MarTech Series interviews Julian Diaz, CMO at Skynamo, as part of their Prediction Series

MarTech Prediction Series interviews Julian Diaz, CMO at Skynamo, about his predictions on the role of CMO’s and closing the gap between Sales-Marketing functions.

A glimpse at the Prediction Series article:

Marketing has been changing significantly over the past 10 years from a marketing-centric approach of interruptive ads, cold calls, and direct mail to a customer-centric approach where we become visible and appreciated during people’s research stage by providing them with content that will help them in their buying process. This requires shifting resources from traditional outbound marketing activities to inbound marketing, such as SEO, Pay-per-Click advertising, blogging and Social Media Marketing, so our prospects are able to find us more easily when they are in the problem diagnosis and research phases of their buying process.

Sales and Marketing must be aligned in this methodology and work closely together in producing and sharing content that helps users make purchase decisions. We need to move away from trying to persuade users to buy from us to becoming trusted advisors users choose to buy from, because we are constantly adding value by providing them with insightful and helpful information.

What I’m predicting is that this shift will begin to yield higher quality leads for sales teams, because prospects who ultimately contact us are now more educated on what they need and are at the right stage of the buying process. As marketing begins to generate higher quality leads in higher volumes, sales teams will begin seeing the value in using social media to find and connect with prospects. It’s a more gradual and long-term approach that requires sales teams to invest time and effort in connecting with prospects, remaining top of mind and above all remaining patient.

Sales need to move away from persuading and pressure selling to connecting and building trust with their prospects. Marketing will support them in this effort by providing them with the content they need to do so. An inbound focus also enables marketing to become more data-driven in their strategy development, because there is more data now available to determine the success of a campaign thanks to the nature of digital marketing…

Read the full Martechseries article.