Featuring:
John Arnold, Principal Analyst and Lisa Gately, Principal Analyst
Show Notes:
B2B buying dynamics have grown vastly more complex, but the approaches taken by frontline marketing teams (i.e., demand and ABM, field marketing, and customer marketing) haven’t kept pace. Strategies are often too focused on acquisition, and even then, may not reflect how buyers actually purchase. On this week’s episode of What It Means, Principal Analysts John Arnold and Lisa Gately discuss lifecycle revenue marketing (LRM) and how adopting it can fuel faster growth.
Marketers have more tech and tools to reach buyers than ever before, but many are hamstrung by stagnant processes, Arnold says. “They’re weighed down by internal obstacles, like silos or the inability to develop a complete view of the customer, or they’re marginalized by their remit to be provider of leads to the load-bearing sales force,” he explains. Meanwhile, many frontline marketers are also still focused on acquisition rather than the end-to-end experience, missing revenue opportunities with existing customers.
The antidote to these challenges, Arnold and Gately say, is lifecycle revenue marketing — a Forrester-coined term for an approach that encompasses the entire customer lifecycle. The goal of LRM is to align marketing teams around a common view of the buyer — not only before they buy but also once they’ve become a customer. Adopting this approach enables marketers to capitalize on growth opportunities that might otherwise go untapped. “It’s really about how [frontline marketing] teams work together in extending audience engagement,” Gately says. “How are they connecting their programs, whether it’s demand or customer engagement … to the full lifecycle of revenue opportunities, so beyond acquisition to retention, cross-sell, and upsell.”
Adopting LRM, Gately continues, doesn’t require restructuring so much as it does sharing — specifically, customer insights, resources, metrics, and reporting. She and Arnold explain how marketers can move toward LRM based on where they are today and the capabilities that teams must develop to bring it to life. Stronger alignment within marketing, they explain, can make it easier to improve marketing’s alignment with sales and other functions.
Listen to the full episode to learn more about LRM and its potentially transformative impact on frontline marketing.
