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Salespersons as media channel: Making marketing mix modelling work for business-to-business
Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing,
12
(4),
325-347
(2025)
Abstract
In the realm of business-to-business (B2B) marketing, quantifying the impact of salespersons’ messages alongside traditional paid media has been a persistent challenge. Traditional marketing mix models (MMMs) often neglect the nuanced contributions of salespersons as a direct selling channel. This paper aims to fill this gap by developing an integrated method that incorporates sales, marketing activities, media spend and sales message types. Utilising a novel approach combining path analysis, seemingly unrelated regression and hierarchical Bayesian techniques, the research on which this paper is based investigates the direct and intermediate effects of sales and marketing investments. Data from a masked B2B organisation are analysed, focusing on three core business outcomes: dollar sales, participation, and close rate. The findings reveal significant insights into the effectiveness and efficiency of various marketing and sales initiatives. Salespersons’ messages, when quantified and included in the MMM, showed substantial contributions to business outcomes, highlighting their role as a crucial media channel. This integrated method provides a comprehensive framework for B2B marketers to optimise resource allocation and enhance marketing effectiveness.
Keywords: marketing mix modelling; marketing effectiveness; hierarchical Bayesian marketing modelling; business to business marketing effectiveness; advertising effectiveness; media mix modelling; salesperson as media channel
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
Joann Sciarrino is the Jim and Mary Pat Nelson Chair in Business-to-Business Analytics and Co-Director of the Nelson Center for Brand and Demand Analytics in the Stan Richards School of Advertising and Public Relations. Sciarrino is an advertising and marketing practitioner and scholar with research interests in digital marketing, analytics and brand attachment. Prior to joining the University of Texas at Austin, she was the Knight Chair in Digital Advertising and Marketing at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Media and Journalism, where she taught courses in digital marketing and market intelligence. Sciarrino also taught digital marketing to MBA students in the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. In 2016, she received the University of North Carolina Tanner Award, which recognises excellence in inspirational teaching. Prior to academia, Sciarrino was executive vice president for BBDO North America, providing research, analytics and modelling solutions for more than 30 global brands, including AT&T, Starbucks, Hyatt, FedEx and L’Oreal.
Jim Friedman is Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Marketing Attribution Partners, providing multi-channel conversion modelling and customer-based journey measurement solutions to marketers. An analytics industry veteran with over 40 years of experience and innovation in the marketing measurement space, he has previously founded and co-founded other analytic firms, such as ImmediateFX and Marketing Management Analytics, where he has been instrumental in the commercialisation and expansion of the analytical framework used by companies to measure the contribution of marketing investment to sales.
William Todd Kirk is the Principal and founder of Middlegame Marketing Sciences as well as co-founder of other cutting-edge marketing analytics firms, including Marketing Attribution Partners and Provalytics. Over the course of a career that spans more than three decades, he has empowered marketing teams at organisations like AT&T, Citi, Diageo and P&G to build profitable pathways to growth by leveraging a customer-centric approach to analytics. In 2022, he won the prestigious ANA Genius Award for Marketing Analytics Innovation with client partners at PepsiCo.
Carole Anne Mayers graduated from the University of Texas with a Bachelor of Science in Public Relations and certification in the Business Foundations Program. Post graduation, Mayers started her career at Weber Shandwick, working with clients such as Unilever, Verizon Wireless and J. Hilburn in the communications and digital advertising spaces. Most recently, Mayers was vice president of marketing for a large business-to-business organisation, where she led a successful team, recognised for its marketing and sales excellence.
John J. Prudente John Prudente is a Senior Research Associate at the University of Texas at Austin’s Stan Richards School of Advertising and Public Relations. He has more than a dozen years’ experience managing online marketing campaigns and departments at both mid-market companies and nonprofit organisations. He holds a master’s in public administration from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
