John Francis

What takes a B2B marketer from good to great is a willingness to fail. We are always testing and learning and perfection is the enemy of execution. That said, many times B2B marketing teams are working side-by-side with internal stakeholders within the business. When working with stakeholders who lean into perfection versus excellence, it can be a challenge to keep campaign velocity high. Overcoming this challenge, when primary stakeholders are focused on polishing the stone while your marketing team is focused on speed to market, is a big gap to be tackled. It goes back to earning trust from the stakeholders. If the trust can't be earned, then campaign velocity will come to a stand still along with any results.

A brilliant move is to uncover your blindspots proactively. Then, you can leverage the feedback to bridge gaps in your B2B marketing strategy. My recommendation as you gather feedback and determine validity, is to build a matrix mapping improvements based on level of effort and level of impact. When validating the feedback, be sure it's objective and based on data. The low effort, high impact improvements are a no-brainer and you can add those into your next Sprint. The high effort, low impact feedback should be thrown out with the bathwater. Then, the high effort, high impact should be planned for. Given the level of involvement, you'll want to define goals and project both the costs and revenue resulting from the investment.

The great part about B2B marketing is that results are entirely tangible. There are specific brand and demand metrics you can report back on. For brand metrics, look at website traffic, social following, and impressions. For demand metrics, look at target account engagement penetration, net new names, MQLs, SQLs, marketing influenced opportunities and closed/won revenue. What's more difficult with a new B2B marketing program is the understanding that driving brand and demand takes time. Very generally speaking, many businesses are looking at 1-2 years of building momentum before results become exponential in nature. Consistency is key to success. Do not take the foot off the pedal and results will come tenfold.

To simplify conveying complex B2B marketing concepts to non-marketing team members, use established frameworks and create visuals. For example, if you're trying to explain how an engagement nurture email program works, use the classic funnel to demonstrate top-of-funnel, mid-funnel, and bottom-of-funnel content; laying over the types of behaviors that move a prospect from one content stream to the next. You might also use the same funnel framework to demonstrate the lead lifecycle from anonymous website traffic to known to MQL to SAL to SQL...etc.

If you're struggling to foster collaboration in your B2B marketing team, focus on transparency and don't forget your sales and business stakeholders are also part of this team. A few things you can do to foster transparency is to hold a weekly sales and marketing alignment meeting. On the agenda, you should review current marketing campaigns and target account engagement with next best actions. Second, proactively report on key metrics. Third, be sure you regularly communicate objectives and strategies. Then, demonstrate how the team's actions line up to those. Lastly, listen! Listen to your stakeholders, build upon knowledge, and test different hypotheses.

When you're facing industry shifts in B2B marketing, harness data analytics for optimization. There are a few things you should be doing regularly. First, conduct regular positioning exercises. A great 10-step framework for positioning your business is provided by April Dunford. Once you've established or updated your positioning, take the ideal customer profile matching your best-fit customers and create or update your account target list. From there, you will also want to revisit their top 3-5 greatest challenges so that you can bring solutions to them. You might also take note of any shifts in how your ICP is consuming content. Rinse and repeat these steps no less than once per year to stay current with shifts in marketing.