During day 2 of
Ignite USA
, The Mx Group hosted a roundtable exclusively for senior B2B marketing leaders to share their insights and discuss the challenges around digital transformation. Here’s some of the key takeaways from the session.
Defining digital transformation and where to begin
In B2B marketing, you’ll find organisations at all different stages of their digital transformation. Sometimes, digital transformation is something organisations are really embracing and other times, they’re at the ‘brainstorming stage’ of what their digital transformation landscape might look like.
Marketers felt digital transformation to them, was using technology to fit the current environment and modernising the business accordingly.
However, with our current working environment, is digital transformation more business strategy driven rather than technology driven? Then, there’s a third alternative. It can also be department driven where the appropriate teams approach the IT team to get the right tech integrated. From there, the business strategy can develop.
Equipping sellers to market themselves
During Covid-19, sellers have had to regroup completely. Sales might be used to speaking with their clients face-to-face. However, companies needed to transform their strategies overnight to become digitally savvy. That loss of face to face can all of the sudden, get buried among the endless Zoom calls, meetings and emails. Suddenly, sales have to work in a new way.
There is where marketing can come into play to equip sellers with what they need. This could be providing video content, whitepapers, and solution briefs so that they can all have all the essentials at their fingertips. Rather than them gathering the information, use your marketing skills to equip sales, so they can sell with more comfortability, as one marketer coined as being
‘almost a concierge service.’
Building a relationship with customer
When it comes to digital transformation, it can also start with customer feedback. One marketer said after reviewing a company survey results, she needed to elevate their web based tools and optimise their website.This sort of review needs to be done consistently.
Whether it’s through a survey, email or internal meeting, digital transformation is never complete because the B2B world is always evolving. Be sure to constantly check in with clients and customers to ensure you’re on the right path to digital transformation.
We need to forget about our job titles and collaborate
During these unprecedented times, teams need to lean on each other to help those who aren’t as digitally savvy. At a leadership level, you need to identify what gaps might exist between sales and marketing. Oftentimes, marketing can feel like they’re handing the baton off to sales. However, it’s important to ditch that narrative and avoid silos.
One marketer says: “It should be a three-legged race where you tie one leg together and run the race together. We were forced to do that three-legged race because we really didn’t have the time to do that baton policy.”
This tactic is something to keep in mind looking forward. If you stay at the limits of your job title and descriptions, some tasks are going to fall through. Think of
marketing and sales teams
as a more collaborative effort.
How COVID has affected businesses.
Marketers agree. Covid-19 has pushed them out of their comfort zones. Some have been managing tech stacks without all the IT resources needed. Some have been able to distance themselves with their competitors with creative business solutions, and some have started projects they’ve been meaning to with one marketer being able to accelerate her business’s online training courses. It’s good to know B2B marketers are still driving their digital transformation efforts regardless of the circumstances.
