How MiM helped a Dutch software company align marketing and sales

How MiM helped a Dutch software company align marketing and sales

The client

Our client is an IT service provider specialised in implementing a leading low-code platform, with customers in finance, energy and telecom. The company had succeeded in building a strong reputation in a market largely served by large, international players.

That reputation came from the successful, on-time completion of complex client projects. The commercial organisation, however, had fallen behind. Marketing and sales lacked a shared strategy, clear focus and consistent execution.

The challenge

By the time MiM came on board, there was certainly marketing activity — but no marketing strategy. Campaigns were being run, the company was exhibiting at trade fairs, and initiatives were underway in SEA, SEO and LinkedIn ABM. The problem wasn’t a lack of effort, but the absence of an overarching framework from which all of those activities should logically have followed.

•         Campaigns were executed without clear structure, and without an overarching vision, mission or strategy behind them.

•         Trade fair participation was decided ad hoc, disconnected from any underlying plan.

•         Positioning was unclear: it wasn’t sharply defined what the company stood for relative to the competition.

•         Focus was missing: who did the organisation actually want to reach, and what did it concretely have to offer those audiences?

•         There was no insight into the ROI of the various marketing channels; money was being invested in Google ads and LinkedIn ABM, but no one could say what it actually delivered.

In short: marketing consisted of a collection of disconnected initiatives, without the strategic foundation that should have guided tactical and operational choices.

From strategy to buy-in and execution

Marketing is Mensenwerk drew up an integrated sales and marketing plan as the foundation for all commercial activities. This plan was then presented to and discussed with the client’s management. That buy-in was crucial: only with support at the top could the strategy be rolled out successfully.

The strategy and the choices that followed

The plan was built on a number of fundamental choices, which in turn guided the tactical and operational decisions.

First, it was sharply defined what the organisation stood for: a mission-driven foundation, based on the conviction that IT services must add real value. This foundation was then translated into concrete goals: impact per project, annual customer growth, spread across sectors for stability, and retention of senior consultants by offering them challenging work.

Based on a thorough SWOT analysis, positioning was sharpened and translated into concrete market segments: specific sectors and account types where the organisation could add the most value and faced the least competition.

To make the positioning concrete and actionable, buyer personas were developed. For each persona, the key challenges, information needs and decision criteria were mapped out, so that content and outreach matched the specific needs of the intended audience.

The operational choices followed logically from these strategic starting points. The website was renewed, the content strategy was redesigned based on keyword research, and a fixed content calendar was developed with blogs, case studies and whitepapers. In addition, the company opted for recurring webinars, presence at a limited number of relevant events, and LinkedIn ABM campaigns aimed at carefully selected accounts.

The same sharpness was applied to sales: instead of generic pitches, the company moved to use-case-driven selling, using proven success stories to build interest among comparable audiences.

An important principle was that every activity — content, events, ABM, sales outreach — was linked to measurable goals from the start, so it was immediately clear what an activity actually delivered.

Getting people on board: buy-in as a precondition

A strategy on paper is one thing; a strategy that’s actually executed is another. An essential part of the assignment was therefore not just drawing up the plan, but also creating buy-in within the organisation for executing it.

Successful execution required the involvement of management, consultants and marketing. Everyone was given a clear role in achieving the shared commercial objectives.

The strategy wasn’t imposed top-down as a standalone marketing exercise, but was continuously translated into the day-to-day practice of sales and delivery. Roles and responsibilities were made explicit, so that everyone understood their part in the shared goals — a precondition that proved just as decisive for the eventual success as the content of the strategy itself.

The result

Working with MiM has tangibly moved the client forward on several fronts:

•         More structure and clarity about direction: everyone in the organisation now knows where marketing and sales are working towards, and why.

•         Improved alignment within the organisation, with sales and marketing operating from the same framework instead of separately.

•         Targeted deployment of resources, on topics and accounts that are genuinely part of the strategy, instead of scattered, ad hoc decisions.

•         Clear insight into the ROI of the various activities, campaigns and teams, enabling well-founded choices.

•         A better-filled pipeline, with a growing number of qualified leads generated through a consistent rhythm of content, webinars and outreach.

•         A sales team that can go to market with a broad range of collateral — strong case studies, clear propositions and persona-specific content — to engage prospects as effectively as possible.

The result is a repeatable rhythm: an organisation that knows who it wants to reach, what it has to offer, and how it delivers on that promise consistently — and measurably.

“What this engagement ultimately delivered wasn’t a standalone marketing plan, but a shared commercial direction in which sales and marketing work together from a single strategy.”

Marketing is Mensenwerk | Strategic marketing for B2B organisations | www.marketingismensenwerk.nl