Traditionally isolated marketing, sales, and IT teams are being galvanized by the collaborative customer pipeline methodology of revenue marketing
Why traditional marketing standards are no longer suitable
“Marketing and sales teams have always “coexisted,” which is to say they’ve both operated as separate teams in the same company without much crossover. Generally, marketing would have a vague sense of target clients and focus on flashy launches and content-driven lead generation where these leads would then be passed on to sales. Put simply, marketing handled the awareness and interest stages of a buyer pipeline and sales would handle a buyer’s consideration, evaluation, and purchase stages.” Says Stephanie Staiano, CSS ProSearch Sales Director.
This method moved the needle until just recently when buyers rapidly moved to a digital-first buying practice. A Gartner study reported that B2B buyers spend 27% of their time doing independent online research and only 17% talking with potential suppliers. Even more so, Forrester reported that 68% of buyers prefer online research up from 53% in 2015.
All this independent research puts more responsibility on marketed content, a necessity met by the burgeoning buyer cycle method that is revenue marketing. But what exactly is revenue marketing?
The coherent coalescence of revenue marketing
At the most fundamental level, think of the revenue marketing method as the opposite of a traditionally siloed marketing department devoid of sales data and interaction. Revenue marketing is a fully collaborative approach to carrying customers through the buying pipeline with marketing, sales, and other teams working in lockstep.
From buyer awareness to buyer purchase, marketing teams share data, processes, and goals with sales to identify and connect with ideal customer profiles (ICPs). Additionally, revenue marketing shifts goals away from strict lead generation and toward final revenue evaluation.
Why revenue marketing is gaining popularity so quickly
As stated above, buyers in 2022 and beyond are trending toward independent online research and online buying instead of engaging in sales relationships to get them to a buying stage. A McKinsey study found digital interactions are two to three times more important to customers compared to traditional sales which make marketing’s digital analytics, personalized advertisements, and other digital communication more vital than ever to customer strategy.
The components of a revenue marketing strategy
Understanding your buyer – leverage your proprietary customer and account data for a better scope of your ICP and understand them from a “jobs to be done (JTBD)” perspective. In other words, cater your marketing strategy to your client’s end goals. Study their tendencies during your buyer’s awareness, consideration, and decision-making stages to personalize your message as much as possible.
Align your marketing, sales, and other stakeholding teams – Make abundantly clear who the targeted buyer of this revenue marketing operation is across all joined teams for complete transparency. Build shared goals and revenue KPIs, and ensure data is open and available for all teams to access providing real-time progress.
Define process implementation and execution – Once shared goals and KPIs are set, plan marketing campaign touch points and content outreach at said touchpoints. Agree on demand management and communication efforts throughout the buyer funnel process.
Add in required technical capabilities – An extension of process definition, pick and invest in your technical tools that fit your outreach methods. Consider communication tools like email campaign outreach and social media engagement as well as CRM platform usage for optimal workflow.
Manage results and iterate accordingly – Once you’ve reached the end of your initial buyer process, assess revenue KPIs met and tweak your processes accordingly until you reach your targeted revenue goals (and hopefully beyond).
Three types of revenue marketing models
This list is by no means exhaustive, but it’s a solid basecamp for understanding the blueprints that exist that will lead to further methodology in the future.
Sales Benchmark Index (SBI)
This revenue marketing methodology bridges all classic sales metric-tracked data with marketing as they work in lockstep in personalizing digital outreach and guiding ICPs through the customer journey. This SBI model shares these strategies with marketing through the entire process to get an accurate revenue picture:
- Go-to-market (GTM) strategy
- Segmentation strategy
- Talent strategy
- Customer experience
- Product strategy
- Pricing strategy
- Marketing strategy
- Sales strategy
- Customer success
The GAME Model
This method simplifies the SBI system breaking its model into four parts. Created by expert marketer Yaag Ganesh, the GAME model for revenue marketing stands for gather, agree, map, and execute.
- Gather: With the help of big data and relevant case studies, identify the ICPs and account profiles you want to invest marketing dollars into.
- Agree: Decide as one unit with your sales and IT teams (and any other relevant stakeholders) a target list focused on revenue potential. Agree on processes, buyer journey touchpoints, and KPIs among other things to ensure transparency across teams.
- Map: Link funnel stages from awareness through purchase with content offerings all along the way.
- Execute: Implement your entire campaign with the correct personalized message for each buyer and account profile. These campaign steps should be edited and iterated with input from all stakeholders until optimized revenue is reached.
Marketo’s Six-Step Framework
Marketo boasts a similar identification-through-evaluation process as the GAME model with six distinct stages instead of four.
- Identify: Identify ICPs and key accounts likely to purchase based on market analytics and relevant case studies.
- Allocate resources: Decide on tools, programs, and outreach methods to invest based on forecasted returns.
- Operationalize: Employ your most-effective tech stack across marketing and sales to operationalize your strategies.
- Deliver: Deliver planned outreach and personalized content in a timely, preplanned schedule outlined in your strategy.
- Track full-funnel: Track your buyer’s journey noting the success/failures of each touchpoint along the way to promote iteration and optimization of your process for maximum revenue.
- Evaluate: Understand what key metrics were hit and which were not based on ROI outcome.
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Attract the highest potential future buyers by building your combined sales and marketing team with the help of talent experts at CSS ProSearch. With a focus on technology, consulting, and healthcare verticals, CSS ProSearch provides the finest talent through seamless recruitment processes to help you attract and retain your ideal candidate profiles. Connect with CSS ProSearch today to fill your buyer funnel from start to finish!