Throughout history, sales and marketing teams have struggled to understand where their efforts and resources are being misused and where they’re being effective. Fortunately, this is where closed-loop marketing (CLM) helps to make marketing efforts pay off and increase sales.
Closed-loop marketing is a process by which companies develop marketing strategies and deploy them through one or more channels to reach their customers to gain a sound, up-to-date understanding of what is occurring in the marketplace. It enables alignment and bi-directional communication between sales and marketing teams to define the operations between the two departments and optimize results.
Today, marketers have the technology they need to “close the loop” between marketing and revenue, but few are actually taking advantage of it. The market for cloud-based mobile solutions that are CLM- and customer relationship management (CRM)-ready is maturing, with a growing demand for tools that eliminate data silos across an enterprise. Here, we’ve rounded up the many trends that are driving closed-loop marketing throughout various industries.
A Marketing Gem for the Pharmaceuticals Industry
The struggles facing the pharmaceutical industry’s changing competitive landscape and diminishing access to doctors are well known. It’s becoming increasingly evident that the global life sciences sector is operating in an era of significant transformation. Healthcare demand and delivery is becoming dramatically altered by efforts from governments and health care providers (HCP). Marketing departments are under pressure to find new ways to engage with HCPs. However, online assets and channels offer a measurable way of achieving their goals.
Leaders in the healthcare industry are operating in an increasingly complex world. The number of platforms and technologies that they deal with on a day-to-day basis to gain insight into new products and medicines is increasing, while the robustness of reports, interoperability, data integrity and even solution adoption is sorely lacking. Leaders can struggle to gain the insights they need with non-optimized tools and CRMs.
This is why CLM has one of the largest opportunities to make an impact in pharma field marketing. CLM helps pharma field sales teams discover the insights they crave more efficiently than ever before. It can accomplish this by simplifying tasks for the field force, marketing and sales departments. It allows companies to optimize corporate performance management (CPM) and more easily measure company performance against KPIs through a complete solution. With the Pitcher mobile sales enablement and digital content management software, for instance, customers can access direct and transfer sales modules for pharmacy visiting reps as well as achieve sales force effectiveness and digital marketing needs with eDetailing in addition to CLM.
Tool Integration
A sophisticated marketer wants all of his or her tools to “talk” to one another. CRM and marketing software can to communicate through an application programming interface (API). So, when one of your sales representatives closes a deal, they can mark that sale as “won” in the CRM. That will in turn trigger an update in the marketing software, which will allow you to better understand your customer’s journey to the purchasing stage.
Closed-Loop Marketing Apps
Closed-loop marketing apps have taken off recently by offering mobile access, anytime and anywhere on mobile devices. They are particularly popular with field sales professionals. For example, the Pitcher mobile app acts a unified front-end for all field sales professional activities throughout the day.
Field sales teams can present clients with graphically rich, organically structured presentations and track customer behavior for better-informed decisions on future marketing and sales initiatives. Progress can be viewed by the field force and managers, then they can implement new tactics and course corrections in real-time and offline.
Mobile Sales Enablement
Sales enablement is a powerful activity that is receiving more and more attention as companies strive to increase their revenues, and to do so at a faster pace. The most effective sales enablement solutions are complete, pulling in data, marketing and codified dynamic workflows, and then providing a depth of analytsis that powers a perpetual loop of improvement. However, others range from predictive sales analytics software to innovations that improve the working relationships between internal business departments. They provide resources, technologies and hacks that facilitate improved sales results. Sales enablement technology has become a key differentiator in helping sales and marketing teams excel in the modern enterprise and take advantage of closed-loop marketing.
As a sales professional, you know that every advantage—no matter how big or small—helps you close a deal. You’re also aware that your industry competitors are on top of their game. They know what tools are out there and they know how to use them.
You can turn to Pitcher to gain an edge.
Pitcher solves many problems for field sales teams and marketing professionals with its CLM- and CRM-ready cloud-based mobile solutions. Marketers want to create and deliver captivating experiences for sales people that result in added revenue and productivity. Pitcher’s solutions empower more collaborative, action-driven decisions for better sales performance and ROI while seamlessly integrating with existing sales and marketing platforms.
Contact us today to schedule a demo and learn more about our award-winning solution!