Two plus two equals five? Integrating marketing and business development

Much has been written about the need for marketing and business development personnel to collaborate and integrate more, as their roles merge in this digital world (‘smarketing’), so its been fascinating to see this trend developing first hand.

In recent weeks I’ve been working with a client and helping their various senior fee-earners nurture and convert prospects. I’ve seen the value of this collaboration and how the business development and marketing teams can support each other in their various roles, by;

Adopting a strategic approach to each prospect organisation

We jointly identified;

• • the specific individuals within the client organisation we needed to reach
  • the key themes and issues for that prospect and content required to address those
  • the form that content should take
  • the channels to use to reach those specific individuals

Tailoring the marketing activity with the final bid in mind

By understanding the key messages we needed to deliver within the bid process, we implemented wider marketing and PR communication both before and during the bid process that was consistent with those. An obvious example of business development informing the content marketing process.

Empowering individuals to develop their profile as experts;

Using the right content aimed at the specific prospect, fee-earners have shared, promoted and used that content to cultivate their brand as experts. They have played a vital role in what was previously viewed as the ‘marketing’ process. Executed correctly, the key decision-makers in the prospect organisation should already have a positive perception of the individuals, as opposed to the corporate brand, by the time of the final presentation.

Working as a team in the bid process;

We combined an understanding and knowledge of the prospect from the business development team with technical expertise within the firm, to (hopefully!) deliver a compelling proposal to the prospect.

With different opportunities at different stages of the bid process we await the results. However, regardless of the outcomes, this collaborative mindset has definitely been set for the future.