Revenue Influence Is a Team Sport (Stop Trying to Own the Number)

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At some point, all marketing bosses get asked by someone high up, “What does marketing do for revenue?”

It is a reasonable question to ask. How you respond to it determines whether marketing is regarded as vitally important to the business or simply an expense.

The first response – and particularly when you are being challenged – is to assert as much impact as possible. Attribution systems are set up, screens are set up, and marketing claims responsibility for any lead who eventually buys, no matter how many other factors affected the sale. It appears good on a presentation, but then the sales boss will say, “That isn’t what took place,” and any trust you hoped for is lost.

I’ve seen this happen repeatedly. I’ve concluded that the entire question is at fault. Marketing should not aim to own revenue; it should aim to affect it – obviously, regularly, and in ways that make the other areas that generate revenue perform better.

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

The ownership trap

The need to “show ROI” has led marketing groups to view income as something they own. We got this many leads; this many turned into possibilities; this many deals closed – so, marketing is responsible for $X.

It seems like accountability on the surface, but it actually creates three difficulties.

To begin with, it’s generally not right. B2B purchases involve many contacts from several groups over weeks or months. To give marketing credit for a deal because a potential buyer got a white paper half a year ago, forgets all the sales calls, product showings, and dinners with company leaders that happened in the meantime. The way we assign credit makes a neat story, but the actual story is untidy – and everybody in the room realises this.

Secondly, it makes people less likely to trust each other. When marketing claims income credits that sales think they earned, the link between the two groups worsens. Sales stops believing marketing’s numbers. Marketing stops helping sales as they feel they aren’t valued. And the company loses because its two main income groups are using energy on who owns what, instead of working as one.

Thirdly, it makes marketing do the wrong things. If marketing is judged only on leads that turn into income, the group will focus on generating a lot of leads and on assigning credit, not on the tougher, slower work of building the brand, helping the sales process, and creating content that teaches potential buyers all the way through the buying process. The things that are hardest to assign credit to are often the things that matter most.

What revenue influence looks like

Thinking about revenue influence is different. Instead of asking “What income did marketing create?” it asks “How did marketing make it simpler for the business to create income?”

This is not a weaker standard. It’s actually a tougher one, as it needs marketing to show its value throughout the sales process, not just at the point of generating a lead.

Here is what revenue influence looks like in practice:

The potential buyer came prepared. When a salesperson takes the first call, and the potential buyer already understands the product type, knows what your company does, and has particular questions – not general ones – that’s marketing influence. The potential buyer read your content, saw your brand at a trade show, or followed your brand on social media long before they showed any interest. You can’t always link that to one campaign, but the sales group can feel the difference between a cold lead and a warm one.

The sales group has what it needs. New and correct product sheets. Studies of cases that deal with the potential buyer’s own field or how they would use the product. Fair and useful comparisons with competitors. Showings of the product that tell a clear story. When the sales group reaches for something during a deal, and it’s there, ready and good – that’s marketing influence. When they have to make their own things because marketing’s items are outdated or don’t fit the message, that’s a failure of influence.

The deals move quicker. If marketing is doing its work well, deals should close more quickly over time. Not because marketing is putting pressure on potential buyers, but because the awareness, teaching, and trust-building that marketing does at the start make the finding and judging stages shorter. If your average sales time is getting shorter and your rate of winning is the same or getting better, marketing is almost certainly a factor – even if no way of assigning credit can find out how much it helped.

The brand comes before the talk. This is the hardest to measure and perhaps the most valuable. When a potential buyer takes the meeting because they’ve heard of you, when a person who studies the market includes you in a report because your brand is known, when someone asks to work for you because your company looks like a good place to work – that’s the long-term result of marketing done well. It doesn’t show on a report every three months, but it shows in everything else.

How to discuss influence without seeming to dodge the question

The problem with using the word “influence” is that it can make marketing look as though it is avoiding taking responsibility. Leaders want to see figures; marketing often gives stories about how well the brand is known and how it helps sales. That doesn’t usually work in companies – and it shouldn’t.

The thing to do is to share stories of influence along with firm figures, even if they aren’t figures that show exactly what marketing did to achieve a result.

Contribution to the sales pipeline. What proportion of the pipeline involved marketing? Not “marketing sourced,” which suggests ownership, but “marketing touched” – the prospect viewed marketing materials, attended a marketing event, or was guided by a marketing scheme before entering the sales process. This figure tells leaders how much of the pipeline marketing is helping with, without claiming it did all the work.

Speed of the sales cycle. Are deals with marketing involvement closing faster than those without? This is a comparative figure, not a definitive one, and it helps show that marketing is making things easier, not just producing leads.

Use of content. Is the sales team really using the material marketing makes? How often are one-page summaries, studies of cases, and presentations being given to prospects? If the answer is “rarely,” that’s a sign marketing isn’t making what sales require. If the answer is “often,” that’s proof of influence.

Trends in demand care are coming in. Is the number of incoming requests – for demonstrations, forms to fill in, invitations to bid – increasing over time? This is one of the clearest signs that marketing’s work to raise awareness and give education is working, even if no one scheme gets the credit.

These figures do not give a perfect account. No figures do. But they give a true account – one which places marketing as a strategic partner in making money, not a department trying to claim credit it didn’t truly deserve.

The most important relationship

I have worked in places where marketing and sales worked well together, and places where they did not. The difference is huge, and affects everything – how well campaigns work, the quality of content, how quickly leads are followed up, and, in the end, the money coming in.

Working well together doesn’t begin with a shared display of figures or an agreement on service level, though those help. It begins with marketing understanding what sales really require and providing it before being asked.

That means sitting in on sales calls to hear how prospects talk about their problems. It means asking the sales team which material they really use and which they ignore. It means making content around the real objections buyers raise, not the objections marketing thinks they raise. It means following up after a trade show and asking, “Did the leads we sent over have enough information? What would have made the handover better?”

When marketing consistently appears in this way – interested, useful, and not proud about who gets the credit – trust builds. And when trust is there, the talk about money changes. Sales begins to argue for marketing’s budget because they have seen the effect directly. Leaders begin to see marketing as a partner in making money because the proof is in the deals that are done, not in adding it to a report every three months.

The quickest way to lose the good opinion of a sales team is to claim you closed the deal. The quickest way to gain it is to appear before they ask.