Recent focus on #ABM – Account Based Marketing – has spurred a lot of conversation about how ABM differs from Inbound Marketing. Our view is that these descriptive labels essentially are all attacking the same challenge of driving sustainable revenue growth. ABM is more focused on engaging, converting and expanding an account – a typical B2B sales and […]
There is a spectrum of selling from “brains for hire” to “commodity product”. “Brains for hire” requires the “seller-doer” model where the selling professional has both subject matter expertise and services delivery expertise. A typical example of this is the consulting partner at a management consulting firm. Solution selling is in the middle of this spectrum and requires consultative selling, yet […]
A Revenue Architecture is a process for accelerating revenue growth. Rev-en-ue noun: the return or yield from any kind of property, patent, service, etc.; income. Ar-chi-tec-ture noun: the process and product of planning, design and construction. “Revenue Architecture” is the process and product of planning, designing and constructing the capabilities for sustainable revenue performance. A Revenue Architecture helps businesses of any size align marketing […]
The focus on Account Based Marketing and it’s requirements has ignited a range of discussions and debates and specialized B2B and ABM technologies and processes. For teams that are account based marketing focused, you might think that a closed loop marketing architecture doesn’t apply. Closed Loop Marketing is data and predictive insight-driven. How does this apply to a highly relationship-centric account based marketing focus?
Account based marketing (ABM) is a B2B marketing and sales process that begins with a focus on accounts rather than only ‘leads’ or people. Rather than primarily using the conventional method of casting a wide net to reach potential leads, ABM “flips the funnel” and focuses on specific target companies or accounts, the “business”, instead of only the “lead” or person.
Businesses need both inbound and outbound. For B2B and Account Based Marketing, this should be managed across a single revenue (marketing-sales) value chain. We call this integrated program approach a Closed Loop Marketing Architecture … and it works!
We are launching an exciting new content campaign introducing our new Closed Loop Marketing Architecture (CLMA) in the next few weeks. This new content is central to our core mission – to deliver closed loop marketing solutions for complex sales. Companies with complex sales, including financial services, investment management and B2B are looking for ways to align marketing and sales and drive top-line growth. CLMA helps them achieve this.
As we know, several factors fundamentally differentiate B2B from B2C. B2B (Business-to-Business) sales are transactions between business entities and B2C (Business-to-Consumer) sales is where businesses sell to consumers.
Typically B2B sales are complex and considered. Evaluation and decision making follows multiple stages of learning and evaluation. B2B sales cycles are longer and purchases typically have higher dollar volumes and higher risk. B2B is often characterized by team selling to committee buying. Decisions involve various stakeholders and influencers including economic buyers, solution users, procurement specialists, domain experts, etc. B2B buyers self sell. Sales teams are no longer the single source of product information and benefits. Education has shifted to the web where buyers search products and ‘self-sell’.