1 – Paid Acquisition (I want fast growth)
Paid acquisition tips:
Always add value.
Align your ad, targeting and website experience with your ideal customers
Target your ideal customers first then branch out
Work out your benchmarks (CPA, AOV, LTV)
Be organized and be prepared to do the boring work (rinse & repeat what works)
 
2 – Viral Acquisition (I want huge growth)
This strategy is by far the cheapest way to acquire emails, social followers and more. All you have to do is follow the below steps.
1 – choose a prize that your target audience would get excited about.
2 – build a contest (lots of tools which help you do this)
3 – launch the contest
4 – market the contest
5 – watch the viral growth happen.
 
3 – Join Venture Acquisition (I want guaranteed growth)
Some examples of this:
Joint email promotion.
Joint event and sponsorships (e.g. web summits)
Guest appearance on podcasts
Join contests (what we discussed above)
Joint product launch
 
4 – Content Marketing Acquisition (I want long-term growth)
The best types of content are:
Resource lists
Case studies
Best xxxxx (like this post)
In depth product reviews & comparisons
Personal story (I had this problem & this is how I solved it)

We looked at B2B versus B2C Digital Quotient scores across the four dimensions and also peered into the survey data for details on underlying practices for each dimension.

Strategy—attention deficit. B2B companies are behind B2C companies in how they use digital tools and data to set strategy. They often treat overall strategy and digital strategy differently. 

Organization—beyond legacy structures. Most B2B players haven’t taken concrete steps to mobilize the organization around digital tools and data. 

Capabilities—skills deficit. With lower levels of strategic focus and organizational discipline, it’s not surprising that B2B companies are behind those in the B2C sector in digital capabilities. 

Culture—a firm base. On average, across cultural DQ measures, B2B companies aren’t far behind their average B2C counterparts in core areas such as trust and internal and external agility.

According to the Accenture research, disruptive growth is defined as “driving the disruptive growth agenda and generating new value for the business.”

There appears to be a misalignment on business priority and accountability. Only 37% of the CMOs surveyed by Accenture viewed disruptive growth as very important and are committing time and resources on innovation. And yet, three in four CMOs say they have total or a significant control of levers that drive disruptive growth at their organizations.

To get started with leading disruptive growth initiatives at their organizations, the Accenture research points out that CMOs need to first make their marketing priorities disruptive. They need to develop their disruptive growth strategy around these objectives:

Focusing on an outcome-driven orientation rather than product or service orientation
Improving and eliminating any friction from the customer experience
Tapping into customers’ unmet needs and creating new needs

Marketer's have allocated 12% of company revenue to the marketing expense budget to last year’s 11%.

CMOs have taken on responsibility for aspects of sales, IT and customer experience functions in 30% or more organizations.

27% of the marketing expense budget is now allocated to technology, or 3.24% of revenue in 2016 vs. CIO’s tech budget of 3.4% of revenue.

We’re also seeing a strong correlation between a CMO’s willingness to share in the risk and the size of the budget they’re able to command. 

While the majority of marketing leaders expect budget increases again next year, the percentage of marketers bracing for a cut has grown nearly 5X from this time two years ago.

While investment in new technology for products and services continues to be a priority (55% of the CEOs ranked it in their top 2), a focus on innovating in the way their companies engage with customers was a top priority for more CEOs (58%).      They are recognizing that changing market conditions, particularly more tech-savvy business buyers, requires them to become more industry and business focused, to adapt their sales practices, and to think about new delivery models.

And, more importantly, they feel this shift is paying off where it counts.  42% of the CEOs cited improvements in customer experience and service as the key change that has driven more wins (Incidentally, the combination of new or better products was only 15%).

General Management - What do best-in-class marketers do better and differently in their pursuit of marketing excellence? Find out in this infographic, packed with data from our annual benchmark study.