Follower
Cautious Innovators but Digitally Mature in Marketing
Follower adopts the marketing approach of market leaders. Case in point: Tech businesses like Acer and Asus provide identical items on the market and borrow features from the brands of their direct rivals. This allows them to combine the best qualities of their rivals’ models to create a fresh look for the market. These companies do not overtake or challenge the market leader. That said, they earn much profit as innovation expenses are absent. This approach transcends marketing practices as well. There is a high risk of not being able to capture market share due to the late adoption of innovative and effective marketing practices.
Laggard
Cautious Innovators and Late Adopters
Laggards represent those businesses that practice conventional marketing processes. These activities include flyers, pamphlets, in-person events, and physical marketing collaterals in physical brochures, standees, billboard ads etc. In the case of B2B companies, revenue generation is comprised almost entirely of sales with marketing as a back-office function. There may be a misalignment of marketing and sales goals as well. In the case of B2C companies, the entities are limited to a particular city or state. Expansion and growth potentials have a low ceiling.
Sustainer
Moderate Marketing Maturity and Motivation to Innovate
Sustainers have been in business for a number of years and are starting to see their strong market position take a downward trend. They have not had a pressing need to innovate in the past and have sporadically adopted new pieces of technology, resulting in a mixture of traditional marketing methods and modern digital processes. Often, a disconnect between marketing and sales teams is causing leads to go cold and opportunities lost. Sustainers are in a position to overhaul outdated, manual processes by introducing and integrating digital solutions and challenge the early innovators.
Challenger
Late Adopters but Motivated to Innovate
Challengers are those businesses that aim to overthrow the leaders or their immediate competition in the quest for market share and revenue. While digitally nascent, these entities are strongly inclined to adopt innovative marketing techniques. In the short term, they may have to sustain financial losses and lower profit margins to stabilize their marketing and sales operations. Interestingly, both niche market players and broad segment operators make up the Challenger demographic. One way to mitigate the risk of financial losses is to recruit or contract marketing operations professionals/agencies who are well-versed in the Marketing Technology landscape.
Visionary
Very Motivated and Mature in Marketing
Visionaries are leaders in their marketing activities, showing their market share and competitive position. Their marketing techniques are comprehensive in channel coverage and effective in their messaging. The alignment of marketing and sales in such organizations is perfectly balanced. The marketing team leverages advanced KPIs such as marketing campaign ROI to cater to logical forecasting and budgeting for the future. Long-term growth and sustainability are ensured by their digital culture that constantly looks to innovate and refine their marketing and sales processes.
