So How Do You Leap Forward As the World Opens Up?

There is virtually no upside to a terrible global pandemic. 

But if there was one small silver lining, it was this. It fast-tracked a world that was slowly becoming more digital, flexible and simple into true digital transformation mode in a matter of weeks.

For CMOs of enterprise companies, digital transformation continues to represent an enormous opportunity -- to move away from the inefficient, highly centralized, largely ineffective big funnel to a more sophisticated, personalized, B2C-inspired model. The reality is, B2B marketers can no longer rely on generic drip emails and marketing automation, hoping a corporate website that functions as the main digital experience hub will suffice. Nor can they rely on events and sales meetings (obviously). 

That’s especially important because the ability to generate digital sales is increasingly falling to marketing -- not sales -- as the primary driver, as B2B buyers rely solely on digital channels and delay the engagement with sales till the very end of the purchasing cycle. 

That remarkable shift in the buyer journey is precisely why it’s time to move enterprise marketing into Airbnb and Doordash-level territory: democratizing, empowering, micro-segmenting, and personalizing so marketing resonates with enterprise buyers.

So how do you change the game from chasing customers with flat, no-value messages to finally harness the power of digital transformation for major impact? 

Be obsessed with buyer centricity

The pandemic put a mirror in front of us all and the message was clear: change now or vanish. Now more than ever, a transactional posture (“let’s make the sale”) isn’t going to cut it. Buyers want to feel supported and nurtured, like they’re getting real value from an ongoing relationship. 

But doing that requires bringing the business much closer to the buyer -- and that only comes with a true focus on buyer centricity. Who are they? How close can you get to a near 1:1 relationship? With digital, you can get the data needed to truly understand your customers at an incredibly fine-grained level. This is why it’s not just tech but even traditional industries like medical devices, logistics, and manufacturing that are embracing digital. Without it, you can’t split those customers into smaller and smaller cohorts. The reality is: the companies that know them the best can support them the best. Customers reward that effort and value with loyalty and ongoing business.

Shift from macro-segmentation to micro-segmentation.

Broad customer segmentation results in bland, boring, totally forgettable marketing. In fact, research shows that 80 percent of traditional marketing is a waste of precious time and investment: it literally has zero effect on sales motions. 

In contrast, micro-segmentation is far more personal and powerful. We see it in account-based marketing, an admittedly extreme example but one that illustrates just how effective marketing can be when it’s highly customized to a particular audience. But it’s easier to segment in small, creative ways if you simply dial into what the customer really needs and provide it -- without any overt sales pressure. 

Cisco, for instance, had 1,500 sales engineers running demo days where they invited technical users to learn. Because the sessions were entirely centered on the needs of these customers -- education and training, with no sales presence or commercial content whatsoever -- they felt genuine and were impactful. The users liked them -- a lot. In fact, 50 percent of attendees requested follow-on sales meetings. 

Forget the “headquarters first” mindset and empower your frontline marketers

10 years ago, you needed a data mining expert to help with business intelligence. Today, anyone in any company can use one of several intuitive solutions -- like Tableau, Looker, Domo, Qlik -- to pull relevant data and see immediate insights that are necessary for their particular job. 

That’s amazing. 

People can execute faster and more effectively because they’re no longer dependent on the schedule and approval of the one or two people who control a piece of technology. 

This same trend is happening in marketing -- so embrace it now as an early adopter. Empower your frontline marketers across the entire global team to make marketing motions. Frontline marketers typically carry titles of ABM, field marketing, event marketing, partner marketing, industry marketing, and demand generation. Set the rules of engagement so there are brand standards and compliance with GDPR and other regulations. 

But a frontline marketer in Singapore should be able to build a specific buyer journey for their microsegments quickly and independently -- just like their counterparts in Italy, Denmark, and Mexico. You can’t do that by pointing to a generic corporate website and relying on a small team at headquarters.

So democratize now.

Let frontline marketers also be your quarterbacks 

Weak marketing and sales partnership is a problem that’s been known for at least five decades (possibly more!). How can marketing be an even stronger partner to sales? It starts with empowering your frontline marketers to quarterback the sales team, orchestrating the buyer journey motions in coordination with allies on sales every step of the way. This is about operating from a joint playbook -- not making a handoff -- so marketing remains involved and responsible from the outset all the way through deal closure.

Wrapping up

Ultimately, this is an incredible time to be a marketing leader. Use the availability of digital and a rapidly changing world as the impetus to reevaluate everything you do. That means moving away from a big funnel and MQL scoring to microsegments and a buyer’s journey that’s heavily tilted toward support. That means shifting your marketing operational model from control to governance and empowering your team to take smart, guided but largely independent actions. And it means working much closer with Sales, moving a greater degree of responsibility for the buyer journey under Marketing.

So seize the moment. You have both nothing (and everything) to lose.