There’s a lot of angst and finger-pointing in B2B marketing.
It’s been a tough time. And the hunt’s on for a scapegoat: something - or someone - to blame.
It’s the (stupid) economy. We can’t control it. It’s the (unrealistic) boardroom demand for immediate returns. We can’t change it.
Really?
If we’re only effective when good times roll, we’re not fit for purpose. And if we can’t shift minds in boardrooms, we’re not fit to sit in them.
Who’s to blame for the silos, inefficiencies, short-cuts and limited accountability undermining the value of our work?
Who devalued the value of B2B marketing’s currency - the mighty lead - to borderline zero with reliance on black-box syndication?
Let’s face it, it’s us. Look in the mirror if you need a scapegoat.
We took the path of least resistance and, when it ran out, we fell, head first, into the morass.
If we’re honest we got what we deserved. It’s time to own and change it.
Ground Zero Growth
The first step to redemption is unfiltered acceptance. Mea Culpa! We’ve just not been discerning enough.
Great marketing is about standing out: it’s the key to thriving campaigns, winning pitches and successful job hunts.
But we’ve, somehow, set our systems to average. The goal of “Team B2B” shifted from problem solving to building identikit teams to run similar programs into crowded channels.
Marketing teams end up with conformity by building GTM plans with significant growth brakes:
- Pegged to playbooks: There’s still insatiable demand for a “one size fits all” approach. You’re just not going to find the definitive answer in exchange for a LinkedIn comment.
- Isolated in silos: A plague of exceptionalism is still rife across marketing disciplines. The consequence is more conflict than collaboration on show.
- Boxed by channels: Every channel demands skills and resources. It’s easy to fall into the trap of running and optimising them individually when they should be cogs in a strategic machine.
- Misdirected by technology: There’s no doubt AI will transform the industry. But thinking it can deliver results, without your direction, is of the wishful kind.
- Clustered to the mean: The amount of activity at the tip of the bell curve shows how standard marketing teams have become. The work isn’t bad. Just standard.
- Blasé about basics: The drive for quick wins and low hanging fruit has come at a cost: a trail of technical debt as gnarly basics are overlooked. You can’t put them off forever.
But there’s no magic wand or bullet: you won’t get redemption from a single platform, technology or application.
We need to change the fundamentals of how we approach growth and go-to-market to find the right path - clearing out the resistance (no matter how fierce) along the way.
We say it’s time to “Think Slow, Act Fast”.
Planning: Think Slow
Planning is either rigid or lost in the relentless pursuit of ‘low hanging fruit’ and quick wins destined to fail without a clear idea of what a win looks like.
If your goal is to ‘see what happens’ you will always succeed. But it’s useless unless you learn something about your plan.
We need a method to reclaim decisions and direction from outdated playbooks, one dimensional platforms and black-box partnerships.
But it must come with flexibility to tackle and orchestrate responses to unique problems. We need different treatments across:
- GTM & campaigns
- Outbound programs
- Tool & technology roadmaps
Let’s look at a five stage process that helps define, quantify, create and execute campaigns and programs for a sustainable and agile future path.
1. Find your start line
Start with quantitative assessment. A shift to “brilliant at the basics” starts with scorecards - ripe for efficient AI models - to assess acute problem areas (content, data, systems and platforms). A final, aggregated assessment sets the basis to rebuild, launch, accelerate or focus your next stages.
2. Build an idea
Understand that most plans need to fuse concepts and systems. You can’t lump any-old content together, call it a “lead magnet”, and expect fireworks. The best execution carries a brilliant position and message all the way to market with creative executions for right-fit platforms. It must unite silos to succeed.
3. Futures planning
Launch without faith in a fixed future. Inform present decisions with creative thinking and systematic pattern analysis for an uncertain and rapidly changing world. Use scenario testing with flexible strategies to prepare for future options.
4. Orchestration blueprint
The integrated process pulls together concepts, creatives, channels and platforms into a unique plan. It’s an outcome-first blueprint to meet specific needs: baselines, conceptual planning, future challenges and campaign execution with overall goals above individual channels.
5. Measure for impact
Ensure dashboards and data analysis is primed against the specific channels. Drive tweaks and upgrades - in advance - to ensure specific goals are measured over generic metrics. The aim must be reports, supported by AI, with specific feedback actions for creatives, channels and platforms.
The investment in these steps will ensure rapid, integrated and focused executions.
Execution: Act Fast
Working on a project without a plan tends to start fast but finish slow (if at all). The growth brakes strike at every turn.
The opposite is also true. Robust planning - with clear goals, concepts and direction - delivers execution at speed and scale.
The value of clear direction shows up through three functions working in sync:
1. Growth Engine Team
Building our programs focused on core milestones with clear support from creatives and system experts. Running with clear direction on targets and clear ongoing measures.
2. RevOps Team
Building out processes to support growth. Focused on guidance on what data, communications, reporting and system set ups drive growth in tandem with core plans.
3. Data Backbone Team
Building out dashboards and reports based on the goals of strategy across CRM, analytics tools, data platforms and tag management.
With clear direction (but not total prescription) and shared metrics teams can work together to pay work forward to the common goal.
With focus on infrastructure and data basics to support creative campaigns, the speed of execution optimization can go into overdrive.
Summing up
The mantra of “Think Slow, Act Fast” fits B2B marketers today as we take responsibility for a sustainable future.
The days of reliance on fixed playbooks, platforms and lead syndication are over. It’s time to get back to brilliant basics and creative solutions.
In the end I’m left with the wise words attributed to Abraham Lincoln:
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
Amen to that Abe.
