The Great Convergence – Revenue Lifecycle
Having been on the front lines of Marketing for the better part of two decades, we have seen trends come and go, tactics shift, new technology emerge (including the introduction of social and digital targeting) however we have never seen anything like this in all our years.
When COVD-19 took center stage, all the clients we were working with at the time started to look at their businesses through a different lens – a survival lens. They say to run your business like it’s the last day you’re in business and during this time, it truly felt like that! How do we do less with more, how can we run faster yet more affordably, how do we make it through this were just some of the questions we remember getting asked (and asking ourselves).
This is when we started to see the shift. Marketing has always been responsible for lead generation, events, editorial content, the website…etc. But haven’t you noticed the questions shifting? At first, conversations shifted around sessions, time on site, impressions. Then it evolved to clicks, CTR, acquisition sources, persona targeting. Then it shifted to conversions – which we personally loved. Now, it’s not about conversions, it’s about closed/won deals. And soon, it will be why didn’t we do repeat business with that customer (LTV – Lifetime Value)?
Welcome to the Great Convergence of Marketing, Sales and Operations. With the subtle shift in talking points coming from leadership teams and CEOs, Marketing has now taken a center stage in acquiring new leads (as it always has done), working to close those deals faster (sales enablement) and keeping those customers for life (Operations and LTV).
Marketing is unique in that it is the only pillar that can truly affect every part of the business. And here are just a few scenarios Marketing is changing:
- Marketing role is to understand the audience, develop the messaging, deploy that messaging to the those that matter to “us” and engage them in some sort of experience that drives them from a lead to a sales hand-off (leads process). It is marketing’s job to score and grade those leads and ONLY hand the ones off that are ready to a sales team.
- Once that sales handoff has been completed, Marketing can help nurture that prospect (with Sales) through the pipeline. This could be Email and Social Marketing through Marketing Automation to help drive credibility and confidence through the buying cycle, it could be automating the sales pipeline altogether through scopes, internal task triggers and lead routing based off assignment rules.
- Once the prospect is now converted to a customer it is Marketing’s job to help onboard and check-in throughout the production/delivery lifecycle. And because of the power of automation tools and CRMs, Marketing can help connect disparate teams to smooth out and cut down on the time from Marketing to Sales to Delivery.
The reality is CRMs are getting their shoulders brushed off and are now a cornerstone in Marketing Operations as well as Marketing Automation Platforms. Without these two pieces of technology sitting squarely in the hands of a Marketing team, that business is going to have its lunch eaten.
