The True Marketing Challenges: It’s Not What You Think

Our team at SwayTech are often presented with questions upfront like, "How would you solve our lack of pipeline?" or "How would you generate more leads?" The answer is, as always - "It depends!"

There seems to be a disconnect between why businesses think their marketing problems exist - and the actual underlying causes. Many teams focus on needing to drive more leads, creating more content, or not having enough sales pipeline. But the issue is, these are the symptoms, not the real problems.

Identifying the Real Problems

When businesses encounter challenges like a lack of leads, insufficient content creation, or a weak sales pipeline, it's easy to treat these issues as the core problems. The root causes of these challenges can vary, but they typically fall into several key areas.

Here are some of the most common underlying issues that might be at play:

Not Knowing Your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile):

• Without a clear understanding of who your ideal customer is, efforts in marketing and sales become misaligned and ineffective.

Lack of Compelling Messaging:

• Your message must resonate with your ICP and influence their decision-making process. If it doesn't, your efforts will fall flat.

Scaling Expertise:

• Sometimes, what's working isn't scaled effectively due to a lack of expertise or resources.

Misalignment Between Marketing and Sales:

• When marketing and sales aren't aligned on key drivers and the customer journey, efforts are disjointed and less effective.

Product-Qualified Leads Over MQL or SQL:

• The debate over Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL) vs. Sales Qualified Leads (SQL) is less relevant than ensuring leads are "product-qualified," meaning they are genuinely interested and fit the product's intended use and value.
  

The Path to True GTM Success

True go-to-market (GTM) success hinges on 5 areas:

1. Deep Understanding of the Ideal Customer

• Knowing your ICP inside and out is crucial. This involves understanding their needs, pain points, and decision-making processes. What are their motivations, both professionally and personally? What keeps them up at night? What outcomes are they striving for? The more precise your knowledge of your ICP, the more effectively you can target your efforts and resources.

2. Clear Articulation of Their Journey

• Map out the customer's journey in detail, from initial awareness to purchase and beyond. This involves understanding the behavioural insights, likely touchpoints, identifying the emotions, questions, and obstacles they encounter along the way.

3. Compelling Messaging

• Your messaging needs to cut through the noise and speak directly to your ICP’s needs, drivers AND barriers. Crafting messages that resonate at every stage of their journey. Creating alignment from their need back to how your product or service addresses them is key.

4. Effective Channel Mix

• Identify and utilise the channels your ICP already engages with. Meet them where they are rather than forcing them into new or unfamiliar platforms. Whether it’s LinkedIn, industry forums, email newsletters, or niche podcasts, your presence should be strategic. The focus must be on quality over quantity - choose channels that allow you to connect with your ICP in meaningful, maybe even unexpected ways, rather than spreading your efforts too thin. Non-interruptive relevance is key.

5. The Sales and Marketing Partnership

• A tight-knit partnership between sales and marketing is essential for a successful GTM strategy. Not just alingment - but true collaboration. Enabling a shared playbook so they can work in unison to build a repeatable, scalable, and customer-centric engine will create momentum. When both teams are in sync, they create a seamless experience for the customer and build a repeatable, scalable engine that drives consistent growth.
  

Focus on Human Stories

The key to truly improving the marketing-sales funnel isn’t just in analysing metrics or tracking conversion rates—it’s about understanding and focusing on the human stories and needs behind those numbers. At the core of every decision is a person with unique motivations, challenges, and goals. When businesses shift their focus to these human elements, they move beyond superficial engagement and start building affinity and genuine connections with their customers.

Recent Real-World Examples

1. Positioning to Win: Strategic Moves for Market Success:

• In recent work with a Saas client, we identified that their stagnation was due to a misaligned ICP and unclear messaging. By conducting a thorough market analysis, we realigned their ICP and revamped their messaging strategy. This resulted in a 25% increase in qualified leads within three months, as the new messaging resonated more effectively with their target audience.

2. Unleashing Growth with Fractional CMOs:

• Recently one of our tech services client was struggling with a disjointed marketing plan and lack of buy-in from sales and product teams. Within six weeks, we delivered a fully integrated and ready-to-activate marketing plan, with full buy-in from all teams. This alignment led to a 40% improvement in marketing efficiency and a 30% increase in sales conversions.

3. Auditing and Recommendations for Zero-Waste Marketing Spend:

• An well known agritech client engaged us to audit their current marketing spend and expected ROI. We discovered that 60% of their budget was being allocated to low-ROI activities. By reallocating their budget towards high-impact strategies and tools, we provided a tailored recommendation that projected a 50% increase in ROI. This strategic shift enabled them to achieve significant growth aligned with their stage of development.
  

So there you have it. Digging into the true underlying problems—rather than just treating symptoms— you can begin to unlock greater impact and growth potential. When you understand the human stories at the heart of your market customer base, you can create more seamless experiences that will resonates more deeply and authentically. The key to growth isn't in the numbers alone; it's in the meaningful connections you forge and build along the way.

If you’re ready to redefine your strategy and drive meaningful growth, get in touch and let's start a conversation. We’re here to help Kiwi tech businesses grow.