Analytics - someone on the team needs to be responsible for analytics for 2 reasons:

A. You don't know what you don't know when you get started. With that as a premise, you will have to do a lot of experimentation, testing and tweaking to get to the point of producing high quality leads for sales on a scalable and predictable basis.

B. You will begin tracking and reporting on metrics that are new. As you do this, you will be looking for ways to show the impact of marketing on revenue and this means tracking your impact into the sales cycle. This takes a new way of thinking, working with systems and analysis.
In a manufacturing setting, this role is analogous to the QA person who is always looking at key measures and ways to improve key measures - with the ultimate goal of producing defect free leads - this means sales accepts and closes all of the leads you produce!

3. Digital World Communicator - This is a communications role for the digital world. As you write copy in emails, landing pages, forms, etc, being brief, to the point and following the stream of consciousness is critical. If a prospect clicks on a Google Ad based on a topic, the landing page they go to needs to continue that topic, that stream of consciousness. It's all about behavior and setting up a digital dialog to elicit behavior.

In the manufacturing world, this role is analogous to the Plant Manager - the person responsible for understanding the business requirements and translating that to production.

4. Strategist and Change Agent - No one really wants to hear this one but it is the most important role of all. EVERY client we work with is surprised at the amount of change demand generation with a marketing automation system invites. Some are ready for the change and can make it happen quickly. Others, need a bit more time. This senior executive is responsible for not just getting campaigns out the door but for impacting revenue for the company. If you think about the Life of a Lead from marketing inception through the hand-off to sales to opportunity and close, demand generation can impact ALL of these areas.


This role is the executive (the suit) who is in charge of surveying the market and their constituents and determining how best to use the production resources to meet the needs of the company. It is a powerful position and carries a lot of responsibility for the bottom line.

Enjoy watching the clip of Charlie Chaplin in "Modern Times" and consider how introducing a powerful marketing automation system changes key processes and roles in your company.

This is just a high level of overview. What have you seen? Have you seen these roles as separate roles or are you seeing these roles being combined? Would love to hear your comments!

DG and Peanuts

This weekend, I went to my family's 41st reunion in Blakely, GA. If you need a map to look it up, that's OK! It's a small town in southwest Georgia and a staple of the economy is peanut farming. As a matter of fact, it is one of the richest peanut growing regions in the world! On a trip to the Piggly Wiggly to get fruit to make a gigantic fruit salad (got to feed about 200 people), I noticed that the small town was really touting their peanut-driven economy with these banners flying around the town square. They wanted to make sure that everyone was fully aware of their intense focus as a community on peanuts.

As I thought about this PR move, it occurred to me that as B2B companies look to implement a demand generation (lead generation) program, they are actually finding new ways to fuel their own economy - the economy of leads that get passed to sales and get closed. And, like peanuts in southwest Georgia, a little PR can go a long way.

Just this past week I was at a client location and part of what we talked about was how to "promote" marketing's new demand generation program to senior management, sales and other groups who might need to understand this new focus. I asked them a simple question, "Do you have a PR firm?" The answer was Yes and I simply explained they need to develop their own internal PR for demand generation and to consider both formal and informal means of communication. It's a PR calendar for demand generation which serves the same purpose of any PR effort - educate and get on board key constituents.

While you might not need to put up red banners all around the office, finding a way to provide this key education on a new focus for marketing is a brilliant move. Maybe Demand Generation Proud?

What have you seen that works?