Getting gross revenue and marketing to talk to each other may feel like torture, but it has ne'er been more critical - especially for the more than 5 million mid-market industrial and B2B companies in the U.S.
The digital age and a host of technology developments have exposed four major flaws in traditional B2B marketing practices:
Lack of coordination between brand, gross revenue/marketing and digital activities
3 Marketing Principles
Dedication to gross revenue at the expense of marketing
The slowness of firms to focus their online voice
Failure to recognize that the net has changed the gross revenue dynamic
B2B companies are troubled to leverage the net to sell and grow. Unlike consumer product companies, they've been slow off the mark in the digital race due a traditional but imperfect principle that branding and data communication possibility can't really help their 'relationship' style of marketing.
What's become glaringly public is that three core marketing functions - brand, gross revenue/marketing and data communication possibility - don't behave as if they have anything in common. Worse, they don't work together to build equity, share of mind, client loyalty, or gross revenue for B2B enterprises.
The open secret always was that gross revenue and marketing were ne'er really very integrated. In some firms, they didn't even like or talk to each other. Not to mention that in many B2B firms, 'gross revenue and marketing' actually means 'gross revenue.'
But because the net has made company 'walls' ever more transparent, there are few secrets. Employees complain, whistle blowers whistle, bloggers gossip, e-mails get forwarded, the journalism investigates, and your clients actually know all about you - your product benefits and even your prices - before you ever hit their door. So what are you actually marketing?
When a company's brand, its gross revenue force, and its digital activity aren't in lockstep, clients notice. At best, clients scratch their heads at this lack of coordination; at the worst and more commonly, firms are losing credibility, client satisfaction and chance because they can't get their act together.
In 2014, Forbes Insights published, Breaking Down Marketing Silos: The Key to Consistently Achieving Customer Satisfaction and Improving Your Bottom Line.
Forbes noted that the challenges with marketing silos mean:
1. Each silo may have its own brand vision, creating a disjointed experience and content for the client.
2. Team incentives may actuate some team members to exploit and damage the brand in order to boost short-term gross revenue.
3. Poorly integrated teams suffer from inadequate cooperation.
4. Silo interests sub the way of programs that require scaling.
5. Key growth areas such as digital are not scaled because they are dispersive crosswise silos.
6. Success in one silo is leveraged slowly into others, or not at all.
And not listed, but in the mix: Inconsistent client experience crosswise divisions and functions.
The good news is that with the right market data, the marketing function is unambiguously positioned to lead the charge for integration in the name of better service to the client. Forbes pointed out why marketing is fit for a leadership role in integration:
1. Marketing brings an outside point of view.
2. Marketing can articulate the unique truth of the company and what differentiates it inside the marketplace.
3. Marketing can communicate the product and value-why products are in question to clients in different ways, characteristic segmentation in the market.
4. Marketing creates compelling stories for rallying employees and making an emotional connection with clients.
5. Marketing is a strategic seat at the table; there is no other department that can see such a company panorama and bring those perspectives together.
To overcome the silo issue, the report concludes by offering best practices for CMO's:
1. Replace competition and closing off among silos with communication and cooperation.
2. Consolidate when necessary.
3. Act as a facilitator, establishing frameworks, encouraging collaboration through teams and cognition hubs, and upgrading marketing talen.
4. Think like a consultant: create company-wide insights, train marketing talen and participate in scheme development.
5. Secure access to the C-suite. Teradata found that marketers with executive responsibilities are near double as likely as others to believe that there are no barriers to division integration.
6. Force integration. In Teradata's study, marketers say the best way for marketing to become more tangled with other functions is to set up integrated processes.
For some firms, these are lofty marketing ideals. But there are practical stairs small companies can fancy force different thinking and action. But there are practical stairs small companies can fancy encourage different thinking and action. One is to use research and market data strategically - know the client better than anyone else. A second step is to stop provision functionally and start provision via a 'communication possibility & experience canvass.' What does the client need to feel, see and hear? How do we 'behave the brand?' Who is responsible delivering that? What are the methods for delivery?
In short, turn the silos sideways. With this framework, suddenly much more people see and serve their responsibility to serve the client - including functions such as accounting, help desk, order fulfillment and e-commerce managers, and the c-suite.
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