They say, “Good things come in threes!” But who are ‘They' and what's good about them? Here are just a few…

• Primary Colors
• Branches of Government
• Stooges

I could go on for days, but good things in business also come in threes…

• The Marketing Trifecta
• The C-Level Superteam
• Your Brain

In order for your business to achieve, grow, and scale, you can't achieve real success by adding, or changing marketing alone. If that was the case, I probably would not need to show companies how? I would be enjoying a massage, on my private yacht, parked next to my private island in the Caribean. I wish… so let's get back to reality!

The Marketing Trifecta

A car needs many things to be a viable mode of transportation but here are three things that must be integrated to make the car move. First is the engine. It's the core of how the car is propelled. The gas (or battery) is needed to make the engine run. The battery level or fuel gauge is needed to know when to stop and recharge or refuel. If your fuel gauge is broken or you put diesel in a gas engine… bad things happen. But often, focusing primarily on the engine or fuel is how people try to propel their business.

Marketing also has and needs three parts to make it run properly and smoothly. The Marketing Trifecta is something I've explained before and it boils down to three core parts:

• Your Home Base
• Content (Marketing)
• Analytics (KPIs)

These three parts work as an ecosystem. It's what any business-to-business company needs to build a complete marketing system that functions profitably in todays' highly-connected internet-driven, relationship-based marketing world.

Many businesses seem to think that just having a website is enough. While others think that a website is just a waste of money and time since you can get it all for free on social media. And those with websites, often have free Google Analytics connected to their website, but never look at it, or know what those stats are telling them anyway.

The home base (engine or website) should be designed to get your clients and prospects to take action. That action could be to download more information. This is where you collect data in the form of names and emails. Or to read, view, and listen to your content. This is where you collect data about what your audience finds interesting and useful.

The content (blog posts, videos, and images or fuel) is used to drive traffic to your website via social media and email. People will not read complete blog posts on social media or in an email, because it's interruptive. If they are interested, they will click and now have more of a commitment to consume and share your information. Once on that content, they may respond to a call to action to download more information or fill out a form to contact you.

Analytics (the fuel gauge) measures both your website traffic and the effectiveness of your content sharing through social media and emails. Hits alone on a website won't give you an accurate accounting of what's happening after someone clicks through. You need to know where they land and from where, how long they stay there, and what they do next. That gives you the intelligence and KPIs to make better and more effective marketing decisions.

All three of those parts (website, content, and analytics) work together to help your marketing drive sales but that is only PART of the equation.

The C-Level Superteam

Just like marketing is an ecosystem, your staff or contractors need three parts to be successful. I am not saying that other parts of your business are not critical to success, but marketing alone cannot move you forward.

Back to the car analogy. Sales is the engine that moves your business forward. Marketing is the fuel that powers the engine. And finally, accounting is the fuel gauge that helps you determine if your marketing dollars are giving you the milage that your marketing promises and if it's profitably powering your sales engine efficiently.

The C-Level Superteam is what I mentioned in my last post about the Justice League:

• Sales
• Marketing
• Accounting

All marketing, when done correctly, should be leading to conversations between your perfect customers or prospects and your sales team. Accounting (like analytics with marketing, can and should capture data that can provide metrics to help you guide the sales and marketing goals and activities.

Your customer journey follows a map. It starts with awareness. This is where people get to know your company and products or services exist. Next is education, or their desire to understand what you offer and how it can benefit them. Finally, at the sales decision phase, this is where they choose a supplier or product to purchase (hopefully yours). This is what marketing is supposed to accomplish. Then it's headed off to sales. Sales is the conversion from know and like to TRUST.

Your sales team is now tasked with closing the business, retaining the customer, getting them to repeat purchases, and exploring other solutions you can provide them as a, now, trusted advisor. They can also help customers advocate for your business to recommend you to other customers. Finally, you need to assemble and review the data. That's where accounting comes in.

Accounting can help you equate which sales efforts are being supported by marketing. Are certain products or services benefiting from specific marketing activities? Are ads driving traffic to specific products or services and is that leading to more conversations and sales. And, are certain products or services not selling as well as expected? Can funds be diverted to bolster that or should they be taken away to focus on hot sellers? That is data that accounting can collect and report to help shore up the sales and marketing systems and people in place.

All three of those (sales marketing, and accounting) should work together to build your business as fast as you want to go when you are ready to step on the gas pedal.

Your Brain

One last take on the engine metaphor. Your brain is the spark, that ignites your marketing, and drives the sales engine. No one has the experience and perspective that you do when it comes to your customers, your team, and the current business environment.

Hopefully, accounting is providing you with recent and relevant data to make the best decisions. Hopefully, you are actively engaged in marketing to help convert concepts to empathetic messages that can resonate with your customers and enhance your sales team's exposure. Speaking of sales, your active listening with your CSO, sales managers, and sales team (even if that's only you) will help you take the pulse of the marketplace, to convert data and messages to proactively steer your shiny business sports car down the right highway!

Final Thoughts

Not only have I implemented and embraced this in my business, but I have implemented it for clients, too. The results have been nothing short of amazing with 10x to 15x ROI on marketing dollars invested. There is no quick fix or easy button. It could be that all or parts of what I discussed have to be repaired or replaced, but if you keep driving with the ‘Check Engine Light' turned on, it's only a matter of time before the car breaks down and stops working altogether.

It takes some time to analyze, research, implement, and then constant effort to tweak, but it's worth it. If you want an easy button, ask a Lepreahcan or the Easter Bunny. If you want increased sales results… then get to work or call us (info@b2b-im.com) for a little help.

Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.

– Thomas Edison

I would love to hear your thoughts on your threes of marketing and business Superteam. What challenges do they face with making your marketing work for your business? Are you reviewing and tweaking your systems in accounting, sales, and marketing?

Comment below and share your thoughts, ideas, or questions about how optimizing your marketing can help your business cruise on down the highway of success.

To learn more about this and other topics on B2b Sales & Marketing, visit our podcast website at The Bacon Podcast.