Business Development vs Marketing: What’s the Difference?

Gone are the days where your business could send messages into the ether, and consumers will come running. Lots of businesses will get results from using cold outreach on Linkedin and follow up in a traditional sales process that results in sending the prospect to a webinar.

A business must now use a more comprehensive business model, such as HubSpot’s Flywheel, to ensure the entire company is aligned and working towards an exceptional customer experience.

The traditional marketing funnel is no longer sufficient. Consider this: 81 percent of buyers trust a peer’s recommendation more than a company’s advice regarding purchasing decisions. A consumer will ask their social network, review social media, and read online suggestions to help inform their buying decision. The linear sales or marketing funnel doesn’t account for the momentum you can create through a better customer experience, nor the friction that an inefficient business process may create.

The Flywheel Method works by ensuring consistent customer happiness. The wheel is powered by the momentum your happy customers create: they drive referrals, repeat sales, and keep your wheel spinning.

The wheel’s momentum is dependant on how fast your company spins it, the amount of friction placed on it, and its overall size.

Your wheel will increase in speed when you add more force in high-impact areas, such as customer service, inbound marketing, social media messaging, or a loyalty program.

To ensure your wheel keeps spinning, you need to reduce the amount of friction that is influencing its rotation. A flawed conversion process, broken internal and cross-team communication, and misaligned brand messages are all friction points that may slow down your flywheel and create hiccups in your business strategy.

The bigger your flywheel needs to be to support your business and consumer base, the more you will need to invest in the factors that aid in its momentum and decrease your business strategy friction points.