Comprehensive Strategy
The company’s approach demonstrates the importance of addressing multiple challenges and adapting to evolving customer needs in a competitive industry.
End-To-End Customer Experience Journey
Implementing a comprehensive customer experience journey plan underscores the value of understanding and addressing customer needs throughout their engagement with the company, benefiting both the cloud-based offering and traditional sales engagements.
Embracing Innovation And New Technologies
The company’s adoption of a cloud-based solution and a new sales and marketing strategy emphasizes the significance of staying ahead in technology and adapting to shifting customer expectations.
Top Discussions Among Marketing and Product Marketing Leaders
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The engineering solutions company faced three challenges in capturing untapped market segments, which consist of smaller companies and startups: targeting a new customer type, crafting a suitable messaging strategy, and adapting the sales process to this new customer segment:
- Building a new audience: The company had no prior experience or communication channels with smaller companies and startups, making it difficult to effectively reach and engage with this new audience.
- Targeting the message: The highly technical nature of the product and the customer required a tailored messaging strategy that a standard digital marketing agency could not provide.
- Revamping the sales process: The new customers’ expectations and budget were different from the company’s traditional customer base, necessitating a new sales approach that fit the customers’ needs while still being a profitable venture for the company.
To address these challenges, the company developed a new product strategy that included a cloud-based subscription (SaaS) model, making it more affordable and accessible for smaller companies and startups. However, they also recognized that a new product alone wouldn’t be enough; marketing and sales needed to adapt as well. As the Product Marketing Director, I was brought in to develop and execute a comprehensive go-to-market strategy that aligned with the company’s objectives.
- Building a new audience: The company sought my specialized marketing and technology expertise to craft a blogging strategy for attracting inbound traffic and segmenting audiences. Standard digital agency approaches, such as building keyword strategies with tools like SEMRush or Google Search Console, proved insufficient due to the niche’s low search volume. My unique combination of marketing expertise and technical knowledge in B2B technology and advanced engineering solutions enabled me to create a winning content strategy that other agencies couldn’t deliver.
- Targeting the message: The new messaging needed to resonate with engineers, so the company collaborated with me as a B2B technology marketing expert to map out the customer journey and create content for each stage. This collaboration leveraged the company’s in-house product expertise and my assistance in crafting new marketing messages and content.
- Revamping the sales process: This involved training the sales teams on transactional selling and implementing a CRM for lead and opportunity tracking. Under my guidance, the company developed sales collateral and combined CRM with marketing automation to facilitate the dispatch of content and measure its contribution to closed sales and conversions.
Bringing in a Product Marketing Director with a deep understanding of the highly technical nature of the product and the customer was a game-changer for our go-to-market strategy. Their expertise in developing and executing a comprehensive approach has greatly contributed to the success of our cloud-based offering. As a result, we have expanded our customer base, which has given us insights from a wider variety of organizations, driving our technology to new heights. Embracing external expertise and adaptability has fostered a culture of continuous innovation within our organization, enabling us to stay ahead of the competition and maintain our leadership in the technology space.
Implimentation
Transforming Marketing and Sales Efforts for Effective Product Launch and Customer Engagement
Combining In-House Technical Expertise with Latest B2B Marketing Insights
The company’s strategy relied on collaboration between internal technical experts and myself, a B2B technology marketing expert, to ensure a successful product launch. As Product Marketing Director, I developed and executed a comprehensive go-to-market strategy that aligned with the company’s objectives and catered to the highly technical nature of the product and the customer.
We created a content strategy that targeted content specific to each stage of the customer journey, ensuring relevance and engagement, and leveraged in-house expertise to produce technically accurate and high-quality content. Recognizing the need for diverse content types tailored to each stage of the customer journey, I helped the company identify appropriate content formats, as they lacked experience in marketing to this specific customer segment and scaling their efforts cost-effectively.
Together, we developed a variety of content, such as blog posts, case studies, webinars, and interactive demos, effectively conveying the solution’s value and demonstrating how potential customers could quickly benefit from the offering. By leveraging the company’s in-house expertise and my marketing experience, we created targeted and engaging content that resonated with the new customer segment, allowing them to experience the advantages of the solution first-hand.
To further support the new customer segment, I provided sales enablement content, equipping the sales team with materials tailored to the unique needs of these customers. With buy-in from the sales team, I implemented CRM tools integrated with a marketing automation platform, facilitating better tracking and efficient dispatch of targeted content, enabling the company to continuously refine their approach.
We recognized that the long-tail was going to be different. Because of just sheer numbers alone, trying to control the customer’s journey would lead to chaos for our sales team and unsatisfied customers. Instead, we accepted the loss of control and focused on deeply understanding the needs and desires of our new customer segment. This shift in mindset not only allowed us to effectively engage with our new customer segment but also fostered a more adaptable and forward-thinking approach within our organization. Embracing this philosophy has been instrumental in our sustained success in the market.
Results and Impact
Capturing Long-Tail Market and Boosting Sales Efficiency and Effectiveness
The comprehensive go-to-market strategy I developed as Product Marketing Director, along with the company’s decision to target the long-tail market and adapt their sales process, yielded remarkable results.
The company’s readiness for this transformative effort can be attributed to their ability to identify the opportunity and the need for change well in advance. Their flexibility and forward-thinking mindset, coupled with the new marketing and sale strategy, played a crucial role in the success of the initiative.
Expanded Customer Base
The new marketing strategy and sales process, coupled with the company’s new cloud-based offering, successfully captured the long-tail market, attracting smaller companies and startups.
Enhanced Sales Effectiveness
The new approach improved sales effectiveness in traditional engagements, ensuring the company maintained its leadership position in the technology market.
Increased Sales Efficiency
The adoption of transactional selling principles, CRM, and marketing automation tools allowed the company to streamline the sales process and secure customers quickly.
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Initially, our sales team was hesitant about a new go-to-market strategy. However, understanding the strategy and the importance of speed, along with the benefits of focusing on long-term recurring revenue, add-on business, and expanding user bases at existing accounts, changed their perspective. As our team adapted to this new landscape, we found that not only did it help us capture the long-tail market, but it also enhanced our sales effectiveness in traditional engagements. This approach has allowed us to maintain our leadership position in the technology market while keeping pace with evolving customer needs.
Go-to-Market Strategy
Accelerate Business Growth with Tailored Strategies and Targeted Messaging
Campaign Strategy
Drive Leads, Conversions, and Retention Across Customer Lifecycle.
Content and Messaging
Create Impactful, Resonating Content for B2B Tech Audiences.
MarTech Strategy
Boost Performance with Custom Strategies, Tool Recommendations, and Seamless Integration.
Top Discussions Among Marketing and Product Marketing Leaders
The scope of our conversation is truly open-ended, with any topic related to B2B technology marketing on the table for discussion. However, if you’re seeking inspiration, here are a few example topics to spark ideas and get the conversation started.