Accept These 3 Truths. Stop Wasting B2B Marketing Budget.

The quickest way to waste a marketing budget in a B2B company with a complex product is to create and measure the sales funnel the way B2C, DTC, or even other B2B companies in different industries do. Revenue organizations continue to be designed with marketing generally responsible for the earliest buying stages, primarily on digital, before progressing to sales and in-person discussions. However, prospects do not buy in a linear fashion that matches this handoff. Today, they use both digital and in-person channels nearly equally to define the problem, explore solutions, validate suppliers, and gain internal buy-in simultaneously.

When a B2B product requires deep integrations, a specific implementation plan, or a process change, marketers must be aware that every business environment and sales funnel is unique. And each deserves a thoughtful, deliberate marketing mix to realize full-potential results.?

To prevent a quick burn of a budget and to scale a team and its resources for exponential growth, these three truths must be agreed upon before aligning on marketing’s purpose, objectives, and success metrics:?

Truth #1: Your prospects' buying processes are unique. And messy.

Attribution-friendly tactics that can quickly measure activity make for some fantastic activity reporting. However, modern B2B marketers cannot simply create a landing page, optimize it for keywords, set up digital ads and remarketing, then sit back and watch the inquiries flow inbound, call them MQLs (or any other en vogue acronym) and report it as success anymore. It just doesn’t work this way. Though this approach may realize a higher volume of activity, it yields lower-value and often unqualified leads, and ultimately fewer sales.

The traditional model of linear deal progression, with a handoff from marketing to sales, just doesn’t work for complex modern B2B buying.

Prospects considering your company’s product will likely do the obligatory online research, have internal conversations, and gather peers' opinions - all of which marketing cannot directly control. However, it can meaningfully influence them by:

• Delivering a consistent cadence of awareness through subject matter expertise in the channels where your addressable market and influencers pay attention. The conversation is happening with or without you. Get in it, listen, and have a point of view.
• Committing to "pull" PR and content marketing motions. Bring the desired audience to you where they will listen intently as opposed to pushing your messages to them. No one likes to be talked "at."
• Aligning on how the organization defines, scores, tracks, and takes action on intent-based purchase indicators. Likewise, getting comfortable with activating attribution-unfriendly, “dark funnel” strategies involving things like podcasts, communities, events, and other tactics that are difficult to measure or are anonymously consumed.
• Growing the prospect’s network beyond just the ICPs by multi-threading 2 and 3 layers beyond the economic buyer. Purchase decisions are made by people. Plural.

Truth #2: Groups of emotional, irrational humans influence your prospects' decision-making process.

B2B purchases are made by people, just like you and me. Yes, procurement teams may evaluate your product and run models to ensure that rational, quantifiable criteria around price and performance drive the company’s decisions. But today, especially in SaaS, meeting this criteria is table stakes for inclusion within a consideration set of solutions.?

As B2B offerings become more commoditized and prospects’ tech stacks grow larger, the subjective concerns that business customers have during the buying process are increasingly important. We all justify our emotional signals to buy with logical reasons. This remains true when buying food for dinner, choosing vacation plans, or selecting a cloud-based SaaS.

B2B companies often aim its selling communications toward functional elements of its products, and point marketing resources toward amplifying these logical messages, (think: 49% cost-reduction, 315% more efficient, an acceptable price, etc.). While this substantiation is important, it shouldn't solely drive acquisition marketing efforts. To fully optimize marketing, it should lead with communications about the set of variables that involve subjectivity. This includes signals that further build relationships, like cultural fit and the company's commitment to the prospect's organization.

And the higher your product's ACV, the more people will be involved in the decision-making process itself. Revenue organizations must remember that a buying group is made up of people with career ambitions, agendas, and reputational capital at risk. These are as important to acknowledge as your product’s ROI or price.

B2B marketing organizations should be set up and empowered to:

• Facilitate the relationship building efforts with the entire buying committee, not just the decision-makers. Even the smallest gestures go a long way. People want to be seen. And heard.
• Synthesize qualitative feedback and actively listen to the irrational humans that provide it. This is done by addressing individuals' priorities, both personal and career related. These are hard, if not impossible to measure. Get comfortable with that.

This direction requires marketing to be empowered with access to the prospect, and not be positioned within the organization as a back-office, just-in-time resourced, order-up "deli counter" when a sales sheet or presentation deck is needed.

A partnership between product, marketing, sales, and the prospect's buying group is a powerful force multiplier.

Truth #3: Most companies in any given B2B market are not ready to buy your product.

B2B lead-gen direct ads and outreach just do not work when prospect companies are not looking for a solution, or at a minimum aware of the problem. The only way to create opportunities, (besides the occasional referral or an RFP), is by generating demand. Hard stop.

Ignorance of a potential solution or buying complexity itself is not a result of delivery from sales or marketing. It’s an issue that sales and marketing must partner to address with high-quality, consistent, cross-channel information to help customers complete the buying steps they need to accomplish. Sales must assume the role of a concierge to prospects as they navigate their unique buying processes. Marketing insights complement this, helping prospects become aware of, and, move beyond obstacles they may not anticipate. While prospects do find assistance and value from both digital and in-person interactions, there is always an opportunity for marketing and sales to be better coordinated to provide the best information to enable buyers across all channels.

The framework of a successful B2B formula includes dedicated marketing resources aimed specifically at:

• Demand generation, including content marketing, PR, and distribution
• Deeper-funnel, account-based operations
• Account nurturing
• Sales and buyer enablement
• Client success (engagement, expansion, and retention marketing)

Aligning on your prospects’ purchasing process knowing they are neither 100% rational, nor completely ready to buy your product, sets your B2B marketing team up with shared goals and a purpose that best serves the broader organization.

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Nick Tate is a growth marketing leader who develops and orchestrates fully integrated, enterprise-wide agendas and strategies, enabling disruptive alternatives to outdated business models and technologies. Nick, who holds an MBA from Lipscomb University and a BA degree from The University of Tennessee, has over 17 years of marketing management and leadership experience. He is a digitally-savvy generalist who defines, aligns, and amplifies competitive advantages and brand positioning in the marketplace.