Leverage marketing technology

More and more B2B companies are looking for ways to leverage marketing technology (martech) to enhance their go-to-market activities. Our experience with recent projects has shown that companies that implement demand centers and successfully integrate their marketing, sales, and service functions generate better leads more efficiently, improve conversion rates, and achieve a higher return on their marketing investments.

These efforts ensure that targeted, personalized messages always reach the right people at the right time. (By automating the generation of qualified leads, demand centers free up salespeople to focus on value-added activities such as sales calls and conversions.

But for many B2B companies, the demand center and its integration with sales and marketing functions remain an abstract concept, not a cornerstone of revenue generation. Despite the proven benefits of martech, especially during challenging economic times, executives were not willing to devote time and resources to the necessary transformation. They are hesitant to change the status quo, but are confident in their company’s ability to weather uncertain times until the next recovery occurs.

In other words, leaders only saw a smoldering platform for change, not a flaming one. Instead of orchestrating marketing and sales as a continuous process, executives viewed digital marketing and lead generation deliverables as separate and distinct from sales execution. In this perspective, B2B marketing is relegated to the role of generating awareness, whether through digital campaigns or analog channels such as trade shows and brochures. These companies have yet to transition this capability to digital, automated lead generation, nurturing, and scoring.

A BCG study revealed several reasons why companies hesitate to adopt technology platforms like demand centers, even when they recognize the positive opportunities of the platform and the negative risks of waiting. These reasons include a lack of talent, a technology-driven mindset, and outdated ways of working.

Suboptimal marketing and sales processes increase the costs of identifying, qualifying, and converting leads. They also reduce profitability for companies that serve certain customer segments, especially those that may be underserved, such as SMB customers. A fragmented tools and data landscape exacerbates this problem, as salespeople lack a comprehensive overview of up-sell and cross-sell opportunities and increased risk of churn in their customer base.

But management’s reluctance to create demand centers, including functional integration, will have broader implications in time. Maintaining traditional sales approaches and siloed relationships between marketing and sales hinders B2B companies’ ability to respond quickly and proactively to profound changes in the market.

Our recent experience shows us that there is a platform on fire. The consumerization of the B2B buying process, the growing importance of parts and service, and the potential efficiencies brought about by generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) are creating opportunities for the next wave of fast adopters to gain market share, deepen customer relationships, and reap the benefits. Increased efficiency will benefit from lead generation, qualification, and conversion.