You may have sensed it. You may already be reacting to it. During the last decade, enterprise marketing has experienced a fundamental shift.
What’s different, exactly? The buyer.
The Enterprise Buyer Has Changed
Today’s enterprise buyer is better informed. They’ve done more research on their own, and they don’t want to talk to a salesperson right away. In fact, today’s buyer has more information at their fingertips than at any point in history. They can search the internet and, in an instant, find detailed information on their problem and how to fix it. They can research resolutions, technology, services and anything else they need to move forward. They can even find a rating on your company in multiple places you don’t control.
Today’s buyer has more information at their fingertips than at any point in history.
But Enterprise Marketing Has Stayed the Same
And yet, marketers are still producing leads for sales in the same old ways we did before—by focusing on quantity. We’re still telling business development teams to spam LinkedIn, and we are still sticking those poor souls on the phone to call anyone and everyone who ever interacted with the organization—or to reach out via email when there’s been no real indication of interest.
We’ve all been on the receiving end of these efforts as well. We’ve all gotten those cold reach-outs, and we’ve all thought less of the organizations who sent them. So why are they still in our own marketing mix?
It’s Time for a New Approach
It’s time to start thinking about a new approach—one that better speaks to this new buyer. One that is based on quality of leads, not just quantity. One that puts marketing at the center of the process alongside sales—and produces better results in the process.
For the past several years at Rivetica, we’ve been helping clients make the shift from quantity to quality demand generation, and we’ve seen impressive results:
- Higher conversions, with many clients achieving and maintaining up to 35-40% lead-to-opportunity ratios
- More deals made: as high as 30-50% gains in the close ratio on opportunities
- Ironically, an increased quantity of leads once the ball got rolling
- More influence for marketing departments, impacting 50-60% of the total pipeline
- Stronger relationships with sales (who doesn’t want that?)
- A tighter connection between marketing efforts and revenue creation
For the past several years at Rivetica, we’ve been helping clients make the shift from quantity to quality demand generation, and we’ve seen impressive results.
Here’s How to Make the Turnaround
Over the next few months, we’ll be posting about the journey you can take your team on in order to see some of the results listed above. We’ll break this journey down into a number of distinct, easy-to-follow steps—all with the hope of inspiring you to look at your job differently, and maybe even change the way marketing is seen in your organization.
- Post #2: The quantity-to-quality shift: One simple rule for getting your team on board
- Post #3: How to create high-quality content worthy of high-quality leads
- Post #4: How to structure your team towards quality lead-gen
- Post #5: Why it’s time to rethink your customer segmentation (and how)
- Post #6: The first (and priciest) part of demand generation: building awareness
- Post #7: Forget your sales process. Lead nurturing is all about your buyer’s process.
- Post #8: Better lead scoring. Better leads.
- Post #9: Let’s put it all together: Here’s your new lead gen process.
- Post #10: Four steps to making the change last
We look forward to sharing what we’ve learned and hearing from you in return. And if you’re ready to talk about making the shift from quantity to quality, give us a shout. We’d love to connect.