Organizations across the globe acknowledge that the customer landscape has radically and rapidly transformed over the years, to remain relevant marketers are left with little choice but to move forward fearlessly. Their responsibilities have expanded over time to include metrics like cross-sell, upsell, customer engagement, revenue, etc along with inquiries, responses, and impressions.
More and more customers dislike being sold to. In the current digitally-driven environment, conventional sales practices result in friction. Higher numbers of buyers are avoiding being placed in the sales pipeline as they detest being “managed”. Instead, they request, rather demand value-based engagement. Sales were slow to catch on to the trend which allowed marketing to take the lead in becoming the engine for brand growth as they outstripped sales.
This development puts the onus on marketing to facilitate a much-prolonged section of the customer journey, take ownership of the end-to-end customer experience and provide delivery at each stage. It is precisely the reason why fearless marketers who not only help build the brand but can also improve revenue and provide value should be encouraged.
How can marketers deploy fearless marketing?
There is a variety of methods by which fearless marketers can impart a positive and bold impact. Read on to know some of them.
Revenue tech stack
People admit to getting overwhelmed by the current explosive volume of technology tools. There are hundreds of vendors in the martech and salestech universe who are vying for the marketers’ universe. Their tools often overlap each other functionality. Thus even if the tech stack is fully built, the data is often disconnected and solutions are disjointed.
Thus, it may be nearly impossible to get the whole picture of the buyer, especially when the data is being harvested from email, social media, and other reserves of unstructured information. The trouble is also bigger with a higher number of tools.
As a fearless marketer, meet this obstacle head-on. Always purchase interconnected tools to connect your software. Invest in an open platform with strong APIs. Ensure to constantly govern the tech assets as data allows customization and it is critical for effective marketing in a digital environment.
Artificial Intelligence
Marketing leaders believe that AI can be fearlessly embraced by marketers despite the perceived job threat, expensive and complex solutions. Their beliefs arise from the fact that AI will effectively take the load of a huge volume of various data-intensive routine chores off from the shoulders of the marketing department. They will be able to direct their time and energy more towards strategy, engagement, and content. Personalization attempts are also allowed to be scaled effectively across any volume of data and customers. AI gives marketers a clear view of the high-performing assets in the tech stack and learns to behave as a semi-autonomous state in some time.
Sales and marketing unification
CMOs acknowledge that majority of the organizations still treat marketing and sales as siloed operations, but the change needs to be bought about by fearless marketers. Customers shouldn’t feel like they are being pushed off from marketing to sales, and then subsequently to customer service and support. Marketing should not stand mum watching sales become irrelevant and invisible in modern times. Recognize that digital transformation of the brand offering is required, unification is critical and thus lead it effectively and proactively.
Brands need content to educate and engage with their customers at each stage of the buyer’s journey, in place of the conventional script for pouncing and pitching sales. The line between sales and marketing are rapidly blurring and blending, and marketers need to be at the helm to take control.
