B2B marketing is no longer a matter of delivering support tools and services to the sales organisation. The challenge for marketing is to take more of an independent role in B2B as a positioning driver. The loss of an extremely close, direct connection between sales and marketing also causes a loss in the alignment of sales and marketing investments for driving business. There isn’t necessarily sufficient marketing focus on generating revenue streams, as sales often ignores what will drive future revenue. B2B sales and marketing needs to re-align its objectives and priorities.

1. What’s your key
account marketing
plan?
Kunde & Co on Marketing Strategy
June 2014

2. 2
Summary
B2B marketing is no longer a matter of delivering support tools and
services to the sales organisation. The challenge for marketing is to
take more of an independent role in B2B as a positioning driver.
The loss of an extremely close, direct connection between sales and
marketing also causes a loss in the alignment of sales and marketing
investments for driving business. There isn’t necessarily sufficient
marketing focus on generating revenue streams, as sales often
ignores what will drive future revenue. B2B sales and marketing
needs to re-align its objectives and priorities.

3. The sales focus in B2B
3
The 80:20 rule
Sales behaviour is often characterised by
differentiated prioritisation of the customer base –
not every client gets or needs the same focus. This
prioritisation reflects the scope of the business
relationship, in that customers with high priority and
focus generate the biggest revenue. This
prioritisation rarely equals the business potential, but
more often is of importance to the company’s
existing turn-over.
Selling is connecting
The selling in B2B is a long process of building
relationships, removing concerns and developing
solutions which match the customer’s demands.
Establishing and developing these connections is the
critical challenge for the sales organisation.
The question is: does marketing facilitate
creating and sustaining connections to the most
relevant customers?
A
B
C

4. Marketing typically focuses on target groups
4
The stakeholder focus
Marketing professionals typically focus on the target
groups and stakeholders – Engineers, Installers,
Doctors, Accountants, etc. Or on segments with
similar responsibilities – CSR, Production, R&D and IT.
The marketing challenge is to develop and optimise
communication towards the entire value chain
around the core target group, and to develop sales
tools with the same target group in mind.
This approach makes sense from a“total market”
perspective and allows focus on the full market
opportunity. But rarely does it include consideration
of the individual customer’s business potential.
Even though the target group focus makes a lot
of sense from a marketing strategy and
positioning perspective, the actual
implementation and marketing planning might
need to include a detailed business potential
consideration.

5. The sales – marketing clash
5
Talking different languages
It’s no surprise that sales often perceive marketing as
money wasted on nice pictures and smashing
headlines. While marketing feels that sales reduce
the marketing task to a matter of making tools, only
supporting the direct sales process, and not driving
the entire business.
Rethinking the planning
The challenge is for marketing to rethink the
marketing plan. Marketing must engage in the
discussion of how to broaden the perspective of the
customer’s decision-making process, and address the
need for influencing preference and opinions
beyond the actual sales meeting.
Include the must-win battles
Of course it’s impossible to reallocate all marketing
resources according to the business potential of each
individual customer. But almost every business has a
set of high priority customers or projects. And these
should be included in the marketing planning
considerations.

6. The key account relationship
6
Broaden customer engagement
It’s evident that the sales relationship to key
decision-makers is crucial for success. The direct
contact drives the understanding of needs and
ensures solutions are designed to meet core
demands. But in larger projects or framework
agreements, the decision-making process is paved
with hidden agendas.
The solutions must be feasible in multiple
dimensions – financial, risk management,
sustainability, quality and many more. This decision-
making criteria reflects the stakeholder system
within the organisation. The challenge is to get the
right arguments across to the right stakeholders. It’s
mission impossible for the key account manager to
handle that task alone.
In other words the sales performance can surely
be improved and optimised through a close
integration of the sales and marketing approach.

7. KAM marketing touch-points
7
Apply segmentation according to accessibility
The first step is to apply a segmented approach and
agree that key account sales can not establish and
maintain the same level of engagement among all
stakeholders. Some stakeholders are very hard to
approach directly. Either they might be too high or
too low in the organisation, or their actual
responsibilities make a face-to-face engagement
difficult to create. Still, it’s crucial that they are
influenced.
This is where all relevant touch-points must be
segmented according to accessibility level. The
“direct access”points are the usual key account touch
points. The“limited access”points are the touch
points that might possibly yield some access, but
don’t create close relationships.
Finally there are the“no access”stakeholders. These
are often a large group of people who form opinions
in the organisation and influence the general
preference for solutions in regards to specific
questions. They often don’t have line functions, but
are specialists who strongly influence decisions in
regards to these specific questions, for example – IT,
Finance, CSR, or Legal.

8. The KAM marketing framework
8
The KAM marketing framework
Based on the segmentation, it’s possible to define a
marketing framework and consider communication
channels to all stakeholders. This approach includes an
additional target group – the internal staff. There might
be a range of people in your own organisation who
need to be informed and support the approach – this
might be the local sales set-up, service people or
specialists with direct customer contact.
It’s possible to build an intelligent marketing approach
where the stakeholders are segmented in a specific
organisation according to their professional“authority”.
Intelligent usage of behavioural and profile data
enables a very targeted marketing approach, which
can be multiplied and implemented across a larger
number of key accounts.
This approach will level up key account marketing
to be a lot more than just a support function of the
key account managers. It will drive opening
business opportunities from entirely new places.
But it demands a very deep integration of sales and
marketing skills – integration which the B2B
marketers need to face soon.

9. 9
About us
Søren Poulsen, Managing Partner, Kunde & Co
Søren (sp@kunde.dk) focuses on developing brand and
marketing strategies for international companies. His key
ambition is to make brand and marketing activities a driver
for business opportunities – too often marketing is focused
on areas which don't truly add value to the business.
He believes there is a need in many companies to create
stronger integration between marketing and sales. In that
regard the marketing strategy process is a vital part of the
solution. This is where he sees the biggest opportunities in
making a difference and creating results.

10. 10
About us
Kunde & Co is an international full-service
branding and advertising agency
We are highly experienced in every facet of marketing. The agency specialises in creating
overall marketing strategies, branding and strengthening companies’market positions.
Our approach is holistic and focuses on integrated solutions. Headquartered in Copenhagen,
the agency also has offices in Switzerland and Germany.
Contact us:
Kunde & Co
Østerfælled Torv 4, 2100, Copenhagen Ø, Denmark
Phone: + 45 35 44 12 00
info@kunde.dk
www.kunde-co.com