Why the C-suite is so frustrated with B2B marketing

For many years, a lot of my friends and colleagues liked to razz me about the way I thought about B2B marketing and communications. Anyone who has worked for or with me knows about the obsession that makes me “different.” (Insert smiley face emoticon here)

Cutting to the chase, here's the deal: I love data and algorithms as much as I love beautifully crafted sentences. I love them as much as I love creativity, probably because I see them as inextricably interdependent. The days "before data" (BD) were frustrating. So for me – at least professionally speaking – the advent of Big Data as a market force marked the beginning of an Age of Aquarius. Really. (Anyone who knows me is chuckling right about now.)

I started to use data to calibrate investment in Paid, Earned, Shared and Owned channels before we called them PESO. That was 2004-ish. For me, it was all about maintaining an "outside-in" perspective and bringing that to bear on how B2B marketing and communications supported the business with its ecosystem of customers, partners and other stakeholders.

In my mind, our value proposition could not just be about influencing what someone thought about the company or the product. It could not just be about brand and sentiment and stuff like that. In the dashboard of financial metrics that the leadership and the board cared about, our campaigns had to do two things: move the needle, and be seen to move the needle.

Before you freak out, fear not. I’m no heretic. I know how critically important brand and sentiment are to the final outcome. I fully appreciate the importance of influence. But let me put it plainly: if those very good and very necessary things can't be readily monetized beyond lead generation, if they're not seen to power most of the financial metrics that demonstrate the health of a business, then we've got a very big problem.

If you survey public company C-suites, as I have, you hear that we do, in fact, have a very big problem. You'd hear how vital they think it is that we succeed in fixing this disconnect. But you also hear a lot of doubts about whether that will ever happen. In too many companies, the powers-that-be don't see us moving to meet their expectations.

When you sit down and discuss these issues with CxOs, a lot of things become very clear. Here are three:

1. CEOs, CFOs and other leaders in B2B companies refuse to accept that stuff like brand, awareness, reputation and sentiment can be the end game for marketing and communications. And they're right.
2. B2B leaders also see a fundamental difference between attribution and revenue credit. In their mind, attribution says "we had something to do with that." Credit means "I was there and helped make it happen." Marketing and communications teams cannot just be awareness / lead generation factories and leave the hardest parts of the customer buying process to Sales.
3. Marketing and communications must be able to be fully and credibly monetized in order to justify the investment.

Perspectives like these lie at the root of the often-existential conflict between the C-suite and the marketing department in B2B companies. It is a conflict that we will never win.

Remember the old saw: "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em"? Well, it's time for us to do exactly that. It's time for us to adopt an "outside-in" perspective with regard to our own business colleagues and their expectations of us. Fortunately, we also have the tools and the methodology to connect the dots and put feet under our new thinking. I know, because I've done it in 3 large public companies.

I'll close with a quick story from my own career that illustrates why it is so important that we change. Quite some years ago, before I understood any of this, I was an account executive in a large agency. We had a very large insurance company as a client. On our own initiative, we put together a really awesome plan to put their brand in lights and help drive all sorts of new customer acquisition.

We presented it several times inside the company, and then we were exhilarated to learn that we had a chance to present it to the senior leadership team and the board of directors, all in conclave in one room. We did our song and dance, exited the room, and waited to receive our just reward.

The leaders and board members unanimously voted it down. Our beautiful, exquisitely creative plan crashed and burned. “Why?????” we asked them. The answer was simple and concrete: “We’ve looked at the data, and whenever our brand gets a lot of visibility, our claims spike. That’s bad for business. Sorry.”

The board's decision was based in a clear reading of their business data. They had an 'outside-in" view that guided their decision. Compared to that, our marketing plan was positively disconnected and free-floating in the ether. No wonder we lost the argument – we never even understood what the real debate was.

Yes, we had created a glorious plan – very appropriate, very sophisticated, and absolutely destined to knock the cover off the ball. Our problem was we were playing the wrong game on the wrong field. And our perspective was so "inside-out" that we didn't understand how badly we had erred until the board room door closed in our faces.