In recent years, client-side marketing departments have been under increasing pressure: maintaining their place at board level while marketing spend and head count are constantly being scrutinised.

Alongside these changes, agencies have also seen expectations evolve. Agencies that help bridge the gap between business strategy and marketing delivery will add value to their clients’ bottom lines. Standing shoulder to shoulder with clients and being unafraid to commit to metrics like business growth, customer satisfaction and leads will be critical for agencies in years to come.

To unpick the relationship between marketing and business growth, we conducted research with over 75 senior level client side marketers in B2B businesses to outline: What do fast growing brands do differently? What’s in the DNA of the most successful marketing teams? We compared responses from fast growing businesses against those with limited or no growth, to outline six key themes:

1) Marketing’s role in business growth

The debate about how marketers are perceived by other business leaders rumbles on. However, according to our research, there is a simple fact to consider: businesses where marketers are taking a role in setting overall business strategy perform better than those who don’t.

23% of marketers in less successful businesses have no input whatsoever, but in 87% of fast growing businesses the marketing function has an influential or decision-making role in setting overall business strategy. Clearly, the customer insight, data and expertise marketers can provide has never been more critical in enabling business growth.

2) Tech first

It will come as no surprise that fast growing businesses are almost twice as likely to actively support the adoption of new technologies and digital tools. Senior level marketers believe that predictive marketing technology and the Internet of Things will have the most impact on the way businesses engage with customers in years to come.

3) Going organic

Despite the excitement of new launches, extensions and acquisitions, the fastest growing businesses are those that keep a clear focus on their core.

Senior business leaders named organic growth as the main driver for success, outstripping acquisition of another company, new product ventures and launches into new market. 61% of businesses overall have attributed an increase staff and improved product to their success, whereas this grew to 74% among the fastest growing businesses.

4) It’s a numbers game

Increasing pressure to commit to tangible business goals (both within client businesses and agencies) mean that marketers need to know their numbers. Marketers in fast growing business are 39% more likely to have a strong grasp of business targets and actuals than in less profitable businesses.

5) If you’re happy and you know it

When looking at marketing metrics, one metric is harder to define than others – happiness. Yet it is critical. In fact, 88% of marketers in fast growing businesses describe themselves as happy in their role versus only 55% in low growth businesses.

Among the buzzwords of digital transformation, automation, predictive technology and data, the old fashioned values of human happiness can’t be ignored.

6) Agency’s got Talent

How clients and agencies work together has a direct impact on business growth. With so many varying areas of expertise, it is vital to realise that the best results come from being able to leverage external talent. Our survey found that 88% of fast growing businesses make more use of agencies, as opposed to only 64% of low growth.

Gone are the days when client-side marketers and agencies were thought of as ‘us and them.’ Working as one unit has never been more important at a time where the marketing departments and the agencies that support them are proving their worth in driving business growth.

 

By Renaye Edwards, Co-Founder at Digital Radish. 

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