When we introduced the world to 4AM and officially launched our platform, we talked a lot about the journey that led us here. Demand-generation is complex and very few who don’t do it for a living understand it in a way that truly enables it to operate effectively.
To be blunt, demand-gen teams are often set up to fail. It’s why we built the 4AM platform, and it’s also why we set out on a mission to help other demand-gen teams do it better.
In short, we took decades of demand-gen experience – blood, sweat, tears, wins, losses, starts and stops – and developed a methodology and then built that methodology into a SaaS platform.
In the process of doing that we realized how many companies could use more than just our methodologies. We wanted to offer our experience in launching and effectively managing demand-gen plans. Afterall, there’s an entire category in the market devoted to Sales Enablement to ensure the sales team has everything they need to do their jobs effectively. But, who is enabling the marketing team?
And that’s how our Consulting Services were born.
4AM Consulting Services
We think about our consulting offerings as three areas of expertise. They each build on each other and take part of our methodology and deliver it as a service, fully enabled by our platform. Our engagements can encapsulate 1, 2 or all 3 of the areas depending on the needs of our clients.
Marketing Operations
Marketing operations is foundational for demand generation to succeed. And, from our perspective, we believe that for your marketing automation system, processes and workflows for lead handling, and reporting to truly work well, they need to be built by people who intimately understand demand-gen. Afterall, that’s what they’re there to serve.
Our marketing operations package includes:
Marketing automation selection and/or optimization
If you don’t have a tool already in place, we will understand your business and goals and help select the right system for your needs. Our experts can then implement the system and get it up and running with your CRM.
If you already have a tool in place, we can assess its current state and make recommendations for optimizing it based on best practices and with your unique business in mind.
Processes and workflows
Once your system is in good shape, we will help you define what your processes are for lead handling and sales handoff. If you need help understanding best practices, or the way this should look in order to be effective, we can provide that guidance.
Once your processes are defined, our team will build the necessary workflows inside your system to ensure they are automated and working properly.
Day-to-day operations
Once your system is set up and optimized, we can start to move into ongoing management. This is where we will help define, set-up and manage your reporting, implement email nurture streams and email marketing campaigns and ensure proper lead flow and tagging as you launch your programs.
Let’s think about the different elements:
Demand-Gen Strategy
Once your foundation is set, or if it already is, we can help you lay out your demand-gen strategy. This package helps you plan and optimize your program and budget mix as well as align teams and processes to ensure you get the most out of them.
Planning
Critical to setting your strategy is understanding your plan. Our team will help you translate your revenue goals into how many leads you need to go source by planning your reverse waterfall. We can do this by using your historical data or industry best practice funnel conversion rates.
At 4AM we view this as way more than just a math exercise. This requires joint conversations with both sales and marketing at the table. It requires an understanding with finance and the business around revenue goals. Joint commitment between sales and marketing for who is responsible for what. Alignment on funnel definitions and optimized processes for lead follow-up. Our team helps facilitate and set the stage for these decisions and will guide you with best practices across the board.
Once the teams are aligned and lead goals are set, we’ll help plan the optimal budget and program mix for you based on your budget and target market.
Lead management
While your team is off executing programs and leads start coming in, we will ensure your defined processes are working properly. We will also track and manage your KPI’s to understand which programs are driving pipeline, which aren’t, and if there are any choke points in your funnel that need to be addressed.
Program assessment
We will continue to meet with key stakeholders, review metrics on an ongoing basis, revisit your program and budget mix every quarter to continue to optimize and help your teams educate the business on the ROI of your demand-gen programs.
Digital Strategy & Execution
Inevitably, once the time comes to start executing the programs we have defined, we get asked if we do that too. We have a team of digital experts who are able to completely take over your SEO and paid digital marketing. We have found that digital expertise is a unique skill set and can be hard to find particularly in the beginning stages of building out your team.
Digital foundation
Our experts will learn the core tenants of your business, audience and competitive landscape and use that knowledge to do an audit of your current SEO strategy, existing content, and how well your website is set up to drive conversion and SEO.
Research & planning
Once the team has assessed the current state, they will perform SEO research and provide recommendations for keywords, pillar pages, and content. They will take this research and plan the optimal budget mix for your paid digital campaigns.
Ongoing management
Then, the team will take it all the way through to execution to continuously manage and optimize your paid digital across: advertising, re-targeting, paid and organic search. They will also manage all of your reporting and deliver key insights back to you.
What Makes 4AM Different
We get it. There is no shortage of companies out there that can help you with outsourced marketing. But, 4AM does it differently.
We aren’t an agency. We’re a software company, built by demand-gen experts. Our experience spans decades and every company size. We have scaled start-ups to >$500M exits. We have managed multi-million dollar budgets at large companies, and multi-thousand dollar budgets at small companies.
In other words, we have walked in your shoes. We have stood with our backs against the wall trying to justify our budget to the CEO and board. We have explained the funnel and how to optimize it countless times. We built 4AM because we were tired of being on our heels. We wanted to show demand generators what it feels like to lead from the front.
We’re here because it’s about time someone enabled marketers. Ready to chat?
We’d love to connect!
Interested in trying the 4AM Platform for free? Create an account and let us know what you think!
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