How Can Marketing Be More Responsive to Customer Needs?

About the Guest

Brian has over 20 years of global operating and consulting experience at organizations ranging from start-ups to private equity to Fortune 500 companies in various high-tech industries, including SaaS, MedTech, medical devices, diagnostics, and life sciences tools. He helps small companies grow to become big by focusing on solving complex business problems and transforming organizations to meet changing customer needs. 

Connect with Brian Wagner

Key Takeaways

• Digital technologies have made it easier for b2b companies to reach and engage with their customers, and COVID has been a blessing in this regard.
• Today’s customers are more likely to enter the buying process at any stage, and b2b companies need to be prepared to sell them products immediately.
• Companies need to create digital ecosystems that meet the needs of their customers.
• There is a big focus on post-purchase customer engagement, but many businesses neglect to do it well.
• Marketing should focus on understanding the voice of the customer and reducing their pain points.
• The shift to digital sales engagement has led to a change in how sales reps interact with customers, with more emphasis on data and information.
• This has led to a change in the way sales and marketing are related, with sales becoming more focused on revenue generation and marketing becoming more focused on salesforce productivity.
• The advent of digital marketing has also reduced the cost of serving customers and sped up the process of getting buyers to make a purchase.

Quote

“The customer buyer’s journey has completely changed, you know, historically, it was a linear process… In today’s world, many customers could enter at any stage, and often many times customers come in and they’re ready to buy today. Are we ready to sell them?” – Brian Wagner

Highlights from the Episode

From a B2B marketing perspective, what do we need to do to create different types of experiences and engagements that cater to the new millennial workforce and their preferences?

This can be done by starting with the customer and understanding their unmet challenges and needs. Additionally, B2B companies should focus on creating a digital ecosystem platform to help reduce the cost of serving the customer.

What are the challenges in delighting the customer in their post-purchase experience?

The biggest challenge is a lack of data and intelligence to understand how to engage and support their customers. However, even with data, with a lack of marketing technology stack to address these problems, understanding the voice of the customer and reducing the pain points becomes challenging.

Do you have some thoughts about how the sales engagement model is evolving, given this new digital engagement dichotomy?

The traditional sales engagement model relied heavily on the sales rep to be a ‘rainmaker’ and did not know the decision-makers and influencers in the buyer’s journey. With the advent of digital marketing, the sales rep can now access data and information that can help them be more productive when reaching out to buyers. This allows for a better customer experience and faster sales cycles.

Is there a book, blog, newsletter, website, or video that you would recommend to our listeners?

• Product-Led SEO by Eli Schwartz

• The Ultimate Marketing Engine by John Jantsch

• Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch

• Moving to Outcomes by Robert Glazer

• Habit by Neale Martin

Shout-Outs

David Edelman – Professor at Harvard Business School