There is a debate in organizations on whether marketing functions can be outsourced. I’ll argue that the customer moment – that runs from that first interaction from a trigger event all the way to close – should be the responsibility of someone on the marketing team.

“The customer moment – that runs from that first interaction from a trigger event all the way to close – should be the responsibility of someone on the marketing team…”

You see a sample workflow on a campaign to promote used combines below. In this case, we had postcards and email campaigns that dropped a customer onto to a landing page. The website had big, dumb buttons. (Remember, your buttons can never be big or dumb enough.) Through that entire process, we’re measuring how the customer moved through that flow, from postcard to landing page to website, via our marketing automation platform (Eloqua).

The expertise needed to stitch this together is everything. Because of the need for deep understanding of the data on your customer, I don’t believe it can be outsourced. If that understanding isn’t there, you won’t know how all the pieces of this flow are connected, or leverage how the pieces work together. That’s been our experience.

Titan Machinery’s Jeff Bowman: 7 Key Changes to Transform Dealership Marketing

#1. Own Customer Growth: ‘Nobody is Better Suited to Drive the Growth Agenda Than the Head of Marketing.’

#2 Build the Waterfall: Align Marketing, Sales & OEM from Top to Bottom

#3. Brand Beyond the Iron: “Is Our Brand Presenting the Image You Want Across Thousands Upon Thousands of Interactions With Customers?”

#4 Pull The Triggers: From Dirt to Decisions: Unearthing the Value

#5 Make Moments Core to Your Business

#6 Finish Strong Online

#7. Change the Game