Strategies to Become A More Impactful, Buyer-Driven Marketing Org
According to Marketing Land, specific strategies can help B2B organizations in a space where the buyer is definitely in charge.
B2B marketing is changing dramatically. It's going through a significant shift in requirements, responsibilities, and expectations. Now is the time to project out to what the world will look like in two to three years and develop a strategy and roadmap.
Go all-in on a buyer-driven marketing strategy
Re-think the role of marketing automation in your revenue effort
"A generation of marketers, myself included, grew up with marketing automation as the center of the B2B marketing universe. No doubt, these systems helped us advance marketing's ability to build a database of prospects, to generate leads for sales, and to measure marketing activity.
While marketing automation can play a role going forward, we must drop many of the bad habits it has created. This includes arbitrary lead scoring for prioritization and activation, email as the primary nurture channel, and measurement systems that are focused on gaining credit, versus delivering intelligence to inform performance improvement."
Build trust, authenticity and compliance into every effort
B2B marketing is changing dramatically. It's going through a significant shift in requirements, responsibilities, and expectations. Now is the time to project out to what the world will look like in two to three years and develop a strategy and roadmap.
Go all-in on a buyer-driven marketing strategy
|
"80% of B2B buyers want a B2C experience, according to Salesforce's 2020 annual State of the Connected Customer research. Yet we are still operating based on internal goals and processes. Exhibit A: programs are executed based on our product launch dates or industry-scheduled events, not the buyer's process or timeline. Even our marketing teams are organized around our internal programs and functions. We don't even realize how these siloed internal constructs have us fighting for our buyer's attention. For example, the events team is inviting pros to the next gathering, the digital team is delivering ads and content, content syndication is focused on generating leads, and the marketing operations team is emailing "leads" attempting single-channel nurturing. It's all on our internal process and timeline, not the buyers'. And to put an exclamation point on this inward-focused challenge, we're using marketing funnels as our primary form of truth about the buyer and the buying process. Funnels are important for measurement, not for driving buying journeys. When we say things like, "our leads are not converting," it is often because the marketing funnel has been turned into an artificial construct built on our internal, artificial lead focus, versus truly ceding control to the buyers and using our tools to measure for optimization." |
"A generation of marketers, myself included, grew up with marketing automation as the center of the B2B marketing universe. No doubt, these systems helped us advance marketing's ability to build a database of prospects, to generate leads for sales, and to measure marketing activity.
While marketing automation can play a role going forward, we must drop many of the bad habits it has created. This includes arbitrary lead scoring for prioritization and activation, email as the primary nurture channel, and measurement systems that are focused on gaining credit, versus delivering intelligence to inform performance improvement."
Build trust, authenticity and compliance into every effort
|
"If we are committed to being buyer-centric, delivering great experiences, and becoming an advanced marketing organization, we must put "trust" at the core of everything we do. We are not waiting around for compliance and regulations to be passed as laws. The most effective marketers have global permissioning and opt-in and opt-out built into their systems and processes (integrated infrastructure). They authentically show how much they value the buyers' privacy and their preferences. No long, complicated forms, unsolicited spammy emails disguised as nurtures, or obstacles to opting out (Note: this is also part of leaving some of the bad habits developed from past eras of marketing). No one cares how large your database is. What matters is how marketable and compliant it is. Data quality is foundational to buyer-centric experiences and impact. It's the key factor in a relevant customer experience, and it has a big impact on how your teams work together, develop strategies, and compete in your markets. With B2B buyers increasingly relying on digital channels, you must be ready to engage with multiple buying groups on their terms and where they research. It's critical that you simplify data management by filling your pipeline with validated high-quality, actionable data." |
-
DABK -
[ 1 ] Thanks - Reply
{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[11663892].message }} -