Working Together for Success 

In reality, if you have one without the other, or one function that gets most of the resources, while the other one is left wanting, you will have a very inefficient organization, at best, and a failure, at worst. Here's why.

• Marketing opens the process. Done correctly, this group determines WHO the target audience is, WHAT to say to it, and WHERE to say it.
• Sales closes the deal. If trained properly, they will understand HOW to use the marketing and collateral pieces designed and executed by Marketing, and WHY their subjects will say yes.

Why can't these two necessary parts of the Success Equation work and play well together? Did they get "F"s in kindergarten? Or, do these bad habits filter down from management? 

If senior management rose from the Sales Department, as many do, they may tend to place more emphasis on the part that group plays in the sales process. What they may not recognize is that, even a well-trained sales force must know on whose doors to knock. They must have SOMETHING to give out, besides a business card. They must have product literature, rate cards, or brochures. They must know where the company has been advertising, and they REALLY must be informed of the Brand Strategy endorsed by management. It is not sufficient to be a "glad-hander," a friendly person, an aggressive seller, or even a good closer. They have to know what they are closing. They also have to know the limits of what they can deliver.

Some marketers are snobbish about their part in this process. It's often more cerebral, creative, and deliberate. But the best advertising, public relations, or collateral pieces without a smart, well-trained sales force will go nowhere. What could be a bigger nightmare that having boxes of expensive brochures sitting around the office because the sales force doesn't know how to present them, or doesn't believe they are useful? Or because there aren't enough salespeople to begin with?

These two groups must work together like the proverbial well-oiled machine in order to achieve efficiency and success. Marketing needs to speak with Sales to find out what it's really like "out there." Sales needs to speak with Marketing to learn about product configuration, how the brand is to be positioned, and what communications vehicles and channels are being used for promotion. Then the sales force can be well-armed to meet with prospects and clients and present the products, the company, and the brand in ways that are consistent with advertising, public relations, other communications that are out there. Social media makes it even more challenging to keep up with the pace of communications, but if Marketing and Sales communicate with each other and "hang together," they can be more confident of success.

Conducting Good, Cost Effective Research

Some people think that focus groups are cheaper than a quantitative survey. Not so. If you have just a few questions, you can use an omnibus survey for under $6,000, and achieve a reliable, projectable sample! A telephone survey can be fairly cost effective, too, if you keep it concise and if you can sample by demographic factors. Focus groups can cost from $6,000 to $8,000 each, depending on who the respondents are and how many groups you are doing. And it doesn't pay to do one or even two groups. Don't bother.

Online surveys can be very cost effective, too, unless you have to purchase a list. Email lists can be very expensive, and are notoriously unreliable. Expect no more than a 1%-2% response rate, though some panels can yield 10%; and make sure you buy a list that is an "opt-in" list or you risk a fine under the "anti-spam" laws.

In-depth interviews can be useful when the target audience is very small (too small for a survey and too diverse for focus groups), when it is a very competitive marketplace (you can't put these folks in the same room together!), when it is geographically diverse, or when the topic is sensitive (e.g., healthcare). But don't expect metrics--for that you really do need a survey.

Market research is an investment (check out my article on this subject), though many people view it as strictly an out-of-pocket expense. Like most marketing budgets, it should be geared to the size of the venture--whether that is a new product launch, the purchase of a company and change of brand, a media buy for an ad campaign, or getting feedback from customers and non-customers. Marketing budget estimates range from 1% to 5% of the product or campaign. Build the research into the overall budget.

The bottom line is: spend what you need to spend to do it right, but don't spend any more than that. If you don't do the former, you might as well just wing it; if you don't do the latter, call me.