Creating A Market Development Team
What is Market Development and why does my company need a Market Development Team?
Market Development, in short, is a group that lies between Marketing and Sales and is responsible for generating leads for the Sales team. A Market Development team is responsible for helping shape both the Sales and Marketing messages while at the same time creating solid opportunities for the sales organization.
Activities a Market Development team focuses on are typically:
-1:1 E-Mail Marketing
-Cold Calling
-Creating Thought Leadership through whitepapers, blogs, webinars etc.
-Booking and Attending Tradeshows/Speaking Engagements
-Create Marketing Documents for use on Sales and Marketing Teams
-Create Metrics on Marketing Efforts by tracking success of leads
These are the major activities a Market Development Team will focus on. Gaining a core competency on these tasks along with great organizational structure usually leads to a very successful Sales team.
WHY DOES MY COMPANY NEED A MARKET DEVELOPMENT TEAM?
Having a Market Development team (sometimes referred to as an inside sales team) keeps an organization more efficient. Marketing can focus on their core competencies while Sales can focus their time on actually selling vs. finding leads to sell to. Because Market Developers are incentivized to get the highest quality and highest number of leads into the sales team, they make the sales team more efficient, can measure the ROI of marketing’s efforts, and tie the loop between Marketing and Sales that is often lost in most organizations.
I offer consulting to organizations looking to create Market Development Teams as well as those who are looking at improving their operations.
Adam Salamon is an expert in the fields of Market Development, Personal Branding, and Word-of-Mouth. You can reach him through his website at http://www.adamsalamon.com as he is available for speaking engagements and consults regularly on the topics of Market Development and Persoanl Branding.
Tags: Business Development, Inside Sales, Market Development, marketing, sales
