We’re tempted to call it the Nate Silver effect: In the last few weeks a handful of industry watchers have suggested that what companies really need to succeed is a chief marketing technologist.It’s not a bad idea. Obviously, sales and marketing functions are increasingly dependent on technology. The technology choices available today are roughly double what they were last week – and some say they’ll quadruple by Thursday. (That’s a ballpark estimate, you understand – we didn’t run it by Mr. Silver.)

Our point is that while most organizations understand that they need to use technology and social media to grow their brand (and more importantly, sales) few can afford to add a chief marketing technologist to the staff.The problem that many companies fail to address is that embracing social media without employing all of the analytical tools available is a waste of time, and a sure way to misdirect your advertising and marketing budget.

You need to incorporate everything you know about your customers’ buying cycle into your online (and offline) sales strategy. It’s not hard to use Facebook, Pinterest, Reddit, and LinkedIn, and Adwords campaigns – but it is hard to use them effectively, honing them to reach and convert prospects that are in different places in the buying cycle.

We spoke about this last spring in our Concord Chamber of Commerce Series. The example we used highlighted our sales strategy for an electric fence company. (See the sample site here.) The company had a good understanding of its prospects, their decision criteria, and buying cycle, and they knew where to find those prospects – but it wasn’t enough. The company wasn’t using that knowledge effectively.

We helped by optimizing keywords for prospects at each stage of the buying cycle, tailoring content to meet them where they were – for example, identifying prospects even before they knew they were in the market for an electric fence. We reached out to those prospects differently than we did to those who were already shopping for fences. We optimized content for them and analyzed their visits to the company’s site. We tracked other prospects – those who came to the site through organic search – and adjusted our online ad campaigns to improve their impressions and interactions with the fence company. Merely posting a special offer on the company’s Facebook page wouldn’t have had the same results.

We know, because we measure those kind of things – and you should, too. Subscribe to our Growth Spurts blog, or contact us now to find out more.