How do you take a Marketing strategy and turn it into execution? Here’s a simple 6 step overview.
1. Determine an overall marketing strategy that aligns with the company strategy
2. Estimate using a forecast model in Google Sheets what can be created in terms of sales accepted opportunities and revenue, broken down by month, region, and marketing strategy idea
3. Within each strategy, break that down into quarterly plans
4. Determine specific programs or campaigns to execute within that quarter. As an example, for demand generation, we have two types – always-on campaigns and ABM campaigns.
5. Set quantitative goals for each that aligns back to the forecast model I mentioned earlier
6. While a campaign is running, be monitoring: # of leads, # of MQLs, # of meetings, # of sales accepted opportunities, and the cost per each of those.
For us, we use leads, MQLs, and the cost per each as leading indicators, but the better indicators are meetings and sales accepted opportunities. And ultimately revenue, but that is a long lagging indicator.
For us, it takes 16 days on average for a lead to become an opportunity.
That means we want to generally let things run and tweak them for a month, unless we have those early indicators showing us it’s working poorly. For instance, if 40% of the leads are MQLs, then we know there is a lead quality issue and things need to be changed quickly.
–> Follow these 6 steps to start making your ideas a reality.