I’ve worked in the technology marketing industry for most of my career, and if there’s one thing that has remained a constant goal, is identifying new approaches for reducing the friction between sales and marketing in order to create better alignment and increase the effectiveness of those groups within the overall organization.
I recently had the pleasure of joining a teleconference hosted by Peter O’Neill, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research (@poneillforr), called “Marketing Is the New Differentiation in the Tech Industry.” Peter made some incredibly valid and insightful points about shifting priorities for technology marketers, including the need to become more strategic in the face of commoditized technologies while finding new opportunities to exert influence in terms of brand engagement and customer interactions.
Early in the presentation, Peter discussed the results of a recent survey conducted by Velocity Partners Ltd. that posed the question, “The hardest part of B2B marketing is ____”. The majority of respondents answered “convincing internal people.” That response was higher than other choices such as generating leads, generating content and proving value to prospects.
Based on my experience, that internal buy-in continues to be one of marketers’ biggest challenges and inhibitors to our success. The bottom line is that without the hard data to show marketing results and ROMI, that alignment and proving shared successes through better sales and marketing collaboration may always remain out of reach.
To that end, Peter then introduced Forrester’s new “Marketing Flywheel” concept that outlines how companies should organize around marketing operations, which includes marketing analytics, services procurement and financial control, and the interrelationships among functional areas such as field marketing, channel enablement, brand awareness and product management. In many of the organizations I’ve worked in, we’ve gone through a similar process of determining how marketing operations should be organized to improve efficiencies and drive revenues.
Source: Forrester Research, Teleconference: “Marketing Is The New Differentiation In The Tech Industry,” December 7, 2010 by Peter O’Neill, Vice President, Principal Analyst
Based on Forrester’s analysis, what I found particularly interesting were the areas in which technology marketers are now investing at larger firms: Out of 127 enterprise B2B tech marketing directors, 21% are investing in demand management, 14% on branding and awareness and 13% on product marketing. Further, investments in demand management are expected to increase while product marketing will eventually decrease over time.
One of the most interesting parts of the presentation addressed how marketers need to respond to future challenges. Peter states that “the sales cycle is influenced (or even begins!) in customer service, and so marketing must turn customer references into advocates.”
He goes on to say that the role of the technology marketer “won’t be to plan bursts of communication on a year-long calendar but to respond to and be part of the ever-changing dialogue with customers.” And it won’t be “merely to talk at consumers but to listen and engage “one on one.”
These insights fall directly in line with Neolane’s strategy and support our thinking in that marketers need to start having less communications with customers and prospects, and instead start establishing achievable and sustainable one-to-one personalized conversations. A shift made possible by conversational marketing technology. More than ever, knowing your customers and showing that you can provide value is critical to building lifetime dialogues and more rewarding customer relationships.
So what about you? Do you agree or disagree with the promise of the Marketing Flywheel? Feel free to share your comments or opinions below. All feedback is welcome!
