Measurement and Analytics is critical to closed loop marketing for both campaign attribution and campaign optimization.

I recently had the pleasure of attending the American Marketing Association Boston event Actionable Marketing Metrics: Tools and Methodologies on Tuesday, 24 January, 2017.

The two guest speakers, Thor Johnson, CEO of Bedrock Data, and Kristen Hambelton, CMO of ServiceChannel, gave outstanding presentations. They raised interesting points on how businesses should approach defining metrics in both marketing and sales.

Here are a few main takeaways that are particularly pertinent to B2B businesses (though, of course, they do apply to B2C companies as well):

We define Revenue Systems as the foundation for sustainable revenue execution. Revenue Systems include brand, people, process, and technology that enable marketing and sales. These core capabilities help attract, capture, deepen and expand relationships. Assuming the right strategies are in place, your revenue system provides the platform you need to execute marketing and sales programs and achieve marketing and sales performance metrics.

Some B2B organizations still view marketing and sales as distinct organizations with different skills, and requiring different technologies and processes. While there are distinctions in the role of marketing and sales, today’s buyer lifecycle experience is fluid and must drive the marketing and sales process.  Leading businesses recognize that in order to attract and engage these self-directed buyers, marketing and sales teams need integrated branding, technologies and processes.  With a Revenue Systems approach, leaders can architect an integrated platform and manage continuous and non-linear buyer journeys.

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