2. Executive Summary
Traditionally, businesses functioned with the single goal of selling. The Sales function was the core of all
business operations. The role of a traditional marketer did not extend beyond drafting creative
advertisements or copywriting. Now, customers are at the core of any business and all other corporate
functions revolve around them. CRM collects critical data, marketing generates leads and tracks client
behavior, and through face-to-face interactions…salespeople acquire critical input from customers
about their needs. Closed loop marketing is the recognition that all of this data much be continuously
integrated if the business is to respond effectively to its core mission: satisfying customer needs. This
whitepaper explores the unique concept of Closed Loop Marketing.
What is Closed Loop Marketing?
Today, marketing means a two-way communication between the customer and the business. It is no
longer just announcing that you exist, but engaging the customer in a conversation with you and adding
value for them. It is about building a real relationship with the customer rather than trying to sell them
something. For example, the role of the salesperson does not end the moment a sale is made. It
extends beyond sale into customer satisfaction and discovering how to anticipate future needs. Every
post-sale meeting provides the entire enterprise with new data to develop better solutions in response
to customer needs. In today’s business environment, marketing and sales cannot function mutually
exclusive of each other. For a business to be able to reach its ultimate aim of customer satisfaction, an
integration of sales and marketing is essential. This is where closed loop marketing comes into the
picture. Closed loop marketing allows sales and marketing to come together to create a superior
customer experience.
How Does Closed Loop Marketing Help?
A study by Aberdeen Group, revealed 88% of top performing companies have implemented closed loop
marketing and have leverage technology to aid its marketing functions. For a company to be able to
provide value-added services to customers, it is essential that both marketing and sales integrate the
knowledge they acquire from their day-to-day interactions with the market, and then use it to
continuously refine each customer interaction. Often, it so happens that the marketing team has a
wealth of data that is not utilized properly. Closed loop marketing bridges the information gap between
marketing and sales. For example, suppose the marketing team knows, through a survey, the exact
mode and time of communication a prospect prefers. It should be able to easily pass that data to the
sales team. The process of supporting this on-going information flow is at the heart of true closed loop
marketing.
True Closed Loop Marketing
True closed loop marketing
demands an integration of the
3. marketing and sales functions, enabling uninterrupted data flow between the two. For example, take the case of
BlueBells, a children’s store. The store deploys an effective CRM program which logs customer purchase history.
As a part of its new marketing campaign, BlueBells is about to provide children’s books at 50% off retail to its
regular patrons. Now, if the CRM were integrated with BlueBell’s’ marketing automation software program, the
marketing team could run a quick search and get the details of those patrons who purchase children’s books
from BlueBells most often. The marketing campaign could then be directed towards that cohort and prove more
effective. If there were no integration between the CRM and marketing automation platforms, this kind of
focused personalized campaign would not be possible.
True closed loop marketing benefits the business in the following areas:
BETTER LEAD MANAGEMENT - Closed loop marketing promotes better lead management by bridging the
gap between the parties involved in lead creation and follow-up. So, if 25% of leads provided by marketing
don’t turn into sales, the company has access to relevant data to evaluate where in the ensuing sales
process a lead failed.
PERSONALIZATION - Closed loop marketing yields data that will allow every subsequent follow-up with a
specific contact to become more focused and increasingly respond to their needs and expectations. The
company will be able to adopt a higher degree of personalization in its marketing efforts and product
offerings.
360⁰ DATA VIEW - By tying sales and marketing together, true closed loop marketing provides the company
with a 360⁰ view of customer data. Most of the guesswork that goes into creating and designing effective
marketing and sales campaigns is eliminated. The business has a solid foundation based on a panoramic
view of information about customer preferences and market taste.
CUSTOMER ANALYTICS - Marketing and sales teams have mutual access to customer analytics. Critical
prospect data is no longer quarantined within individual corporate units. All information is available for the
development of effective marketing and sales plans respectively.
True closed loop marketing is the key to understanding the company’s clients and target audience completely.
Without it, marketing and sales will function as two disjointed areas, hampering the company’s growth.
4. For the past 14 years, MindMatrix has been aligning sales and marketing
functions for over 20,000 sales and marketing professionals across 200
companies, from diverse verticals through its innovative sales and
marketing software and solutions.
Unique to the industry, MindMatrix offers Next Generation Marketing
Automation software on a single unified platform for Sales and Marketing.
Our solutions bring about a seamless integration of the 2 functions helping
our clients derive the maximum benefit from their investment in marketing
and sales automation.
Contact me today to know more about how MindMatrix solutions can help
you align your marketing and sales processes for improved results.
