Today, you need to take ownership of your sales funnel - especially the top-of-funnel demand generation part.
Why? The market is still tough, your budgets are no doubt tight and you need to do more with the same or less.
But outsourcing isn't the way because the reliance on partners like this often comes with rigidity, a one-size-fits-all approach, and limitations on creating your own demand-generation campaigns.
Having control over your process allows your businesses to rapidly adapt and align with market dynamics, creating new avenues for engagement and conversion.
It also achieves the all-important trinity in any sales engine - scalability, predictability, and sustainability. And when your business truly engages with the opportunity of ownership, you can achieve a state of what I call the "Shape Shifter Mindset."
This concept underscores the critical advantage of flexibility in generating top-of-the-funnel opportunities through owning your demand generation engine.
But what’s the “Shape Shifter Mindset"?
The essence of the Shape Shifter Mindset
The Shape-Shifter Mindset is the ability to be fluid and adaptable to changing market conditions and consumer behaviours. It involves shifting around those changes and rapidly shaping your offer in an agile way to ensure you're targeting the right people.
By owning an in-house demand generation engine, your business gains the agility to pivot strategies, test new approaches, and implement campaigns that resonate with your target audience on a deeper level. This flexibility is not just a tactical advantage; it's a strategic imperative in a marketplace where the only constant is change.
And the best part? You can also do this at scale.
Driving top-of-funnel opportunities
At the heart of demand generation is creating top-of-the-funnel opportunities that nurture potential customers through the sales pipeline.
Owning your demand generation process empowers you to craft campaigns that are both broad enough to reach your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) at scale and sufficiently focused to engage specific target individuals or accounts.
This dual capability is essential in today's competitive and pressured market, where relevance and personalisation are key to capturing attention and building interest.
And the fun bit? When you're in control of your engine, you can shape-shift around any idea you may have and test your thinking.
Because sales, like everything else in life, is about trial, error, learning and optimisation. That's also the fun bit!
Flexible targeting from a broad ICP down to a narrow focus
The Shape Shifter Mindset's significant advantage is its flexibility to shift between targeting a broad (and large) ICP segment, honing in on a narrow field of focus, and targeting just a handful of potential prospects using sophisticated technology.
For instance, while broad-reaching campaigns aim to cast a wide net to identify potential leads across a broad spectrum, a more targeted approach allows for creating highly customised messaging. It offers tailored messaging to specific prospects or accounts' unique needs and pain points.
This strategic versatility ensures that demand generation efforts generate leads and the right leads that are more likely to convert.
An example of this might be a campaign targeted at only one person. Or perhaps a small group of people you're keen to work with.
You can leverage the technology, strategy and processes as narrow as that.
The key is using your engine to increase the output of the people in your team exponentially - and we see this being around x10 the impact and output.
Leveraging ABM for high-impact
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) exemplifies the Shape Shifter Mindset in action. By focusing on specific prospect businesses with tailored campaigns, ABM strategies drive high exposure and engagement levels within targeted accounts.
This focused approach, facilitated by owning your demand generation engine, enables businesses to create highly personalised experiences that significantly improve conversion rates and accelerate the sales cycle.
Again, being able to be nimble and spin up campaigns rapidly inside your business the same day you learn an insight you might have heard that morning about an account you're working with or want to work on is incredibly empowering.
The effectiveness of a flexible demand generation engine
The evidence supporting the effectiveness of owning your demand generation process is clear.
According to a study by the Content Marketing Institute, 91% of B2B marketers use content marketing to reach customers, with those with a documented strategy reporting higher overall content marketing success.
Which as we know, content is a key part of generating demand and a tactic we should be using in our own sales engines.
Furthermore, research from Demand Gen Report indicates that 76% of B2B buyers expect more personalised attention from content providers, highlighting the importance of targeted and flexible demand generation strategies.
Moreover, ABM-specific statistics reveal its impact, with ITSMA reporting that companies using ABM generate 208% more revenue for their marketing efforts.
Additionally, a survey by Alterra Group found that 97% of marketers believe ABM had a higher ROI than other marketing activities.
These statistics underscore the value of the Shape Shifter Mindset in driving effective and efficient demand generation campaigns.
Embracing the Shape Shifter mindset
The Shape Shifter Mindset offers a profound advantage in demand generation. By owning your demand generation engine, you allow your business to adapt quickly to market changes, engage with your ICP on a deeper level, and leverage ABM for targeted, high-impact campaigns.
This approach not only drives top-of-the-funnel opportunities but also in a highly efficient, personalised way aligned with the evolving expectations of B2B buyers.
As the statistics show, this strategy's effectiveness is undeniable, making it a pivotal component of a successful sales and marketing strategy in the modern business landscape.
Embracing this mindset is beneficial and essential for businesses looking to thrive in the dynamic and competitive world of B2B sales.
So the big question is, what's stopping you from owning your sales engine?