End-to-End Strategies: The Importance of Integrating Marketing and Sales

David is one of our most experienced in-house experts. A professional with more than 25 years of experience, he has spent much of his career as a consultant and director of online and digital business in the travel and automotive sectors, where he has extensive expertise.

Within MioGroup, David Segura has served as Director of Strategy at MIO Consulting; he was Marketing Strategy Director at Hello Media Group SLU and CEO at Hello.es. Previously, he was Director of Internet at Halconviajes.com (part of the Globalia group), Director of Corporate Business at Rumbo.es, Business Development Manager at TERRA TRAVEL (Telefónica España), and CRM Manager at Accenture Spain.

He holds a degree in Industrial Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Madrid and a Postgraduate Diploma in Business Administration from IESE. He teaches graduate-level courses in e-commerce and direct marketing at ESIC Business & Marketing School, among other digital business schools with which he collaborates.

We spoke with him to learn about the benefits of working with an end-to-end strategy , why coordinated marketing and sales efforts are so important, and how all of this impacts brands’ results.

Why do end-to-end models work, and who should adopt this type of strategy?

One of the key factors in the effectiveness of strategies end-to-end strategies is the fact that responsibilities cannot be diluted. In other words, whoever is in charge of each of the process’s levers is also responsible for the final result: improving sales. For example, when a strategy is implemented independently, the team in charge of generating leads will have its own objective (to capture a large volume of leads), but its role ends there. However, if all processes and their managers are involved in a strategy end-to-end with a single objective; all of them will also be committed to the same goal, and therefore responsibilities will not be diluted among others.

A second key is the approach. When we talk about an end-to-end We always keep our eyes on the business, and that’s what matters most to us in the end. For example, a brand might make changes to try to improve the performance of some of its key drivers, with the hope that this will eventually translate into sales—but that’s still a long way off. However, what we do in a strategy end-to-end It means looking at the entire process, which means we’ll stay focused on the business at all times. For example, if the current conversion rate is low, it might be better to focus on a tool that intelligently distributes leads to increase conversion rather than trying to reduce the cost per lead in the campaigns.

As for who should implement these types of strategies, I would say, above all, those with a separate sales force—which generally corresponds to companies whose products are not easy to sell and that rely on a call center to close sales. This is also true in B2B sectors, since the key to these businesses lies in the personal relationships built by the sales force, and pre-qualification or other types of support in generating “leads” is essential for optimizing sales representatives’ time.

In these types of strategies, what role does the marketing and sales department play, and how should they interact with each other?

We could say that there are two factors that determine the role of each of these departments and how they should function within an end-to-end:

On the one hand, the contribution of marketing—that is, the influence that marketing efforts have over time. Some initiatives have a short-term impact; for example, an AdWords It allows you to increase sales quickly. However, if we also launch a radio campaign, it will not only have an impact on short-term sales but will also have another, longer-term effect: brand building, brand awareness, and so on—which, in turn, will lead to future sales. It’s crucial to be able to measure this contribution as well.

And, on the other hand, at the level of coordination, it is important that the messages conveyed at the beginning of the chain (for example, communication campaigns from the Marketing department) be consistent with those conveyed by the sales force. Conversely, the sales force is in close contact with customers and their needs, so the feedback they gather can be crucial for marketing departments.

What criteria should an agency or consulting firm meet to determine whether it is truly capable of fully integrating these types of strategies?

First of all, as I’ve been saying, an agency must be able to coordinate marketing and communications with sales processes. Furthermore, if the agency or consulting firm has the capabilities to do this, it should be able to adjust budgets and pull all the necessary strings to optimize the investment and boost results. Anyone who can carry all this out while always keeping the business in mind will be qualified and prepared for implementation end-to-end.

And of course the measurement. As part of our overall strategy, we have different budgets allocated to different areas: sales force/call center processes, online media, traditional media, etc. These budgets should not be siloed; rather, we must be able to assess the profitability of each one—that is, measure, analyze, and pivot in order to optimize our investment and improve results. It’s true that measuring the contribution of “brand” initiatives—which have medium- to long-term effects on the business—is often a complex issue, but it’s essential if we want to get the full picture and design a realistic marketing mix, rather than a short-sighted one.

A recent real-life example…

When it comes to B2B brands, I could give countless examples, but one that I particularly like to share because it’s so clear is the case of one of our clients in the real estate sector (a B2C business). The brand was performing very well in terms of attracting leads But the process wasn’t quite complete. We analyzed all the steps and identified significant room for improvement in its call center and marketing companies. The way they handled those leads It wasn’t working, and as a result, those leads weren’t converting into sales (prospects weren’t contacted in a timely manner, insufficient information was provided about the benefits of their promotions, limited follow-up on past leads even though the sales process was very long, etc.). Once we analyzed the entire process and identified why the brand wasn’t converting those leads, we were able to fix the problem. This is an example of what happens when marketing and sales operate in silos… It can end up affecting sales results.

Thanks to our track record and a business-focused value proposition, our guiding principle is always to balance budgets in order to improve results and sales. As an independent group comprising more than ten companies specializing in various disciplines of marketing and advertising, we have the expertise, technology, and talent to develop these types of strategies. Shall we give it a try?

David Segura

Director of Strategy