What Our Customers Say That We Need to Hear
To move the needle on growth, marketers need a playbook with customer insight at its core
The adage that 80% of revenue comes from 20% of your customers is as relevant today as it was 30 years ago. Forrester’s research shows that customer-obsessed firms grew 2.5 times faster than non-obsessed ones. According to McKinsey, 80% of the value creation achieved by the world’s most successful growth companies came from unlocking new revenues from existing customers rather than endlessly chasing new customers.
Customer-led growth is a formula for sustained expansion.
Many firms have elements of this in place but lack a unifying approach to drive deeper customer engagement and demand. A well-framed approach includes customer insight, strategies for cross-sell, upsell and retention, customer advocacy and customer voice to drive continuous, personalized engagement (see illustration below).
Customer growth plays
More than ever, customers are setting the purchase agenda. For sales and marketing teams, it requires a different relationship and sales mindset. Personalization, relevance and differentiated insight/brand narratives are key. And with up to 15 professionals participating in “buying committee,” they need to reach deeper into the organization to influence the purchase process.
Consider five approaches to accelerate demand and nurture customer relationship growth for upsell and cross-sell.
Deeply understand the customers’ needs. Ask the hard questions about what’s working and what’s not. Create a continuous loop of customer feedback from post-engagement surveys, Voice of Customer Research and NPS surveys. Overlay those with customer analytics and trends across channels to refine your segmentation strategy and personalize communications.
Cast a broad net into the organization – engage buyer groups. Don’t just market to primary relationships and those at the top; look across the organization to identify influencers, users, technical experts and functional leaders who have a role in decision-making. Invest in building those relationships through your sales motions and account-based marketing strategies.
Create a network of customer advocates. As buyers rely more on peer referrals and analyst recommendations, ensure your clients are willing to advocate on your behalf. Leverage their support and participation in Customer Advisory Boards, executive peer communities, and in sharing those experiences via testimonials, video case studies and social advocacy. Look for opportunities to co-present at industry and co-publish on key business topics.
Optimize channels to accelerate lead sourcing and conversion. Most marketers understand what channels are most impactful at different stages of the customer journey. A recent CMO survey, for example, found that SEO, paid search and paid social are driving over 70% of the marketing pipeline. But campaigns cannot run on autopilot. Integrating real-time customer analytics with the benefit of Gen AI will boost leads and shorten conversion cycles.
Strengthen sales and marketing alignment. Drive profitable growth through stronger business and economic alignment among sales, marketing, product management, and business leadership. Develop aligned processes for strategic and operational plans including lead hand-offs, sales qualification, opportunity tagging and integrating account reporting.
It's time to let our ears do the talking. Ensure that customer insight informs every step of the customer journey- from target audience and personalization to improving campaign performance – drive the customer growth the business expects.