Imagine that three marketing consultants enter your organization’s headquarters (if you’re still meeting there!) to give your management team advice regarding where to start when it comes to achieving revenue growth. Let’s hear their counsel:
Up steps Consultant #1.
Consultant #1 says the same thing you’ve probably have heard for well over a decade:
The consultant isn’t entirely wrong.
But simply existing on digital doesn’t mean you’re showing up at the right time in the right place, or to predictably prompt a complex B2B sale. You may be able to forecast the number of views a given campaign might bring to your website ... but forecasting pipeline revenue? That’s a different beast.
Thank you for your time, Consultant #1, but let’s hear from someone else.
The Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation, with help from BusinessOnline, surveyed 100+ global marketing leaders about digital marketing.
Just 2% felt their organizations were expert-level in this area.
65% of respondents acknowledge that their digital programs are in the “new
and experimental” phase.
You’re using old-school tactics in an old-school industry, Consultant #1 explains. Too reliant on traditional media and antiquated trade show strategies. And overdependent on conference rooms and handshake deals. It’s time to trade in your suits for social posts and your in-person meetups for online clickthroughs.
Interesting, tell me more...
It’s Consultant #2’s time at bat.
Consultant #2 says you need a multi-touch attribution method and some lead-scoring.
The problem, Consultant #2 says, is that you can’t distinguish how your various marketing touchpoints such as...
The tradeshow badge scans you just processed
The attendance of the webinar event held last month
The impressions related to the big-profile article scored in that trade journal
The advertising that accompanied it
The solution is simple, the consultant says. Just pull apart everything, invent a point or letter grading system for each tactic, and make future investments and forecasts in accordance. Easy peasy.
Not so fast. The problem here is that most B2B purchases aren’t researched or decided by one stakeholder anymore.
These days, they’re made as group decisions that hinge on positive encounters experienced by multiple people over an extended amount of time. Gartner data suggests the average buying committee now has 11 members.
Further, multi-touch attribution is difficult to create and nearly impossible to validate. Even when they use a best-in-class approach, half of sales and marketing still don’t believe their lead-scoring processes spot the best accounts.
Next!
Is that even possible?
Predictable revenue?
...individually contribute to your top-of-funnel success. Equally problematic is that you can’t show how all those “leads” convert to sales.
Here comes Consultant #3.
Consultant #3 worries that you simply don’t know enough about customer segments and their buying triggers.
Your targeting lacks focus and as a result, your content and messages have no science behind them. Your approach is far too one-size-fits-all, which means it’s rarely relevant, and falls on deaf ears … or worse, is sent to the spam folder.
Citing former Forrester VP and Principal Analyst Kerry Cunningham (who now works for 6sense), Consultant #3 says that 95% of your marketing budget, like that of so many others, attempts to drive anonymous engagement to your website.
Selling to a faceless customer misses the point, the consultant says.
You need tools to uncover more about them and better serve their needs.
Someone get Consultant #3 a contract!
Now we’re getting somewhere.
But it isn't. Click the nearby image to learn why.
You’re behind the curve in digital.
The tradeshow badge scans you just processed
The attendance of the webinar event held last month
The impressions related to the big-profile article scored in that trade journal
The advertising that accompanied it
(Click the nearby image to learn why)
Further, multi-touch attribution
is difficult to create and nearly
impossible to validate. Even when they use a best-in-class approach, half of sales and marketing still don’t believe their lead-scoring processes spot the best accounts.