Revenue marketing 

‍

Revenue marketing is an approach in which the marketing department is involved and focused on the bottom line – pipeline and sales, rather than solely tracking metrics like leads, clicks, and page visits. It connects sales and marketing departments.

‍

What is revenue marketing? 

‍

Revenue Marketing is a modern marketing approach focused on driving pipeline and revenue growth instead of concentrating on leads, clicks, and page visits. It is often used in the context of B2B marketing for SaaS and technology companies. 

‍

Whereas traditional lead-based marketing prioritizes metrics like leads and MQLs, treating marketing as a cost centre, revenue marketing shifts accountability to generating pipeline opportunities and closed business.

‍

Buyer journey optimization (targeting the ideal customer profile (ICP) and personalized messaging across the most relevant channels) is at the core of a good revenue marketing strategy. Let's define some revenue marketing strategies and tactics used compared to the traditional marketing approach. 

‍

Revenue marketing strategy

‍

Revenue marketing takes responsibility for actual sales, not just leads, and leverages marketing tactics like SEO, B2B content marketing, paid media, and ICP targeting to build awareness and convert qualified leads.

‍

Here are some of the critical aspects of revenue marketing in a B2B SaaS:

‍

- Focuses on generating qualified leads and converting them into customers through demand creation, demand capture, and demand conversion;  

‍

- Leverages direct and indirect lead generation tactics such as B2B SEO, content marketing, paid ads, strategic messaging, etc., to build awareness and drive qualified leads;

Aligns marketing and sales metrics and incentives to pass qualified leads between functions;

‍

- Partners closely with sales to understand ideal customer profiles (ICP) and provide personalized and targeted content/assets across the most suitable channels;

‍

- Optimizes demand gen tactics through testing and data insights from previous customer behavior;

‍

- Manages the demand generation funnel from awareness to conversion with defined KPIs and metrics;

‍

- Focuses on both top-of-the-funnel awareness and bottom-of-the-funnel conversion rate optimization (CRO);

‍

- Aims to increase cross-functional collaboration to improve pipeline generation and sales throughput.

‍

The core goal of revenue marketing is to drive profitable and sustainable revenue growth and customer acquisition for SaaS businesses through sales and marketing alignment. Understanding buyer journeys allows for targeted, stage-based programs that improve pipeline quality and optimize lead generation.

‍

Buyer journey optimization 

‍

Revenue Marketing consists of these three main parts of the buyer journey - Demand Creation, Demand Capture, and Demand Conversion. 

‍

Buyer journey optimization is about understanding the ideal buyer persona (ICP) and purchase process (stages of consideration, decision-making, etc). This is done through customer research and mapping out the typical pathways/stages a buyer goes through - from awareness to conversion. 

‍

1. Demand Creation → Awareness Phase [Generating awareness and demand]

‍

Demand creation activities like content marketing, advertising, and events are aimed at generating awareness and consideration among prospects during the early awareness phase of the buyer's journey.

‍

Buyer journey optimization also focuses on this early awareness phase, analyzing how well prospects are reaching awareness and understanding basic product education.

‍

2. Demand Capture → Evaluation/Consideration Phases [Attracting and qualifying leads]

‍

Demand capture focuses on attracting and qualifying leads—usually those in evaluation or active planning phases doing research.

‍

Buyer journey optimization looks at optimizing experiences during these phases, like website experiences, gated content, and capture forms, to improve lead qualify rates. The goal is to convert awareness to consideration.

‍

3. Demand Conversion → Purchase Phase [Nurturing leads for close]

‍

Demand conversion in the context of B2B is about aligning marketing and sales to close the pipeline through the final purchase decision phase. It aims to complete transactions with qualified leads from the capture stage, to convert consideration to conversion.

‍

The goal remains to optimize the purchase process based on buyer research and successfully close/onboard deals with qualified B2B buyers through a consultative sales approach.

‍

Revenue marketing tactics

‍

Revenue marketing agencies leverage data-driven insights and experience from numerous B2B SaaS customers. 

‍

Some revenue marketing tactics may include: 

‍

- Paid Media (For example, LinkedIn ads)

- B2B SEO

- B2B content marketing

- Creative strategy – combines customer-focused content and messaging with channel-specific targeting. While creative copywriters and designers develop compelling narratives and design (customer-focused content and messaging), paid delivers data-driven insights and targets users in the most suitable channels.

‍

Revenue marketing vs lead generation

‍

Revenue marketing differs from traditional lead generations in taking full accountability for pipeline and sales outcomes rather than just lead volume. 

Marketing performance is continually tracked via standardized KPIs like pipeline opportunities generated, close rates, customer acquisition cost (CAC), LTV, and ultimately closed revenue. Advanced analytics also inform the dynamic optimization of campaigns.

‍

- Advanced analytics (in-depth analysis, experience);

- Targeted messaging (ICP, personalization, persona-based);

- Attribution and performance tracking (RevOps and CRM) -  revenue operations oversee execution excellence across channels. 

‍