Smash The Funnel - The Secrets To Massive Revenue Growth

And How Does Marketing Operations Improve Revenue Growth?

Marketing operations includes the systems, processes and technology that allow today’s complex collection of strategy, tactics, analytics and software to run smoothly, scale and produce the desired business outcomes.

Last week I was at the Mirren Agency CEO Summit in Chicago (great event, by the way) and got to hear Sarah Armstrong, a partner and Master Expert at McKinsey. Sarah has worked for big agencies and big companies, and now consults at the highest level. Her insight was that one of the fastest growing areas in companies is marketing operations.

So, what is marketing operations? Why should you care? Why is this highly intelligent and experienced McKinsey consultant telling agencies to keep an eye on this little-known aspect of marketing?

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You’re Going To See Calm Water And White Water; You Want Your Guide To Get You Through

Growing your company is likely one of the most challenging tasks you’ll face in your professional career. Whether you’re the CEO and you have the responsibility to drive growth, or you’re the director of marketing and you have the accountability to support the company’s growth, this objective has never been more complex.

The strategy, tactics, analytics and technology that need to come together in perfect harmony for leads to come in, convert into sales opportunities and then turn into new customers requires specialized expertise.

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Marketing Without A Plan Is As Effective As Building A House Without A Blueprint

Our family recently went through a massive home remodel. Actually, we are still going through it – over a year later and we still have no kitchen.

We started by getting bids from general contractors. Each one wanted plans, drawings and permits. My husband felt this was a waste of time and money. So like that, I became a “general contractor.” I started hiring vendors, coordinating projects and trying to learn everything about home building along the way. I took one project at a time and tried my best to get stuff done.

While I had my own idea of a plan, I didn’t really know what I was doing, so my plan quickly fell apart. We’ve had to pay to have work (like painting) done multiple times. In the end, we didn’t save money, and we certainly didn’t save time.

So, what does any of this have to do with marketing?

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See How Many Of The 10 Requirements Your Business Needs To Grow Dramatically

Over the past few weeks you’ve probably noticed a steady stream of growth- and revenue-growth-related articles. There are good reasons for that, which I’m happy to share.

First, I’m pretty sure the world doesn’t need more landing page tips, social media upgrades or website optimization ideas — thousands of those are available, if that’s what you’re looking for.

And it’s more than likely that we’ll eventually get back to more practical tips to help marketing, sales and customer service people improve the performance of their tactics.

But in the meantime, we’re fascinated with how hard it is to systematically grow revenue, and our team here is working on strategy, tactics, analytics and technology to make that easier.

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Seriously? Are You Willing To Invest, To Make Changes And To Hire Or Fire? Are You Really Ready?

Put 100 company CEOs in a room and ask them to stand up if they want their companies to grow, and you’ll get 100 people proudly standing.

Now ask them to remain standing only if their companies have grown over the past year, past two years and past five years, and you’ll end up with somewhere around 20% of the audience still standing.

What’s the story? Where is the gap? If they all want to grow, why wouldn’t all of these smart CEOs be able to figure it out?

The reason is simple: Business growth is the hardest part of running a business. Growing a business requires checking many different boxes, and the challenges associated with scoring well in all of those areas are tough.

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Not All HubSpot Agency Partners In The Diamond Tier Are Created Equally

You’re using HubSpot for your marketing automation or CRM (or both). Good for you. 

However, you’ve been on HubSpot for over a year and you’re not sure you’re getting full value. Your leads are increasing slowly, but maybe you could be doing more. Your salespeople use the CRM, but are you seeing the massive improvement in business results you thought you’d get when you first signed up?

It’s a common challenge. Software rarely solves your problem. What does solve business challenges is the right combination of strategy, tactics, analytics and software.

Now you turn to the HubSpot Partner Directory to look for an agency to help you get to the next level. Pretty quickly you notice 43 Diamond-level partners are listed on the site. Based on reviews, you start talking to each of the top partners, but is that the best way to find a HubSpot partner?

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The Right Digital Marketing Agency Helps You Generate Leads; The Right Revenue Growth Agency Can Transform Your Business

If you’re about to contract with a digital marketing agency, there’s a lot to be scared about. You might not like them. They might not know what they’re doing. They might make a mistake. They might take too long to produce meaningful results.

Your goal as a CEO is to mitigate those risks as best you can, and the best way to do that is to talk to them about guaranteeing results.

Any agency with the right people, the right set of experiences, the right team, the right technology and the right methodology should be happy to work with you to develop a guaranteed results plan.

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Who Hires A Revenue Growth Agency? What Do They Do? Why Would We Want One?

Marketers love to label things, and we’ve gotten good at labeling our own agencies — digital marketing agency, inbound marketing agency, website design shop, SEO firm, sales enablement company, content marketing agency, branding, demand generation. Blah, blah, blah.

What does it all mean?

We should know better. Do our prospects care what we call ourselves? Do our clients? What do our clients want from us? The team at Square 2 thinks clients want to grow their businesses, want more new customers, want more highly qualified leads, want to get better at closing those leads and, in short, want revenue growth.

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What Other Agencies, Software Companies And Consultants Don’t Want You To Know

With Halloween right around the corner, it’s time to pull out all of the references to ghosts and goblins. But there is something very scary going on right now, and if your company is considering upgrading its investment in revenue growth, you’re going to want to read this.

Do you want to grow your company? Ask a room full of executives, and if 100 people are in the room, you’ll get 100 people to raise their hands.

But when you ask those people to share their experiences with growth, explain how well they have performed in actually growing their companies and if they’re hitting their revenue goals month over month, you get a much different picture.

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Looking For Revenue Growth? Start With Your Current Customers For The Fastest Results

We’ve come to the end of our blog series on diving deep into the eight stages of the Cyclonic Buyer Journey™. I’ve enjoyed sharing details, and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading, learning and considering how to adjust your own marketing and sales efforts.

This final article focuses on an area that is most often neglected by both marketing and sales. That area is customer service, or the experience people have as customers of your company.

When we talk to clients about revenue growth, one of the first places we look for quick wins is within the existing customer base. Upselling, cross-selling, delivering ongoing revenue drivers and reengaging with former customers all represent opportunities for campaigns that produce revenue in short order.

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