The technology and tools you add should fulfill a need. As B2B marketing continues to shift away from traditional media (such as print, radio, and billboard advertising) to digital platforms (including online mobile, social, video, and display ads), marketers need a streamlined process to execute marketing activities at scale. This is where MarTech comes into play. These are the core needs that MarTech fulfills for B2B marketing activities:
- Create awareness: Your prospects need to recognize your brand and logo. If they don't know you, they can't buy from you. MarTech gives you the ability to reach out to thousands of people without manual effort.
- Develop engaging content: Using MarTech design software to build creative images and compelling content can help promote thought leadership for your category.
- Generate demand: MarTech helps to extend the reach of your message by connecting with prospects looking for your product or service.
- Track engagement: A central data repository shows the results of those activities.
- Manage revenue opportunities: These activities will help generate potential deals for your company.
- Report on success metrics: You can see which of these activities created revenue, and learn from those results.
This is why the funnel was so popular with B2B sales and marketing teams, because prospects started with Awareness, Interest, Consideration, and Decision. During the decision-making process they would fall out of the funnel, making it skinny at the bottom. The figure shows the buyer's journey with the traditional funnel.
With account-based marketing, you can flip the funnel on its head by using technology. You're starting by identifying the best-fit customers who represent potential buyers of your product or service. Before the evolution of MarTech, the "spray and pray" model was the predominant form of B2B marketing.
Teams built lists of thousands of contacts to blast their message to, then hoped that one of those contacts might raise their hand to show interest. MarTech makes "spray and pray" null and void. Your company must get the data on those best-fit customers, then use tools and activities to reach out to them, and MarTech fulfills those needs.