Why Marketing Can't Show Conversion

- When Sales Held the Information

Open almost any materials company's website and count the clicks between its best piece of thinking and a salesperson. I've done it on a lot of sites, and the answer is nearly always one.

The button says "contact us" or "request a sample," and it's the only thing on the site a buyer can say yes to.

That button made sense for a long time, and before it was a button it was a phone number on a trade ad, a reply card in a magazine, a badge scanned at a booth. We wanted the customer in front of a rep quickly, because the rep was where the information lived: grades, processing windows, what went wrong at somebody else's plant. None of it was written down anywhere a buyer could reach.

So conversion was a handoff. Marketing's job was to find the buyer who raised a hand and pass that hand to sales. Getting them to a rep early was the work itself, and it was the right design for how the sale ran.

Conversion Is Now a Capture

Then the information moved. A buyer now finds most of what the rep used to carry without asking anyone: our site, our competitors' sites, spec databases, peers at other companies. They talk to sales late, when much of the decision is already made.

Look at the button again with that in mind. Requesting a sample is one of the last steps in a buying decision. It comes after the buyer has understood their own problem, weighed alternatives we never heard about, brought colleagues along, and decided we're worth the cost of a trial. We offer the final step at the first moment.

Buyers who aren't ready don't click. So between the first visit and the sales call, marketing has nothing to count and no way to stay in the conversation while the decision takes shape. That's why marketing can't show conversion. The only conversion it offers comes at the end, and by then the credit, and most of the influence, belongs to someone else.

The handoff still has its place. It just can't be the only thing we offer. What an early buyer will say yes to is smaller: permission to keep hearing from us. That's a capture. The buyer isn't ready to talk to a rep, but is willing to let us stay in the room while they work.

That changes what conversion means for the function. A handoff ends marketing's part. A capture begins it. Marketing earns months in which to shape how the buyer sees the problem before a rep is ever involved, and it gets a conversion of its own that it can count.

This is harder than the handoff. A form only has to exist. A capture has to be worth saying yes to, and worth staying for. That's a more demanding job for marketing, and a more valuable one.

Actioning the Insight

1. Sort every conversion point into handoffs and captures. Every form, button and "contact us" on the site. Does it pass the buyer to sales, or ask permission to keep talking? Most companies will find they have only handoffs.
2. Choose a capture vehicle. Capture comes from something designed for it: an email newsletter, or sign-up to a webinar series. What they share is that the buyer's yes lets us keep talking. A one-time download doesn't. The conversation ends when the file arrives.
3. Point your awareness content at the capture. Today most pieces end in "contact us." Make the capture the default next step, so the content you already produce builds an audience instead of waiting for a call.

A capture only opens the conversation. What we say next decides whether the buyer stays, and that's where marketing earns its place in the sale.

Until next week,

Kendall -

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