“Modern marketing” hype lacks coherence and relevance because it comes from vendors that focus on tactics, such as lead nurturing or predictive analytics, to sell products or services, says Jay Gaines, Vice President and Group Director for sales and marketing consultant SiriusDecisions. “B2B CMOs should reject generic invocations of ‘modern marketing’ and, instead, focus on developing characteristics that drive high performance in the context of their unique business needs.”
Gaines recently identified five areas of focus for increased B2B marketing performance for VentureBeat (VentureBeat.com), an online news source for technology innovation:
Technology: Focus on people and skills
A primary challenge for B2B marketing leaders is developing the proper skills to get full value from an ever-expanding set of marketing technologies. The problem is that most chief marketing officers have no experience hiring, onboarding and managing highly technical employees. Successful CMOs can work with technical peers (e.g., the CIO or CTO) and technical recruiters to understand how to audit technical skills, find the right people with the right skills, and develop strong onboarding processes.
Alignment: The buyer and customer journey as a blueprint
CMOs should be the catalyst for creating buyer journey maps (what are the typical decisions buyers make that lead to a purchase) and customer lifecycle maps (from onboarding to retention and growth), in partnership with sales, service and product management. Once a shared view of buyers and customers is established, all relevant functions will have the information they need to jointly define their roles, responsibilities and key points of cross-functional alignment.
Measurement: Measure the focus of marketing
Leading CMOs understand and actively manage the focus of their departments. A hallmark of high-performing marketing organizations is that the majority of resources—between 70 and 80 percent of budget and staff—is focused on planned and measurable activity. CMOs must build agreement with fellow leaders on marketing’s primary responsibilities and areas of business contribution.
Organization: Design your ecosystem
High-performing marketing organizations are created in a variety of ways, but without exception, they are process-driven and built with a focus on efficiently and effectively performing tasks necessary to support primary key performance indicators. To begin, start with a core activity that extends across multiple marketing roles, such as the plan/build/ run process, to bring campaigns to life. Next, identify critical tasks and areas of responsibility, including targeting and segmentation, persona development, buyer’s journey mapping, definition campaign themes, messaging, content creation, localization, and the building of sales enablement tools. Then map these tasks and responsibilities to the roles within the marketing organization.
Enablement: Champion marketing
Every CMO thinks about how marketing must enable sales, but few think about how marketing must be enabled. The fact is that high-performing marketing organizations require enablement from other functions in order to effectively contribute to the business. A few primary areas where B2B marketers need to be enabled include support from other leaders to keep marketing focused, knowledge transfer from product management and sales about new and enhanced offerings, and customer/buyer insights.
Step back for success
Gaines advises marketing managers to take a step back from the hype around new tactics and technologies. “Consider what high-performance marketing means within your business, and use that definition as a framework to assess and improve the organization in the context of its unique business needs.”
