Marketing is Not Just Top of Funnel

I love the fact that the most influential text in modern B2B marketing was an eBook. It was Marketo’s definitive guide to marketing automation, and it shaped how today’s marketing playbooks are built. 

I don’t know for sure who all actually put fingers-to-keyboard on it (if you know, please comment below). But it was definitely from the mind of Jon Miller, co-founder of Marketo, founder of Engagio, and now CMO of Demandbase. 

Jon recently wrote a piece for OpenView’s blog about the shift in that playbook. Specifically how there is now a dearth of attention amongst buyers, so we need to stop sending wave after wave of messaging at our prospects. 

As part of the LinkedIn discussion about that piece, he and Joe Chernov had a great exchange about marketing’s importance not just in the top of the funnel, but also in accelerating and improving conversion in the middle of the funnel. 

I think this is a vital part of marketing’s value. Marketing fundamentally is about driving the complete flywheel of go-to-market. So, that includes those two stages in the journey, and I would also add post-sale. Let’s look at each of the three and how marketing can impact revenue:

• Awareness: In this stage, marketing is shaping the market and its narrative. Marketing helps to identify what is the principal trend in the space and guide the development of a solution to make winners from the trend (in the shape of future happy customers). Marketing identifies the kinds of companies and people that are most impacted by the market trend and will be the biggest winners by adapting to the shift. The use of narrative here, whether that’s through fun or educational content, or maybe a founder-led story, helps to communicate the importance of taking action now. 

• Pipeline: Once those ideal customers are interested in proceeding with a discussion, marketing’s job isn’t done. Today’s challenging economic climate ensures that marketing needs to do more. That means helping to generate enthusiasm for change across additional buyers or influencers within the target account.  Marketing plays a key role in supporting the Value > Cost + Risk + Effort equation through a great product evaluation experience, educational content, compelling messaging and tools, and more. 

• Upsell: Post-sale is too often a neglected part of marketing’s job. If you are in a subscription or renewal based business, marketing must continue to play a role. How? By helping to demonstrate value and improve adoption across the organization. When users see more value and when energy within a user base increases, marketing can leverage that to drive more awareness and visibility – i.e. we return to the start of the flywheel with more power. That could be through case studies, speaking slots, dark social, and more. The result: more renewals, upsells, and referrals.

The playbook that was so successful for so many years has evolved. And marketing needs to move out of its traditional as a top of funnel provider into the more strategic “full lifecycle” position.