The best sales and marketing teams keep people at the forefront of their focus. Today we explore the human side of the industry and dive deep into the world of B2B marketing and growth challenges.
Today’s blog is inspired by Bethan Vincent’s fabulous appearance on the H2H Sales Automation Podcast. Bethan is the founder and managing partner at OpenVelocity and host of The Brave podcast.
She shared insights with us from her recent report, "Marketing Vulnerabilities in Tech and IP-led Companies," and had so many valuable perspectives on why business confidence doesn't always translate into growth for B2B companies - you’re going to love this one.
You don't need us to tell you that the quality of your marketing strategy directly impacts your business results. If you want to truly leverage your B2B marketing efforts to drive growth, you need to focus on a thoughtful, strategic approach tailored specifically to your business needs and target audience.
In this post, that's exactly what we'll cover. Ready to learn why B2B business confidence isn't delivering on growth and how to change that? Let's go!
The Key to Understanding B2B Marketing Challenges
Why do so many B2B businesses struggle with growth despite having amazing products or services? How do you bridge the gap between confidence and actual results?
Where businesses in years gone by might have relied on gut feelings or just-enough-data to inform their decisions, we're now immersed in a world of complex market dynamics. And the complexity and volume of detail has risen exponentially. Naturally, people are overwhelmed, uncertain, and scattered. Patience is thin – so the bar for first impressions has been raised.
So what should you do in this age of instant gratification where customers are looking for unicorns within the first five minutes of meeting with you? Yes, the siren-song of quick fixes is so tempting it's almost irresistible – but as with most things, when it comes to B2B growth, you get out what you put in.
B2B Businesses Are Lagging Behind
One of the most striking findings from Bethan's report is that B2B businesses are lagging behind their B2C counterparts. She shows that B2Bs are:
- Less likely to invest in in-house marketing expertise
- Less likely to validate their proposition before launch
- More likely to have a great idea and launch it as soon as possible
Bethan explains: "B2B businesses are often less connected to the customer. They are less likely to do consumer research and less likely to validate the proposition. As we know, B2C businesses often have a very consumer-facing point of view."
This "launch first, ask questions later" approach can be an expensive way to validate your proposition and test the market. So, why does this happen?
The Missing Ingredient: Marketing Leadership
Often, marketing leadership is missing from the conversation in B2B organisations, as Bethan points out.
"Again, I just think that's more likely in B2C organisations to have a marketeer there from the start. Whereas in B2B, often it's a sales-led growth effort where you're kind of brute forcing the market," she explains.
This lack of marketing perspective can lead to misaligned growth strategies, inefficient use of resources, and it misses out on a huge opportunity to gather customer insights.
For CEOs and founders who haven't experienced the impact of strategic marketing, it can be hard to justify the investment. However, as Bethan notes,
"If you've never experienced what marketing can actually do for your organisation, it's quite hard to have that belief to invest in it."
Know Your Audience: The Foundation of B2B Success
Many B2B businesses don't truly know who they're selling to. This leads to broad-brush and/or impersonal messaging, inefficient marketing expense, and a difficulty in targeting the right prospects.
Bethan advocates for a collaborative approach to defining your target audience: "I'm a really big fan of workshopping things as both a way of finding an answer. Bringing together that cross-kind team expertise, you also to get buy-in for the answer as well."
She recommends you bring together cross-functional teams and basing your target audience on actual insights and information. Even if it’s just with your top 10 clients, you should be regularly conducting customer research, full stop.
Remember, as Bethan says,
"You can't be everything to everyone. You have to narrow that down from a budgetary point of view and from a proposition messaging point of view."
Aligning Marketing and Sales: The MQL/SQL Debate
The relationship between marketing and sales is crucial for B2B success. Bethan challenges the traditional view of a clear handoff between marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and sales qualified leads (SQLs): "I don't think there is a stop and start."
Instead, be clear on the role definitions for MQLs and SQLs and ensure there’s visibility of the pipeline process for both worlds and where the two interact. Make sure to track opportunity and deal value, not just the number of leads to customers. As Bethan emphasises, "Both marketing and sales own the process end to end”, so they should work as one cohesive, yet multiskilled unit.
The Human Touch in a World of AI
As AI becomes more prevalent everywhere, how do we ensure our digital touch points stay human? Bethan offers a refreshing perspective:
"If you want to sell and market well in a world where everyone else is producing AI-generated crap, actually going back to;
- What is my unique perspective?
- What do I have to say on this subject?
- What tone of voice is me, not just polished and AI-generated?
– there's a huge opportunity for people to be more human at the moment."
She compares AI-generated content to junk food: "It looks quite good, it tastes quite good, but the more and more you consume it, especially from a consumption perspective, the more and more it feels really empty. It's like empty calories of content."
Wise Words to Ponder
Final wise words from Bethan:
"Everyone says we're about to go through a period of massive change in the way B2B marketing and sales works. But I think we really are going through that change at the moment. Buyers are now mostly millennial. There's a generational shift happening. There's a technological shift happening. There's also a cultural shift happening as well."
At the end of the day, succeeding in B2B marketing and sales doesn't have to be an insurmountable challenge. Focus on understanding your audience, aligning your teams, and maintaining that crucial human touch.
This human-centred approach is what will ultimately allow you to drive results over the long term, nurturing your clients, and doing good business that does good.
