BtoB: So Much More Than Revenue and Lead Generation

Published: February 1, 2011

To me, “BtoB marketing is all about revenue” sounds a lot like “you’ll lose 20 pounds in a week.” It’s the same kind of empty promise that is destined to fall short.

I know it’s tempting to believe that you can guarantee success by concentrating exclusively on one (seemingly manageable) aspect of the marketing process. But, let’s face it: That has never been true, and it’s certainly not true now.

Today, marketing is in the midst of an amazing revolution. The industry is changing. And these days, we’re all accountable for much more than any one thing — even if that one thing happens to be demand generation or revenue.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not denying the importance of either one. Demand gen and revenue are critical components of the marketing process. My concern is that a limited focus can blind you from other important considerations. As strange as it may sound, even too much attention on revenue can lead to trouble. Wasn’t that one of the key takeaways from the recent mortgage crisis? A focus on revenue at the exclusion of other factors led to significant negative consequences in global financial markets. For me, the lesson is clear: Don’t let that kind of tunnel vision doom your marketing strategies, too.

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Instead, broaden your perspective. Marketers who want to stay relevant need to start adopting a more holistic, integrated approach throughout the entire marketing process, from start to finish. For instance, while there’s no denying that demand gen is important, you also need to track budget, spend and resources on the flip side of the coin. You need to delight and retain your customers and continue to earn the right of their trust and their business. You need to build and scale your marketing team so that you stay relevant and drive profitable growth, all of which is much different than just driving revenue at ANY cost.

As the Aprimo CMO, I have shared five strategic initiatives, each with multiple measures, all the way from the board room to our sales and finance sister organizations. Revenue targets are a critical part of these initiatives, but other metrics are equally important to measure the growth and health of the business. Naturally, we drink our own champagne and use our software to measure and drive our efforts. But, the power comes when you take a strategic and holistic approach to marketing and not a narrow view of just demand generation and customer acquisition.  

Looking out to 2011, it’s clear that any updated, integrated BtoB approach also requires one additional factor: digital marketing. BtoB marketers today must create more content, run more campaigns, drive more inbound activity and generate more and better leads.  It no longer makes sense for you to focus solely on what you do after someone contacts or engages with your company. Critical process questions and the rigors of digital data analysis demand your attention, as well. Once you start taking full advantage of the development and review of digital content, you’ll be able to quickly reach target audiences, improve processes to enhance the customer experience, enable greater sales and increase brand awareness.

Let’s not forget our fundamental mission, after all. Just as you don’t want to focus solely on lead generation, you don’t want to devote so much attention to the hard numbers that you end up ignoring the true “art” of marketing. Ultimately, our goals are to build brands and engage with customers, and undoubtedly, that happens with a certain cycle and rhythm. BtoB marketing involves planning and budgeting, campaign definition, content and message creation and then, execution to drive leads and revenue.  The demands of today’s business environment require you to deal with that entire cycle. You need a broad perspective and a coordinated approach, not a quick fix or an “all or nothing” pronouncement.  

In order to empower your team to drive the entire BtoB cycle, you must first recognize that BtoB marketing is not just about any one thing. It’s about lead generation. It’s about revenue. And, it’s about much, much more.

As Aprimo’s Chief Marketing Officer, Lisa Arthur drives global market and brand strategy, demand generation and customer-centric initiatives. Arthur has served as CMO for Internet leader Akamai Technologies and BtoBtoC application provider Mindjet. Arthur spent nearly 7 years at Oracle where she managed the market entry and growth for Oracle CRM. Most recently, as the founder for Cinterim, Arthur applied her market-centric processes and insight to provide strategic counsel for Silicon Valley start-ups and Fortune 50 technology companies. Arthur is a seasoned keynote speaker addressing diverse topics at Web 2.0, Office 2.0, American Marketing Association (AMA) Strategy Confer­ence, Stanford University and MIT Sloan CMO Summit.

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