Top 5 Reasons Marketing Doesn’t Produce Sales

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Your marketing is working. You are running an effective Google Adwords campaign. Your social media efforts are generating leads. Your Google Pagerank is increasing. And, you are attending tradeshows and utilizing local SEO.

You are a medium-sized business and these advertising methods are generating 30 – 40 BtoB leads a day. Each of these prospects filled out a form asking for a product demo, more information or free content. They contacted you first.

Sounds great doesn’t it?

But here’s the problem: your revenue is not increasing. Your sales numbers are not going up. Why? There are only five possible reasons your great marketing is not producing great sales numbers.

Possible Problems

  1. Bait and Switch – One of the most obvious reasons leads don’t convert into sales is because the ads promise something different than what you actually offer.
  2. You are ignoring the phone – Perhaps you didn’t know this (or perhaps you did), but conversion rates are 70% higher for a prospect that calls your business, than one who fills out an internet form. Translation: you are much more likely to make the sale when someone calls you on the phone.

With that stunning statistic in mind, here’s a question: why don’t you integrate phone numbers into Google Adwords, social media, tradeshows and local SEO? It seems like a reasonable question, right? If someone is more likely to buy from you when they call…why wouldn’t you want them to call?

  1. Your process is poor – What happens to the leads when you get them? Are they assigned to someone? Are they easily organized and accessible in a CRM like Zoho or SalesForce? Or, on the other hand, are they lost in the process somewhere? Do your leads escape?
  2. Your sales reps are wussies – Far too many sales reps are simply afraid to contact leads that are not ‘golden.’ For example: leads that signed up for a free eBook, White Paper or newsletter should be contacted by a sales rep. Too often sales reps overlook leads that aren’t ‘hot.’ They overlook these leads because they view them as a waste of time, or because they are scared of calling a ‘cool’ lead. They are wussies.
  3. Your reps stink on the phone – This is the most common reason leads don’t turn into sales. Prospects call your business. They inquire about pricing or ask about additional information. Or maybe they even view a product demo. But they never buy.

This is bad. Why does this happen? Because most businesses expend resources creating leads and then fail to effectively field leads. They fail to adequately train their reps to sell effectively. And they fail to hold them accountable using tools like call recording and call scoring.

In short: companies spend money to get the phone to ring but then fail to effectively sell when it does.

Don’t Forget the Phone

Businesses that forget the phone will find that improved marketing results do not necessarily result in improved sales performance. Don’t forget to market phone numbers and don’t forget to track, record and improve phone selling performance.

17 thoughts on “Top 5 Reasons Marketing Doesn’t Produce Sales”

  1. Robert Peters

    Great points Jason.
     
    The phone is also great because you get an instant response.  If your prospect has objections or questions you can get an understanding of what they are and respond to them then and there, or go back to them once you’ve got the answers.  The same process via email can often take days of questions to and fro but a telephone conversation can help you make progress in minutes.

  3. JunLoayza

    I found that a sales person must fully understand the sales cycle in an industry.  For SMBs, the sales cycle will obviously be much shorter than those of large franchises or corporations.
     
    Like you mentioned in your post, my team and I generated many leads by attending conferences and trade-shows around the country.  2 months after our initial contact with our target clients, we still hadn’t closed any deals.
     
    At first I thought that there was something wrong with our pitch or perhaps our sales people were no good.  But another 2 months later, our first deals began to close.  It wasn’t anything on our part – it just took 4 months for our target customers to make a decision.
     
    It would be helpful for you to write a post about how to shorten the sales cycle.  I feel we have the leads and can close them, but it takes longer than I would like.
     
    Thanks

  4. johnmak

    Great article Jason,
     
    I’ve seen a lot of people talking about website performance and traffic but their conversion sucks! It’s not productive to work more than 8 hours per day and get a 20% of conversion! Instead you’ve got to find the way to be productive and convert 80%! That’s when your marketing will be successful! Thanks for sharing!
     
    John

  7. Steve Straub

    Many salespeople tend to not like using the phone as they prefer to hide behind their computer. Anyone who takes the time and effort to call you is a serious prospect!

  8. tessiesweet2008

    Great posting, Jason! These are great reasons to dig deeper into the marketing efforts and improve sales. Thanks for establishing 5 key areas improve on!This is really good post here. Thanks the time to post such valuable information.

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  10. Ammara Wasim

    Hi Jason!
     
    I am agree on the point ” don’t forget the phone”. Because it is not necessary that improved marketing does not result in improved sales performance. Thanks for sharing. 
     
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  11. Becca2

    Excellent tips Jason! Thanks for the good tips provided here! I agree that we have to have an action plan in place before making any marketing and we should be sure about it…

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  14. johnmilste

    Nice experience shared. Its not less than an interview. Great way of posting such good and informative stuff.     <a href=”http://www.sense2.com.au/”>custom fortune cookies</a>

  15. salescareers

    I found this informative and interesting blog I think it’s very useful and knowledgeable. I would like to thank you for the efforts you have made in writing this article. Thanks for sharing this useful information.

  16. Ed Roach

    Good discussion Jacob. I find the headline a little misleading though. Out of the five reasons, #3, 4 and 5 are not marketings fault. It appears marketing is working by drawing traffic to the gate. I believe that to be marketings function – ‘to generate traffic.’  Sales is a sales function – a different discipline. It is the follow-up and reaction to that successful traffic that is lacking. I’ve heard this many times over the years (especially in retail) – “My ads don’t work. They come in and don’t but anything.”  Many feel marketing can allow them to take a hands off role. Branding, marketing, sales and support are all in this equation together. If one drops the ball they all fail.

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