Why Your Enterprise Growth Strategy is Failing (And How to Fix It)

A marketing manager from a DTC brand reached out to me last week with a problems I've seen a lot: "We're struggling with poor enterprise customer growth."

The problem isn't your product, your pricing, or even your market. The problem is that you're treating enterprise customers like bigger versions of your consumer customers. That approach fails every single time.

The Fundamental Difference

Here's what I learned in the Marine Corps: different missions require different tactics. The same principle applies to customer segmentation. Enterprise buyers and consumer buyers are fighting completely different battles.

Consumer buyers ask: "Will this make my life easier?"

Enterprise buyers ask: "Will this make my company more profitable and me look good to my boss?"

Where Most DTC Brands Go Wrong

Most DTC companies make these critical mistakes when approaching enterprise:

Mistake #1: Using the same messaging

Your consumer messaging focuses on convenience, price, and personal benefits. Enterprise buyers care about ROI, implementation complexity, and business outcomes. When you tell an enterprise buyer your product is "easy and affordable," they hear "unprofessional and limited." Remeber, this is a fundamentally different ICP.

Mistake #2: Treating it like scaled consumer sales

Enterprise sales aren't consumer sales with bigger numbers. There are typically 4-10 decision makers involved (you should have seen the insane approval process when I worked at GE), sales cycles last 6-18 months, and the evaluation process is completely different.

Mistake #3: Focusing on acquisition over retention

In consumer markets, you can often replace churned customers relatively easily. In enterprise, losing one customer can devastate your revenue. Enterprise is about land-and-expand, not churn-and-burn.

The Solution: Build Separate Growth Engines

When that marketing manager contacted me, here's exactly what I told her to do:

Create Enterprise-Specific Buyer Journeys

Build separate landing pages, case studies, and sales processes. Your enterprise prospects should never see consumer-focused messaging.

Map the Buying Committee

Unlike consumers who make individual decisions, enterprises have complex buying committees. You need to create content and messaging for:

- Economic buyers (focus on ROI)

- Technical buyers (focus on implementation)

- User buyers (focus on adoption)

- Coach buyers (your internal champions)

Measure Different Success Metrics

Consumer metrics like cost per acquisition don't tell the enterprise story. Focus on:

- Account penetration (how many users within each company)

- Expansion revenue from existing accounts

- Time to value after implementation

- Executive sponsor engagement

The AI Advantage

Here's where smart DTC brands are getting ahead: using AI agents to handle enterprise complexity.

Build an AI agent that:

- Qualifies enterprise leads based on company size, buying signals, and decision-making authority

- Personalizes outreach based on industry, role, and company challenges

- Scores account health across multiple stakeholders and usage patterns

- Identifies expansion opportunities within existing enterprise accounts

Your Action Plan

If you're struggling with enterprise growth, start here:

1. Audit your current approach: Are you using the same messaging, sales process, and success metrics for enterprise as consumer? If yes, that's your problem.

2. Create enterprise buyer personas: Map out the different roles involved in enterprise buying decisions and their specific concerns.

3. Build separate conversion paths: Enterprise prospects should have completely different landing pages, case studies, and follow-up sequences.

4. Invest in relationship building: Enterprise sales are about trust and outcomes, not transactions.

5. Measure what matters: Track account penetration, expansion revenue, and business outcomes, not just acquisition metrics.

Remember what we learned in the military: hope is not a strategy. You need systematic, repeatable processes for enterprise growth. The companies that figure this out don't just grow – they dominate their markets.

Enterprise customers aren't just bigger consumers. They're a completely different mission that requires completely different tactics. Get this right, and you'll build a more predictable, profitable business.

Want to stay up to date on all things growth/digital marketing?

Best,

Rob

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