The marketing engine is a crucial part of a B2B organization’s branding and pipeline. While CMOs invest heavily into enhancing the customer experience and moving prospects down the funnel, their spending is often scrutinized by other functions, questioning marketing’s contribution to the company’s revenue. As a result, CMOs frequently find themselves defending their investments and share of funding.
The issue is clear: the marketing engine tends to focus on smaller elements that can contribute to the bottom line, but other leaders may not see the connection. By setting the right priorities, however, CMOs can avoid creating conflicts of focus and demonstrate how marketing contributes to the company’s bottom line. Here are three steps to drive revenue growth in a B2B environment.
1. Drive Revenue According to Revenue Growth Model
While some marketers would argue that focusing on the smaller elements can lead to improved revenue generation, it’s easy for CMOs to get carried away while focusing on elements that don’t generate high-return opportunities. The key to navigating this potential pitfall is by aligning marketing’s goals to the organization’s revenue growth model.
This is critical to a CMO’s go-forward plan before focusing on the smaller elements: revenue must be at top of mind. By understanding what revenue sources and target personas the company is focused on, CMOs ensure that their campaign goals and timeframes remain aligned with the rest of the functions. This also provides opportunities for CMOs to demonstrate their ROI measurements in a timely manner, proving every dollar’s worth in the drive for revenue growth.
2. Work With Sales to Ramp Up Marketing
Once unified goals are established, CMOs can focus on driving marketing effectiveness. While increasing headcount and optimizing ad spend can help leaders see greater results, they are only translated into revenue opportunities if sales is also in tune with marketing’s efforts. Thus, CMOs should consider connecting and strategizing with key sales leaders before setting timeframes and tactics.
With sales kept in the loop for all marketing initiatives, marketing becomes more than a tool to get prospects into the pipeline: they also become a force multiplier for sales to capture winning deals. Leveraging on marketing campaigns to smoothen the buyer’s journey, CMOs contribute to more upsell/cross-sell motions along the pipeline, building up strong revenue streams and demonstrating that marketing is more than just a newsletter.
3. Build Customer Experience & Manage Product Portfolio
With clear processes established to capture leads, only now CMOs should prioritize enhancing the top-of-funnel experience. Top marketers know that it goes beyond cold-calling and brochures: you need targeted content that is tailored to solve your prospect’s pain points. CMOs can start by cataloging the company’s products or services into clear, distinct categories, helping to set up key target personas for the company’s offerings.
Segmenting products into groups benefits both marketers and prospects: campaigns can utilize targeted and purposeful messaging to help smoothen the decision-making process. Curated content also helps humanize the company, allowing CMOs to create campaigns that resonate with prospects, potentially improving marketing’s outcome and revenue contribution.
Do you have clear priorities for what marketing should focus on to generate revenue? Follow our blog for more insights into what top CMOs are doing to get ahead in a B2B environment.
