What are the advantages of using a closed-loop marketing system?

Absolutely, but… The real questions are: - how much of this data? - in which formats? - and is it reliable? Most businesses will be adding marketing data to CRM to a greater or lesser extent, and some of those data points will be more useful than others. Lead source data can be an example of data-led faulty deduction… it depends how a business has set up lead source assignment. A data value you see in a report might not be the ‘real’ source, especially if the origin isn’t “system reportable” - e.g word of mouth. Of course, measuring is better than not measuring… and if you structure your data correctly, you can see what is working and what is not. But do question the insights and be curious about what the reports don’t show.

One of the biggest mistakes I see organizations make is not analyzing customer data to improve lead qualification criteria. In addition to analyzing deals won, review your existing customer base to unlock insights to improve your lead qualification and targeting strategy.

Close loop marketing is a MUST for any business. As someone who has worked in retention for many years it is so important to connect your acquisition data to your customer data. Even more important is ensuring that the KPI's between the two marketing disciplines are shared around total value of the customer. Rather than measuring 'number of leads' closed loop marketing moves to the KPI of 'valuable leads'. We would all rather quality over quantity. Knowing channel of acquisition enables you to have more personalised onboarding comms and to start understanding trends around which channels prefer what products (and are more likely to be cross or up sold to)

Having effective attribution and campaign management is one way to ensure visibility to what's working and what's not, but it's not always easy, especially with multiple touches and engagement. Leveraging technology that allows multi-touch attribution can help, but having clear processes and rules of engagement are highly recommended as well.

In Revenue Operations, and even in traditional Marketing Ops or Sales Ops, creating that frictionless customer experience is always top of mind. But too often, we create these silos of data instead of sharing the information about the customer across all of the teams that touch the customer. If you aren't already creating and fostering a shared 360 view of the customer, I would recommend that you do so. Just start small with the major touch points and create a process to gather the most critical data points. Then you can build the steps in between and collect more data as you iterate and improve your view.

In today's highly volatile and competitive market, the organizations with the deep insights have the ability to pivot, adjust, and be proactive in business decisions that affect revenue. As Marketing Ops professionals, we have so much great data available that we are the best positioned team within the Marketing organization to provide the insights, make recommendations, and guide the business in the best direction.

This provides real time feedback, on consumer behavior allowing for agility in campaign optimization opportunities leading to better ROI.