3 reasons your marketing team may not be a growth driver

Is your in-house marketing team driving revenue growth effectively? Sometimes, internal blockers can hinder performance. Below are three key issues that could prevent your marketing department from reaching its full potential.

#1 Digital competency in the marketing team

Competence profiles in in-house marketing teams can vary widely, and it can be challenging to attract top-tier digital marketing talent, who often seek continuous skill development and career progression.

This has never been more critical than now when new AI tools are continuously emerging and the future of SEO is uncertain amidst new emerging AI solutions.

In siloed sales-marketing organizations, a skilled digital marketer might end up creating PowerPoint presentations or managing social media accounts.

To attract the best digital in-house marketing talent, make sure

1. Your marketing strategy is mature and is driving the company’s business objectives,

2. The marketing team leader is the captain at the helm and drives the strategy, and

3. Team leadership is also coaching the team, creating good marketing-sales processes, and offering digital marketing training in the areas of lower expertise.

#2 Data-driven: more talk about the data, less action?

Marketing teams can collect and analyze vast amounts of data, but often they focus on readily available data rather than the data that drives business growth. It can also sometimes be difficult to find access to the right data to track.

Data can be dispersed across various sources, including revenue management, sales, marketing, and customer service, making it hard to gain insights. Furthermore, digital analytics may be poorly implemented, rendering marketing analytics, optimization, and strategy misaligned with the company's goals.

All this can lead to (futile) marketing reporting that highlights various metrics and numbers - but does not actually report on the business impact of marketing.

Marketing KPIs and objectives must be linked to company growth, sales and revenue growth.

This cannot be achieved without creating a clear alignment between the Marketing and Sales teams:

• Shared revenue-based KPIs for both teams,

• Shared key initiatives for both teams,

• New marketing-sales processes and

• Sales-Marketing SLA to make sure both teams commit to shared goals.

#3 Unclear marketing ROI

Some marketing teams struggle to quantify the return on marketing investments at the revenue level. There can also be uncertainty among management about whether the marketing team is adequately resourced and if marketing activities are yielding optimal returns.

If the management is uncertain of the impact or proper resourcing of the marketing team, my advice is to use an outsourced marketing strategist to audit the current status and offer solutions for short-term & long-term growth paths.

It's crucial to define marketing ROI, determine appropriate marketing budgets, resources, KPIs and objectives, and systematically start tracking marketing performance.

This means taking a new strategic approach to growth marketing that links marketing to sales and company growth.

Transform your marketing team into a growth machine

• Assess with an expert your current marketing efforts, pinpoint what works and what doesn't, identify obstacles, and discover ways to boost performance with a new short-term/long-term marketing strategy for accelerating growth.

• Optimize both your Sales and Marketing performance to drive revenue, resource these teams wisely, and create cost savings.

Unlock your in-house marketing team's potential by removing growth blockers, allowing for a lean Sales-Marketing engine.