Many professional services firms separate the marketing communications (“marcoms”) pros (who are charged with building brand awareness and generating interest) from the business development team (which is responsible for winning new business and account management).
While it makes sense on one level—communications and sales demand somewhat different skillsets, appeal to different personalities, and offer alternate career paths—separating the top and bottom of the funnel can disrupt the buyer journey and negatively impact a firm’s ability to convert leads and then grow and retain its clients.
Disintegrated communications and BD teams sometimes don’t collaborate or even communicate well.
Has the BD team had input into the communication team’s content marketing calendar?
Does the comms team have an accurate and up-to-date understanding of the BD team’s go-to-market priorities?
Do the communicators know what’s in the pipeline, what the BD team is positioning for?
Are the highest quality thought leadership campaigns aligned with the priority pursuits?
Or are the two functions operating as silos?
Thought leadership impacts the top and bottom line
Listed on the Tokyo exchange, Dentsu is a global media agency that conducts an annual study of B2B buying behaviour across the professional services, financial services, manufacturing, and technology sectors.
In 2024, the Dentsu research (the B2B Superpowers Index) revealed ‘being perceived as active thought leaders in your category or sector’ is now the 3rd most important decision driver for B2B buyers, up from 20th in 2023.
Thought leadership—the purview of the marcoms team—is understood to increase brand awareness and positioning but the benefits are not limited to the top of the funnel.
Thought leadership is increasingly impacting the top and bottom line – the business development team has a vested interest.
Thought leadership drives RFP invitations
The 2024 Edelman-LinkedIn Thought Leadership Impact Report found 86% of decision makers say they are moderately or very likely to invite organisations that consistently produce high quality thought leadership to participate in the Request for Proposal (RFP) process.
Thought leadership impacts client retention
In the Edelman-LinkedIn study, 70% of C-suite executives said low quality thought leadership had at least occasionally caused them to question whether they should continue working with an existing supplier.
Thought leadership commands a price premium
60% of decision maker respondents to the Edelman-LinkedIn research indicated good thought leadership makes them willing to pay a premium to work with that organisation.
Low quality thought leadership compromises client relationships
Simultaneously, the research shows competitors are using thought leadership to steer clients away:
- 54% of executive respondents said a piece of thought leadership caused them to realise other suppliers had a better understanding of the challenges their organisation was facing.
- 51% said a piece of thought leadership made them realise other suppliers were smarter or more visionary.
Meanwhile, it’s becoming harder to win and more difficult to retain clients. Dentsu reports the:
- Consideration set (the number of brands being considered by B2B buyers) is swelling (up 62% since 2021)
- Competitive gap between the winning brand and the second-placed (losing brand) has shrunk by a whopping 78%
- Incumbency is a waning advantage, with the incumbent loss rate increasing from 29% to 34% in 2024.
All of these findings support the closer integration of the marcoms and BD functions and the appointment or development of leaders who are experienced in working at all stages of the funnel.
