Why Revenue Team Convergence Holds the Key to B2B Sales and Marketing Success
Revenue team convergence should be a strategic priority for APAC organisations striving to improve the customer experience and boost their overall commercial performance, according to new research.
The Case for B2B Personalisation – Asia-Pacific, published by Adobe in partnership with London Research, makes a powerful argument for better alignment of marketing, sales and other customer-facing teams.
The report highlights how better cooperation needs to centre on a common view of the ideal customer, and a collaborative approach to identifying and targeting the right prospects. It urges marketing and sales leaders to come together within organisations to facilitate a more integrated approach to their revenue generation activities and to overcome challenges relating to siloed technology platforms and data.
Almost nine in 10 APAC organisations (85%) regard fragmented data and insights as a barrier to providing more seamless and personalised experiences, and more than a third (37%) describe this as a ‘major’ barrier, the research finds.
This issue is often made worse by a lack of marketing and sales alignment which a similar proportion of companies (84%) also regard as an obstacle to success.
Without strong leadership support, it can be challenging to foster the right kind of collaborative culture, or to get buy-in for the necessary technology and processes.
According to the report: “Where traditional go-to-market strategies rely on static customer lists that are shared back and forth via email, a united revenue team approach operates in real time and wastes less resource on dead-end leads and uninterested customers.”
APAC leaders
The new research is based on a survey of 342 B2B professionals in the APAC region, including Australia and New Zealand, India and Singapore. The researchers have identified a group of B2B marketing ‘leaders’ to establish what they are doing differently to those companies that are already behind the curve.
The report highlights how 54% of organisations classified as leaders involve the Chief Marketing Officer in the decision making process relating to B2B engagement and personalisation technology, compared to only 31% for laggards. And leaders are almost twice as likely to involve the Chief Revenue Officer or Head of Sales (47%, vs. 25% for laggards).
Other functions such as product and customer success teams also need to be part of the revenue growth process, with their data and insights across the customer journey combined with those from marketing and sales.
Targeting buying groups
A key focus of the new research is the importance of planning around buying groups or committees, i.e. the group of senior stakeholders within a company who collectively make the decision about a new B2B product or service.
Within APAC, B2B marketing leaders are more than four times more likely than laggards to be focusing their sales and marketing activities on these buying groups (34% vs. 8%).
Sales and marketing team members need to be able to assign contacts to the roles they have identified as part of the buying group within a prospect organisation. Analytics on buying groups provide a more accurate view of customers’ intent to purchase, creating a feedback loop that will unlock true personalisation for B2B.
Leaders are twice as likely to rate their B2B marketing automation platform as ‘good’ for its ability to identify and target at a buying-group level (78% vs. 38%), the research also finds.
The report also contains insights from a number of senior marketers working across the APAC region.
While technology and data are crucial to success, Balkar Singh Rao at HERE Technologies also highlights the importance of the right business culture across different internal teams to help facilitate better B2B personalisation.
He told London Research: “The major challenge is not purely technical, but more people-oriented. One of the most challenging and effective areas of any business is people. When working in a team with rich diversity around the globe, communication isn’t as simple as it looks.
“However, when a diverse global team can talk the same language, it’s a superpower. Once you’re in alignment, everything falls into place. It requires nuanced understanding of how different styles of messaging resonate with different people across the globe. You need to adapt to all of them.”
Balkar Singh Ra
Marketing manager, HERE Technologies
Download The Case for B2B Personalisation – Asia-Pacific report to learn more.
