When a board of directors meets to discuss the organization’s performance, too often they speak about marketing like it’s some sort of dark sorcery. They do not know how to talk about it, measure it, manage it or optimize it.

What you need to know about marketing boils down to these three things:

1. Measure What Matters – If you are not making your revenue numbers, there’s a very good chance that your marketing isn’t getting you enough leads. Simply stated: If you don’t have enough going in the top of the sales funnel, it’s highly improbable that you’ll have enough coming of the bottom of the funnel. It’s simple math – if you close 10% of your sales leads, and 40% of your marketing qualified leads become sales qualified leads…it’s a simple equation.Make sure the metrics that you track are the metrics that matter. Revenue, total number of sales qualified leads, total number of marketing qualified leads. Tracking items such as website hits and email open rates can get you off into the tall weeds if you’re not careful.
2. Develop and use Service Level Agreement (SLA) – Getting both sales and marketing on the same page. An SLA should set goals for the number of marketing qualified leads, sales qualified leads. It should also provide a feedback mechanism so that marketing knows the relative quality of the leads they are providing and are assured that all leads are being followed up on. If you don’t know what this means, we can help!
3. Measure the ROI – Track your leads through to the point they become revenue. Track them back to their source so that you can provide feedback on how marketing budgets are being spent. If you can’t trace revenue back to its source, you need to improve your tracking and integration between your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and your marketing automation platform.

As a member of the board of directors, your job is to provide high-level guidance on matters related to strategy and operations. Try not to get bogged down on minutia and fine points related to individual tactics. If you find yourself spending too much time managing the organization’s marketing efforts, you may need to hire a CMO.