Return on investment is a top concern for marketing managers of any industry, since they must be accountable for expenses that are intended to improve profitability. Marketing performance in manufacturing businesses has been improved in recent decades due to technology that has led to faster processing and ways to simplify business to business communication in the supply chain. Here are ways that marketing managers can prove ROI to sales managers of manufacturing companies.
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Investment in Innovation
One of the most important points about ROI in the manufacturing industry is that enterprise software has helped improve productivity on many levels. In terms of marketing, it has been highly efficient at providing sales and order tracking data in real time to various departments. When this information can be shared instantly instead of digging through files in a time-consuming manner, it speeds up sales and can result in resolving customer issues more rapidly.
Defining Performance Metrics
Each organization has its own definition for success, so sales and marketing managers need to agree on what the key metrics are for measuring success. If your company depends on direct sales from the website, then the number of visitors and percentage of conversions become key metrics. If sales leads are generated through other channels, then you can prove return on investment based on costs associated with how many people you reach in your marketing campaigns compared with sales.
Sharing Customer Data
The more customer data that you can access, the more statistics and charts you can generate to show how sales have moved per customer over time. When you use a robust customer relationship management platform that tracks a variety of sales data, you can create customized reports to analyze different sectors of your market and make revenue projections. The more data you can present, the more you can prove ROI on various marketing levels.
Marketing Efficiency
One of the goals of marketing is to attract leads as cost-efficiently as possible. In B2B scenarios the more repeat business you get through nurturing relationships, the more you can reduce marketing expenses, allowing you to prove return on investment. Using data to make better marketing decisions can add even more evidence of efficient use of the budget.
Your focus should be to put a monetary value on the quality of your marketing decisions. Then to further prove ROI, focus on metrics such as sales performance, cost savings, customer performance and process efficiency.