Can marketing actually be tied to revenue goals based on the delivery channel?  Why Not!

First, you must make a commitment to content.

Without a commitment to active and consistent content you can’t expect any channel to be tied to a measurable revenue number. However, if you can commit to ongoing, highly-relevant content for each channel you actually set goals by channel and build out trackable measurements based on channel:s:

What kind of traffic will you drive to each channel per month?

How do you capture leads in this channel?

What is the average of ratio from traffic to lead capture?

What is the cost to produce and distribute content in the is channel (for now just look at hard costs not including salaries)?

What are your lead to close ratios?

See Marketing KPIs Blog for more information on measurements.

Note, some companies are more transactional in nature and the content itself might directly result in a sale of a product, service or subscription.

Second, someone has to take true ownership of the channel.

You must find a marketer who can is comfortable taking ownership of one or more of your content channels and is able to view that channel success based on measurements and data.  This person must own the strategy by which content is not only created but delivered.  They also must work with other channels to cross-promote and create replicatable content that can be used by a number of channels. For example, if you have a webinar recording you can use on your blog, Facebook, Linkedin and Youtube each channel owner will need to understand the best way to position and promote this content on their channel to make the most of the content based on how the target audience interacts with the channel.

Third, you must define the qualification by which you will measure the channel.

Some companies will only measure marketing revenue contributions when a transaction occurs directly from that marketing activity within the same interaction.  Other companies will cookie or log the original interaction and allow marketing to claim it against the channel if the completed sale occurs in a certain time frame.  In the B2B world however, where you have a sales cycle involved, you will want to go back and look at the original lead channel at the close of the sale.  In CRM,  this is often when the opportunity is moved to “won.”

Last, you must be able to measure effectively.

If you have a sales process involved you must be able to track where the channel the lead came from along at the time they make a purchase.  This means the channel source has to be able to follow the lead through the entire sales journey.  You may also need a way to tie other channel contributions to the sale  If the lead interacted with a number of channels before making a purchase you would want to give the original source a certain attribution however those that

contributed to the sale should also get some of the credit.  If you are using a marketing automation system or a CRM to track interactions and activities you will want to create a master lead source or campaign along with lead source tags or child campaigns that will allow you to see the entire flow of activity for each completed sale.

While content is king when you want to leverage your marketing channels you have to be able to understand the value of the content as it pertains to that channel so you can continue to produce content for the purpose of growing the business not just content for content sake.