Marketers. They’ve always added value to companies, but it hasn’t always been clear as to how much value. And on what scale? Its never been easy to trace and measure their influence.

Until recently.

As more traditional campaigns are integrated with smart technology and as there continues to be a dramatic increases in online ad spend, companies are able to piece together the cause and effect of holistic marketing efforts.

Dozens of companies have built marketing automation platforms that help manage, quantify, track, and adjust marketing efforts in real-time. Providers like Eloqua and Marketo help businesses “sell the right product to the right customer at the right time for the right price.”

This isn’t a new marketing concept by any means. But it has been long overdue for a facelift and so, industry leaders have brought the buzz back to Revenue Performance Management (RPM).

What companies like Eloqua and Marketo are doing is offering a revolutionary new execution to this age-old idea.

By implementing an RPM system into your business you’ll be able to acquire new customers at lower costs, close business deals faster and enjoy higher ROI on marketing and sales investments.

There are 5 core principles that compose the guts and gears behind revenue performance management. If you implement them you’ll find that your sales and marketing teams will no long play the blame game. It’ll streamline task management and support a cohesive workplace where all employees, regardless of department will be efficiently working towards your common business goals.

Reach

For starters, you need to determine the size of the audience you have access to. That could mean the number of people in your address book or your email database size. It could also mean the amount of Facebook friends, LinkedIn connection, and/or even Twitter followers you have.

At all times you should be thinking of new ways to increase your reach. Further refining who your market is, paired with highly targeted advertising is your best bet.

If you don’t have the bandwidth or know how to increase your reach you can enlist the help of companies like WordStream. They’ll run strategic pay per click lead generation campaigns that’ll do all the detailed analysis, continious montiroing, and time-consuming manual optimization needed for a successful campaign.

Value

Determine how many prospects you have in each stage of the sales pipeline. Technology makes it simple to segment and categorize these potential clients based on their level of interest.

Breaking this down allows your sales teams to spend more time selling to high potential customers. This leaves the low-potential customers in the hands of marketers to further nurture and eventually pass onto the sales team if and when they become a qualified lead.

Conversion

The conversion process is the act of measuring the rates at which leads move through the pipeline. This allows companies to work out any kinks and to make proper adjustments.

Velocity

Measuring the time it takes for a prospect to become a customer. And breaking down the time spent at each intermediate stage. It’s no longer a guessing game when it comes to accelerating this process which in turn lends to a much more accurate and reliable forecasting of future revenues.

Return

Because of your ability to aggregate and analyse the metrics acquired throughout the entire sales cycle, a company can provide a clear cost of specific marketing and sales activities in relation to the revenue they generate.

Understanding these five factors will help your company focus on the true drivers and hindrances to revenue growth. RPM software and platforms will then enable the sales and marketing teams to monitor the same metrics which in turn will lend to work flow and budget allocation optimization.