I recently had a great conversation with Anika Jackson on the "Your Brand Amplified" podcast. We covered a lot of ground, from my early days as a music major to the future of AI, but one topic stood out: efficient growth.
For years, organizations have been laser-focused on one thing: landing the next new logo.
But in today's economy, this "growth at any cost" model is broken.
Here's why this matters: The biggest opportunities for most companies are hiding in plain sight—inside their existing customer base.
One of the challenges we see is companies pouring all their calories into acquisition while leaving money on the table with their current clients.
These clients already trust you. They're already paying you. They're ripe for more interaction.
At SmartBug Media, we've shifted dedicated resources just to customer and client marketing. Why? Because going deeper and broader with an existing account is almost always more efficient than starting from scratch.
If you aren't actively marketing to your existing customers, you're failing to capture loyalty and leaving revenue on the table.
This brings us to technology. To market to your customers effectively, you need a complete picture of that client.
This isn't just how they got to you. It's:
What content they interacted with
What they bought from you
What support tickets they've had
What issues they've faced over time
When companies do invest in a new CRM (like HubSpot), they often make a critical error. They try to drag all their "technical debt" and legacy baggage with them. They take the exact same broken process and just dump it into the new system.
A CRM migration should be an opportunity to rethink your processes, not just get a "faster horse."
If you want to leverage AI, you must have reliable, accurate, and clean data. You can't build a rocket ship on a faulty launchpad.
This data problem leads to the final point: AI adoption.
So many clients come to us with the same, limited use cases:
"Can we use AI to fire our writers?"
"Can AI just handle all our support tickets?"
These are the most obvious, but least transformative, uses for AI.
Here's the real shift: AI is forcing us to rethink pricing models. We're moving from a world of renting solutions(subscriptions) to a world of paying for outcomes.
What does this look like?
Instead of a monthly SaaS fee, maybe you pay per successful outcome.
Instead of paying an agency a retainer, maybe you pay for closed deals or qualified meetings.
This is a hard concept for many to grasp, but it's where the market is heading.
Audit Your Focus: Are you spending 100% of your effort on new logos? Shift some of that to customer marketing.
Clean Your House: Before you buy any new AI tool, fix your data. A migration is a moment for transformation, not just a "lift and shift."
Think Beyond Today: Start brainstorming what "outcome-based" pricing could look like in your industry.
Curious: How is your organization balancing new logo acquisition with customer marketing?
Would love to hear your thoughts.