Advertising, Branding, Communications, Communities, Customer, Lead Generation, Loyalty, Marketing, Strategy
B2B Marketers Fate Rests in the Hands of a Few
Paul Dunay is an award-winning B2B marketing expert with more than 20 years’ success in generating demand and creating awareness for leading technology, consumer products, financial services and professional services organizations.
Paul is the global vice president of marketing for Maxymiser a leading web optimization firm, and author of four “Dummies” books: Facebook Marketing for Dummies (Wiley 2009), Social Media and the Contact Center for Dummies (Wiley Custom Publishing 2010), Facebook Advertising for Dummies (Wiley 2010) and Facebook Marketing for Dummies 2nd Edition (Wiley 2011).
His unique approach to marketing has led to recognition of Paul as a BtoB Magazine Top 25 B2B Marketer of the Year for 2010 and 2009 and winner of the DemandGen Award for Utilizing Marketing Automation to Fuel Corporate Growth in 2008. He is also a finalist for the last six years in a row in the Marketing Excellence Awards competition of the Information Technology Services Marketing Association (ITSMA), and is a 2010 and 2005 gold award winner in Driving Demand.
Buzz Marketing for Technology, Paul’s blog, has been recognized as a Top 20 Marketing Blog for 2009 and 2008, a Top Blog to Watch for 2009 and 2008, and an Advertising Age Power 150 blog in the “Daily Ranking of Marketing Blogs.”
Paul has shared his marketing thought leadership as a featured speaker for the American Marketing Association, BtoB Magazine, CMO Club, MarketingProfs, Marketing Sherpa, Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG), and ITSMA. He has appeared on Fox News, and his articles have been featured in BusinessWeek, The New York Times, BtoB Magazine, MarketingProfs and MarketingSherpa.
Paul holds an Executive Certificate in Strategy and Innovation from MIT’s Sloan School of Management and a bachelor’s degree in Marketing and Computer Science from Ithaca College.
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The generalisation that B2B Marketers are “always tasked with getting net new customers” is a pretty large one. I think that B2B Marketers are indeed looking for new customers but that this in many cases are existing clients to cross- or up- sell or get referrals from. Many of my colleagues are in fact well aware of the need to spend their valuable time on their existing client base to grow revenue instead of only going after the “new new” clients. Especially in B2B, where relationships count more than anywhere, this strategy will prove to be the winner in the long run. Clients who know, trust and love your company act as “super promoters” of your business. By nurturing these Brand ambassadors you are able to build the ultimate referral model that always outperforms mostly chasing after new clients.
B2B marketers will and should spend more on new customers. It takes a lot more work to win them. However, you can’t neglect your customer base. You’ve already won their trust, so you can stretch your marketing dollar further. I agree the proportion of spend on customers can’t be painfully small, but it can be smaller.
Regardless of how you cut up your budget companies need to get more an more targeted. Personalized marketing needs to play a larger role.
Incremental or organic revenue growth from an existing customer base is the turtle, new biz is the hare. Customers always generate more revenue than prospects and slow and steady wins the race.
Michael: Thanks for your comment. How I think about marketing to current customers is selling new offerings to them…selling into other areas of their business (business units, goes, etc). After analysis, one client identified they had $6 billion in opportunities within their current customers and $4 billion in the rest of the market. The company has been profitably growing by 40%/year the last 5 years and will hit $3 billion in sales by year end…. If new client acquisition is 3-5x greater cost then retaining and growing, which marketing budget allocation approach (new customer acquisition or retention/account growth) will maximize the top and bottom line. They have a fixed marketing budget (2.5% of sales). This is very typical…especially in companies that have extensive R&D, are innovators or are acquiring companies.