Author: Jeff Stiles



8 Steps to Shift to a Solutions-Led Marketing Approach

May 29, 2025
Jeff Stiles

Business leaders across industries continue to tell us, “I want to adopt a solutions-led marketing strategy.” Then, naturally, they want to know, “But how can I make this solutions approach work in my organization?”

Knowing the method for delivering impactful content that fuels pipeline, revenue and enablement is one thing. But figuring out how to implement this approach across siloed teams remains a challenge. To succeed, you must lead with clarity, empathy, and structure. The following eight steps will help you move your organization towards a solutions-led marketing approach.

1. START WITH A SHARED VISION — AND SECURE EXECUTIVE BUY-IN

Before driving change, leaders must understand the current state of the organization. Assess how marketing, product and sales teams operate within their discipline and collaborative — where processes align and where they diverge. At this stage, establishing cross-functional relationships is critical. Equally important you must clearly articulate how the shift to solutions-led marketing can drive meaningful gains for everyone in the organization.

By demonstrating the value of this approach to each function — how it elevates their work and supports business growth — you can rally teams around a common purpose for cross-team alignment. This is classic change management, grounded in empathy and anchored in collaboration with subject matter experts.

Key capabilities also required:

  • Product expertise
  • Ability to translate product and service bundles into buyer-ready solutions
  • Understanding of the sales cycle and buying behavior

2. DEFINE THE ROLE OF SOLUTION MARKETING

Establish a formal charter that outlines the focus, responsibilities and impact of the solution marketing function. This is not about owning every go-to-market (GTM) motion — it is about creating clarity, as this example solution marketing charter illustrates:

Adapt this charter to your current business context. In some organizations, solution marketing may eventually orchestrate integrated GTM execution with the experts who understand the market, buyers and solutions you offer. If that is not your current reality, do not force it — but keep it as a north star.

A strong charter helps:

  • Set boundaries and expectations
  • Clarify cross-functional roles
  • Elevate the strategic role of marketing

3. EMBRACE THE ROLE OF CONTENT CURATOR

In many businesses, no one team owns the organization’s full story. Instead, marketing must act as a curator — gathering multiple points of view and insights from product, sales, industry and partner teams to shape a unified narrative.

This requires humility and strong facilitation. You must have a willingness to accept strong feedback and to work across the community in order to create something useful for the entire go-to-market team. It also means creating lean content supply chains that scale — starting with a master asset (like a Solution Perspective document) and generating derivative content to support sales and enablement.

We recommend visualizing the approach of working with myriad stakeholders to create a common understanding of buyer needs, how your solutions uniquely address them and the value that delivers.

4. LAUNCH A PILOT WITH EXECUTIVE SUPPORT

Once you have secured support from key stakeholders, select a specific initiative to pilot to prove the end-to-end approach. For example, it could be a solution launch, value messaging transformation or an account-based marketing / sales initiative. Enlist executive sponsors to co-own the kickoff, framing the rationale, scope and success metrics. Use the kickoff meeting to inspire engagement and establish momentum for the approach.

Work to:

  • Make roles and expectations clear
  • Celebrate early wins
  • Communicate consistently

5. PRACTICE RADICAL TRANSPARENCY

Transparency builds trust — especially in cross-functional efforts and in creating and tracking progress toward shared goals. After you have kicked off the pilot, hold regular check-ins to share progress, address issues and concerns, and reinforce expectations. Encourage open dialogue at these meetings. This creates accountability and alignment and helps prevent friction before it derails the effort.

6. LEAD WITH EMPATHY, STAY HUMBLE

Stakeholder alignment is a recurring effort, not a one-time task. Be willing to adapt. Small gestures can go a long way toward building trust. For example, one team I led involved myriad stakeholders with divergent opinions. In one of the early stakeholder meetings, I gave folks the chance to share their perspectives, both positive and negative about how things were progressing. One stakeholder had a fundamental concern with the name of the Solution Perspective document. I listened, acknowledged the concerns and on the spot decided to change the document name to suit the situation. This act sounds simple, but it diffused the situation and gained trust, which is vital to get people moving in the same direction.

Likewise, you need a village to establish a unified perspective in an organization on buyer needs, solutions and the value they deliver. You must put yourself into the shoes of the different stakeholders and respect differing points of view, their area of ownership and their responsibility. That empathy thing again goes a long way.

Put it into practice:

  • Ensure that all voices are heard in both input and review phases
  • Give product, industry and sales experts ownership of the story where it makes sense
  • Avoid reinventing assets like “marketecture” diagrams without everyone’s input

7. BRING SALES AND SOLUTION ENGINEERS INTO THE FOLD

To win support from sales leaders, which is crucial to this process, demonstrate how solutions-led marketing enhances the buying journey. Partner closely with solution engineers — they live in the details and have a finely tuned sense for what works (and what does not) with buyers. Earning their trust is critical.

8. VISUALIZE SUCCESS — AND WORK BACKWARDS

Every organization is different. As such, every marketing leader will apply these steps depending on their unique context differently. But one thing is true across the board: Change takes time.

To manage your organization’s transformation, define success in tangible, inspiring terms, and share a vision your teams can rally around.

Try writing headlines that represent what major accomplishments look and feel like across different timeframes, such as:

  • “We created a unified view of our solutions for the healthcare vertical in 3 weeks!”
  • “All marketing and sales content delivered for manufacturing in just 45 days!”
  • “We reactivated $40 million in pipeline from dormant accounts within 90 days!”

LEAD THE CHANGE, DO NOT JUST SUPPORT IT

Transforming how your organization goes to market is not just a marketing initiative — it is a leadership opportunity. Driving a solutions-led approach requires vision, influence and a deep understanding of your business and buyers.

If you are navigating this change and looking for a partner in the process, we would be happy to share what has worked for us — and help you shape a strategy that works for you. Schedule a 30-minute consultation with one of our revenue experts today.



Beware the Content Explosion: A Smarter Approach for B2B Solution Marketing Leaders

April 17, 2025
Jeff Stiles

In the fast-paced world of B2B solution marketing, content is both an asset and a challenge. Marketers need to communicate value across multiple industries, personas and sales channels. But without a structured approach, content creation can quickly spiral into a chaotic and unsustainable effort.

The reality is that each new industry, audience, or business line exponentially increases the amount of content required. This creates a quality control challenge — resulting in inconsistent messaging, duplicated efforts and an overwhelming curation burden.

THE SOLUTION: A LEAN CONTENT SUPPLY CHAIN

To scale effectively, solution marketers must adopt a lean content supply chain that prioritizes reuse and efficiency. The key is to work backward from the desired business outcomes and determine the essential content assets required to achieve them. Think of this as a “minimum equipment list” rather than an exhaustive bill of materials.

By streamlining content development, marketing leaders can:

  • Minimize content redundancy while maximizing reach.
  • Maintain consistent messaging across all channels.
  • Improve collaboration between sales and marketing teams.
  • Enhance content governance and quality control.

BUILDING CONTENT FROM A SINGLE SOURCE OF TRUTH

Reuse starts with the Solution Perspective — a foundational document that aligns marketers and sales teams around key industry trends, buyer needs and solution positioning. This should include core messaging, proof points and key differentiators that can be repurposed across various formats.

Instead of reinventing the wheel for each audience, the Solution Perspective serves as the backbone for derivative content, including:

  • Web pages
  • Customer decks
  • eBooks
  • Blogs
  • Social media posts

However, adapting content for different formats is not a simple copy-paste exercise. Writing for social media, for example, is vastly different from creating an in-depth eBook. The key is to shape and reshape content to fit the context while preserving consistency in messaging.

QUALITY CONTROL: THE FINAL CHECKPOINT

To ensure alignment and accuracy, solution marketers should always have the final review and approval of any derivative content. This is not about micromanagement — it is about maintaining content integrity while ensuring that what reaches buyers is compelling, consistent and aligned with strategic goals.

KEY TAKEAWAYS FOR SOLUTION MARKETERS

  1. Prioritize repurposing content: Develop a lean content supply chain that minimizes redundancy.
  2. Start with a Solution Perspective: Establish a single source of truth for messaging and positioning.
  3. Adapt content strategically: Tailor messaging for different formats while keeping core themes consistent.
  4. Maintain quality control: Ensure solution marketers review all derivative content before publication.

By following these principles, solution marketing leaders can avoid the content explosion, streamline operations and create a sustainable approach to content that drives meaningful business impact.

Want to learn more? Reach out — we would be happy to help. 



The Power of Perspective in Solution Marketing

March 6, 2025
Jeff Stiles

There is no arguing it: Today’s selling organizations need aligned teams to achieve success. But with so many moving pieces, how do you bring your solution marketing teams’ efforts together to best support the revenue motion?

A single source of truth.

This cannot be an assumed source of truth or disjointed resources you hope your marketing and sales professionals will pick up on. Your organization needs a tangible and formal way to guide your professionals on the right path — as one.

At Mereo, we help drive this alignment with the solution perspective document. This one source of truth forms the basis for all enablement and solution-focused marketing and sales content. Often, creating this is easier said than done.

As head of marketing, you must gather vital data and key inputs, engaging numerous stakeholders and subject matter experts to craft this important tool. But if you are intentional in making your solution perspective document right, it can make all the difference in leading united efforts and developing consistent content that drives sustainable performance. Keep reading, and we will share how to get started.

KEY ELEMENTS OF A SOLUTION PERSPECTIVE

There exists great power in perspective. With it, you develop a common understanding of market and buyer dynamics. You also create a lean content supply chain along with impactful sales and marketing content, focusing your team on the issues and needs your buyers face, how your solutions uniquely address them and the value they deliver. To start building your solution perspective document, focus on these key elements.

  • MARKET OVERVIEW: Provide your team the big-picture foundation by including key trends shaping the industry, your line of business or solution area, and critical challenges your target buyers face.
  • BUSINESS IMPERATIVES AND IMPACT: Spell out the goals and objectives for your team that will drive you closer to your organization’s strategic vision, as well as the financial, market and operational impact your efforts will help achieve.
  • SOLUTION POSITIONING: Codify the position you intend to take in the market, reflecting how your solutions work together to address buyer needs and the value this delivers. Often, to get this part of the solution perspective document right, you need to collaborate closely with product management, sales engineering, consulting and value engineering.
  • CLIENT VALUE STORIES: How can you validate your solution and messaging? Proof. Gather multiple client proof-points to substantiate how your solutions create value for the buyer.

Doing proper research is essential to make this document as accurate and valuable as possible. Prepare to interview subject matter experts, glean key supporting facts from published research materials, leverage AI tools for research and validation, and gather buyer proof-points. This important groundwork will give you raw material to substantiate trends, challenges, needs and the value your solutions deliver.

Turning those inputs into a unified document takes a village. While some organizations have specific subject matter experts responsible for solutions addressing the needs of buyers in specific industries, many have multiple stakeholders who may even have competing points of view. In this scenario, we recommend taking a curation approach by working across stakeholder groups to gather information, distill it and create the solution perspective document as a unified point of view for the entire stakeholder community. This creates shared understanding and becomes another powerful dimension of perspective.

LEVERAGE YOUR OWN FORCE MULTIPLIER

When all is said and done, your solution perspective document will become a shared gift in substantiating how your solutions address buyer’s needs and in showcasing buyer value realization. Most importantly, this document will bring your teams together, on the same page. The consistent content and messaging that results will be a force multiplier — foundational to shaping your market perception over time.

Want to learn more? Interested in expert support? Reach out to our revenue experts with a message today or set up a 30-minute call to discuss further.



This Is How to Grow Your Business with Solution Marketing

February 27, 2025
Jeff Stiles

A lot of B2B marketing efforts fail to resonate with buyers because they do not start with buyer needs, focus on how solutions uniquely address them or consider how they create value. According to a Gartner study on customer buying journeys, 75% of B2B buyers consider their last purchase difficult or complex, so it is vital to produce content that highlights what makes your solutions different and how they address those complex buyer requirements.

HOW CAN YOU MAKE THIS WORK IN YOUR WORLD?

Creating and maintaining authentic solution marketing content can be daunting, especially across multiple audiences, industries or lines of business. Throughout my career, I have led solution marketing teams for several large enterprise software providers and have developed a repeatable and successful method you can use to differentiate your offerings, supercharge sales enablement, and drive pipeline and revenue growth.

The approach is intentionally simple: Produce a core piece of content that can be leveraged for enablement and can serve as source material for impactful messaging and solution-focused marketing across channels and programs. These materials are then used in roll-out / enablement efforts, and they form the basis for integrated sales and marketing campaigns.

Having everyone on the same page with a coordinated approach to positioning solutions to specific buyer needs drives significant results. For example, my last team built $40 million in pipeline over 12 weeks targeting 154 dormant accounts with a coordinated demand generation campaign across sales and marketing.

FIND POWER IN PERSPECTIVE

The nucleus of the approach is to develop a “solution perspective” document that includes a market overview covering key trends shaping the industry, line of business or solution area, along with critical challenges buyers face. These well-researched reference documents clearly identify business imperatives, substantiate business impact and showcase specific solutions to help buyers address them. They also include multiple buyer proof-points to substantiate how your solutions create value.

These documents become required reading and a core component of sales, sales engineering, consulting and marketing enablement efforts. They are also used to create marketing content supporting web and social media presence, as well as integrated sales and marketing campaigns.

Doing proper research is essential to make this work. Interview subject matter experts, read published research, leverage AI tools for research and validation, and gathering buyer proof-points. This will give you raw material to substantiate trends, challenges, needs and the value your solutions deliver.

It is important to note that creating these documents can often take a village. While some organizations have specific subject matter experts responsible for solutions addressing the needs of buyers in specific industries, many have multiple stakeholders who may even have competing points of view regarding them. In this scenario, we recommend taking a curation approach; working across stakeholder groups to gather information, distill it and create a unified point of view that becomes a gift to unify the stakeholder community. While you can do this virtually, a workshop serves to unite the experts in a single location, accelerating the process. This collective approach becomes a powerful dimension of perspective.

LESS IS MORE

A lean content supply chain that focuses on re-use for multiple audiences is the essential foundation to make this work at scale. A leading practice we ascribe to is working backward from the outcomes that need to be accomplished to determine what specific artifacts need to be created. Think of this as a “minimum equipment list” rather than a full bill of materials. It is vital to minimize the number of pieces of content that are created if you operate in an environment where you need to position your solutions to different buyers across lines of business or industries.

Once you decide what you are going to produce, the fun starts.

  1. First, create, socialize and share a “solution perspective” document with all key stakeholders.
  2. Once you have alignment on that foundation, create the specific assets you decided are essential for that market segment (e.g., industry or line of business).
  3. Be ruthless about streamlining the number of derivative assets you create and approach them by using the “solution perspective” document — reshaping the content for the target asset type or medium (writing for social media is very different than an eBook or webpage), which helps keep your content consistent and relevant.

DRIVE IMPACT WITH INTEGRATED EXECUTION

I like to deliver the complete set of content for each focus area before starting formal roll-out efforts. In some organizations, revenue enablement has a particular rhythm and cycle, and in that case, using the complete set of external content produced over time is helpful in the scheduled enablement efforts. In other organizations, enablement is an always-on or repetitive process. In that scenario, enablement is best served using an incremental approach, for example industry-by-industry. Either way, the “solution perspective” document should become required reading, and any derivative enablement assets should be based on it.

The real power of this approach shines in the form of integrated sales and marketing campaigns targeting key buyers with a focus on their needs, your unique solutions and the value they can offer. The very best of these campaigns start with buyer proof-points that effectively position your solutions.

By taking this coordinated approach across marketing channels, all the ways you communicate and your sales motions, you’ll create consistency, help differentiate your offerings, and drive pipeline and revenue performance.

Interested in learning more? Book a call with one of our experts to build your business with solution marketing in 2025.