The document discusses the impact of budget cuts on sales and marketing strategies in the financial technology sector, highlighting that sales costs have escalated significantly. It emphasizes the need for vendors to adapt their approach, focusing on targeting a specific group of decision-makers to enhance effectiveness and relationship-building rather than relying on mass marketing strategies. The proposed solution involves streamlining sales teams and marketing efforts to align with buyer cycles, ultimately aiming to reduce costs and increase revenue.

1. How to beat budget burnout
In these days of brutal budget cuts, hard-won sales often come with a hefty price tag
attached. The cost of sale for a number of the top 100 financial technology companies
has escalated to up to 70% of all revenues and potentially well over 100% of new
revenues. E2W analyses the true impact of tighter budgets on traditional sales and
marketing strategies and asks how vendors can adapt their approach accordingly.
EXAMPLES FROM THE TOP 100 FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGY COMPANIES COS AS % OF REVENUE
Top 10 global provider of portfolio accounting and complementary solutions
35%
Global provider of integrated technology and services solutions to the
financial community
69%
Major global provider of investment management and business process
management solutions
60%
Growing financial technology company targeting asset managers,
banks and insurance companies 52%
Specialist information, software, and services provider to financial institutions 67%
Medium sized reconciliation and trade flow management provider
30%
The purpose of this table is to highlight the sales and marketing costs across the sector.The percentages
have been calculated from the figures in each company’s published report and accounts and the allocation
of costs may vary from company to company.
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2. How to beat the budget burnout
The good old days of bottomless sales and marketing budgets
ended with the financial crisis, but unless cuts are met with a
change in strategy, they look set to have a tangible impact on
revenue, profitability and company performance. So what’s the
best way to keep the cost of sale under control?
First, let’s dispel one of the leading misconceptions behind conventional sales
and marketing strategies. The financial technology market is not an infinite
one. In fact, with key buying decisions in the hands of a select few, even the
larger companies only need to know the 10,000 people globally who control
over 80% of spend in their market. What’s more, those 10,000 people are
likely to stay broadly the same the next year, and the one after that. OUR
Yet vendor awareness among this tightly defined target group is staggeringly SERVICES
low, with research revealing that: For more information on the
services we provide, please
• Well over half know little about software vendors, beyond their
visit our website.
company names
• Most find the mass marketing ‘promotional’ strategies employed by software
vendors and their salespeople counterproductive at best, and an active VIEW SERVICES 
turn-off at worst
Know your customer
Without the ability to clearly identify these people in the first place, sales and
marketing efforts – and money – are disappearing into a black hole. And that E2W... Everything changes
leaves financial technology providers facing a growing imperative to create leaner when you know when your
prospects are going to
sales teams and squeeze the maximum mileage from their beleaguered budgets.
buy... but do you only learn
Most software houses are struggling with tools that just aren’t up to the job: about a lost sale when you
inadequate and unwieldy CRM systems cluttered with out-of-date, redundant see it in the press?
information. In this game, success is not judged by the questionable metrics of
clicks, page views and event attendees, but by the relationships built, levels of
understanding achieved and knowledge gained.
Mass marketing misses the mark
With no clear way of pinpointing these 10,000 people or understanding
their needs, marketing strategies inevitably become ‘campaign based’ and
mass market-orientated. This creates a no-win situation for both sides of the
process. From the vendor’s point of view, mass marketing tends to deliver
the lowest return on investment. And from a buyer’s point of view, mass
marketing tends to irritate, particularly when:
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3. How to beat the budget burnout
• It’s lead generation masquerading as a marketing strategy
• It’s purely promotional, rather than implicitly educational
• It fails to make them want to know more or enter a relationship
However, if you can successfully understand your audience and build a
sustainable relationship with them, you can use this knowledge in a relevant
and targeted way to benefit you both.
Work in harmony with buying cycles
Understanding your target market starts with understanding the buying cycle
itself. Of course, software sales people are highly incentivised to achieve
quarterly targets by promoting the benefits of their solution to the individual
teams who answer to the 10,000-strong target market. CASE
However, with buying cycles for many software solutions companies set at five, STUDIES
10 and 15 years, there’s little motivation for sales teams to invest in maintaining Please visit our website to
a relationship with a buyer who simply isn’t buying right now. What’s more, read E2W’s case studies
salespeople represent a very expensive resource for the software houses,
who are naturally keen for them to focus on what they do best-selling.
Interestingly, savvy software houses do have an inherent advantage. Access Case Study
to their client base means access to best practice, industry trends and unique
OTC Market
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houses that ing strateg y several challen
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VIEW CASE STUDIES 
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The Solution efficiency and
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banks, exchan ses, the E2W
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strategies are the main contributing factors to high cost of sales, so it pays
to develop a
long-
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to follow three key principles:
• Be in the buying cycle. Finding out that your competitors have won a piece
of business by reading about it in the press is a common kick in the teeth.
It’s equally galling to miss the boat because a well-entrenched competitor
already has a foot in the door and relationships in all the right places.
• Market knowledge equals better business planning. A lack of customer
focus leads to poor market understanding. After all, how can you set
budgets and targets, sales team size and location if you do not know
who will be buying next year?
• Channel your energy. Marketing and sales strategies need to be tightly
tailored to the state of mind of the buyer. It’s pointless trying to sell to
a buyer who isn’t buying today. Save your energy for selling to the right
people at the right time.
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4. How to beat the budget burnout
Cutting cost of sale and ramping up revenue
We’ve looked at the two main elements of a sales and marketing strategy
commonly deployed by software companies and seen how they produce
waste and lead to high cost of sale. Putting in place a strategy that identifies,
builds and nurtures relationships with these circa 10,000 people (or
however many there are in your market) is not impossible. E2W do it for
our clients every day!
At E2W, we use a targeted approach: market relationship management.
Our specialist teams are dedicated to identifying , understanding, capturing
knowledge from, and building relationships with, the people in their clients’
markets who represent 80% of the spend in that market.
Because our people have worked in-house for financial institutions, they
INSIGHTS
Please visit our website to
are perfectly equipped to communicate and engage with senior decision- read more latest insights
makers over the long term by delivering the insight effectively and efficiently
to the people who count and capture the crucial knowledge that underpins
product and business planning. They are also well placed to get in at the
start of a buying cycle and introduce sales people into the mix at the right
time. Lastly, they are experienced at retaining and sharing the knowledge
they gain and using it to play the process to their advantage.
So how can the E2W approach reposition your sales and marketing strategy
to deliver despite today’s tighter budgets? VIEW INSIGHTS 
More streamlined sales teams: You only need enough salespeople to cover
the number of buyers that you know will be in the market next year.
Drastically reduced marketing spend: Spending is focused on providing the
market relationship team with compelling messages that buyers actually
want to hear. These facts combined with not missing opportunities in your
market lead to substantial savings. With increased revenues and lower costs,
savings of 10%, 15%, and 20% are more than achievable.
E2W’s unique process and extraordinary people have proven time and time
again that they can achieve these results more effectively and productively
than their clients’ sales or telemarketing teams.
Contact
EMEA NORTH AMERICA ASIA PACIFIC
Lynn Eade Laura Hull Mark Freed
Tel: +44 (0)1732 897 733 Tel: +1 973 993 4380 Tel: +65 652 13839
Email: lynn.eade@e2w.co Email: laura.hull@e2w.co Email: mark.freed@e2w.co
HEAD OFFICE: E2W Limited, Suite 1, 50 Churchill Square, Kings HIll, West Malling, Kent ME19 4 YU WWW.E2W.CO
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