Digital Marketing has Failed B2Bs: Here's the solution to getting new B2B sales
Nigel Maine
Founder & Architect. Teaching The SYSTEM go-to-market strategy for B2B SaaS vendors; Connecting & engaging global TAMs & exploding ARR-FTE.
Something's got to give and it's not going to be marketing!
There’s been a problem with new business for what seems like forever!?It’s evolved over the past 15 years as a result of badly directed digital marketing, marketing automation and MarTech in general, which for the most part was designed for B2C, not B2B.?
The New Sales Model for B2B Live Show
We have written and are producing a six show live stream series broadcast on Linked every Thursday at 11:00am GMT.?See below for details.
This post is directed towards B2B CEOs and MDs, as well as CGOs, CROs, VP Sales & Salespeople, because I am very aware that you are the ones with the pain, so-to-speak.?
To let you in on some insider knowledge; your current B2B marketing is executed as if you’re selling to consumers.?Let that sink in for a moment.
Digital marketing has never worked successfully for high ticket B2B sales, that’s why you still employ BDRs and have been forced to accept the poor arguments to keep telesales going.
The consumer market enjoys influencer marketing, a variety advertising activity and a raft of interruption tactics from YouTube ads, to remarketing and so on.?But this has never been the case for B2B.
The B2B market/buyers; they want to self-serve, self-educate and will only buy if you can demonstrate that your product can deliver an ROI.?In fact, we all buy that way.
Why are sales constantly depressed??
Well, it’s a bit chicken and egg.?You employ highly paid marketing personnel to tell you what to do, not for you to tell them what to do, just like Steve Jobs said.?The marketers are the fan-boys-and-girls of digital marketing SaaS and all things MarTech.?
The marketers are even being told they call the shots, not you and not sales!?One MarTech company even promotes a document that educates CMOs in the art of defending their budgets, so that they can keep their jobs and naturally keep spending money on their SaaS!!!
The marketers have, for twenty odd years, maintained that you need all this technology to ‘stay-in-the-game’.?Respectfully, you trusted their judgement call, spent thousands on the SaaS and it has never moved the needle.?As a result, you churned the CMOs, every nine-to-eighteen months in the hope of finding someone who could make all the SaaS work as it was promised in the first place.
It’s unsurprising after twenty years that most CEOs and complete sales teams believe that the marketing should deliver the leads and engagement promised and are not surprised when the CMOs are replaced.?You bought in to this, not because you drank the Kool-Aid, but because of repetitive marketing messages from big-tech, MarTech and employees you expected to advise you for the benefit of your business, not their jobs!
Perhaps it's the strategy?
To date, no one has thought that it might be the strategy that’s wrong.?I assure you it is!
Consider this; as a business owner will not buy from another business if they force you to fill out a form to simply download some information to enable you to learn about something.?You’ve probably filled out a form in the past and then got the obligatory telephone call follow-up, which you refused to answer anyway.
Current practices include reverse IP lookup that match your IP with previous Internet activity for both B2B and B2C data lakes.?So, if you purchased a toy for your child from your work laptop, completed a registration and included your mobile number, now these companies are merging all the data to enable BDRs to call you at home on your mobile.?A practice that infuriates most people and is or should be a privacy issue.
Big Tech, MarTech and marketers have mislead you and, like all of us, the buck stops with us because we are the business owners!
Fortunately there is a spectacular alternative low cost, high engagement solution, but big-tech, MarTech want to impress upon you that it’s too complicated so TL;DR (too long, didn’t read) comes into play and then Roger’s Adoption Curve, hoping you’ll stay as a laggard, keep paying them the ARR and not change what you’re doing.
We both know sales is a numbers game and a long play.?The only way to ‘play the system’ is to plan and automate.?But not how you’ve known it or done it in the past.
If you’re an innovator in your field and an early adopter, you’ll find this very straight forward.?It’s just a new workflow compared to existing marketing and new business activities. But just because it’s different should not stop your staff from doing it.?With our help in the beginning, naturally.
To explain in a few bullets: -
Now compare the reach, focus, and differentiation against the rest of your competition and compare the above set up and ongoing costs.?It’s pennies!
Click the link below to watch the first of our live streams about new business development at scale.
You will have never watched anything like it – for two reasons, the first, we’re using high end broadcast quality live streaming technology from Blackmagic Design and have combined state-of-the-art animated presentation graphics and management.?I mention this because I want you to imagine what it would be like to broadcast a high-quality live show to your prospects.
Secondly, we have a significantly different perspective on new business development for business-to-business organisations, so much so that we have developed a completely new strategy to replace the existing and typical digital marketing automation lead, demand gen, lead gen and ABM approach.
We have created The 'New Sales Model' for B2B
We have written and are producing a six show live stream series, broadcast on LinkedIn every Thursday at 11:00am GMT.?
It's taken nearly ten years of research and analysis to arrive at this point. this was work marketers should have been doing instead of doing the bare minimum and agreeing with everything MarTech said. They should have been questioning the fact that the new business had not increased, per person, in over ten years, in spite of all the SaaS they told businesses to buy.
The first show was aired last week and is available on our website: -
01 State of the Nation Review
An explanation unlike you have ever heard in the past.?I reveal what has happened to B2B sales and marketing, why business keep failing and why so much emphasis is placed on MarTech yet it has consistently failed to deliver the results.?It is compelling viewing and sets the tone for the following shows.?The link is below.
The first show lays everything out with a detailed explanation and presentation in high-resolution broadcast quality, setting the scene foe the second show.
02 Great Content Wins Deals
To be aired on Thursday 2nd March 2023.?This show is the first step in explaining the problem as it is received by a salesperson or CEO.?Both parties must understand what is happening and recognise any problems with existing content before wading in and demanding any changes.
The first step of every business relationship begins with your prospect learning about you and your company. Sadly, this is where most B2B fail, and it just goes downhill from there.?
Here’s the show outline: -
Creating Content that Prospects Want
领英推荐
Watch this live stream where I explain what has been happening with content, why no one seems to get it right, what you can do about it.?If you want to increase sales, there's no point complaining about poor leads if the information prospects see is no good. This is your opportunity to learn how to respond with a solution. Here’s the link to register or set up a calendar reminder via LinkedIn:
03 Getting Ready for Digital Selling
The next part in your journey is to prepare for battle, not in a violent way, but to make sure every possible aspect is covered, starting with your largest new business asset, your website.?
If you have all of this covered that’s great, however a high percentage of business don’t, so to be on the safe side we go through each step.?Next up is establishing your business as a content powerhouse by implementing an automated promotional strategy that keeps your business and content front-of-mind with all your prospects and customers.
When I tell you I’m not up for wasting money, I mean it.?Our strategy costs pennies and will leave your competition for dust.?Below is the presentation plan: -
Getting Ready for Digital Selling
Join me on this second stage of digital selling awareness to ensure you know as much, if not more about new business development than most B2B marketers.?See you on Thursday 9th March 2023 @11:00am – Click the clink below to set up a calendar notification.
04 Engaging with Your Prospects at Scale
This is the big one! The strategy that only a few businesses will do straight away because they’re the innovators and early adopters!?I believe there is a window of opportunity for those business who embrace this strategy simply because it will be first-come-first-served, because those businesses will create the maximum awareness and engagement before their competition can.
You have a total addressable market; say there are 10,000 businesses who can buy from you in the UK.?Between 1-15% are looking to start their buying journey each week., that’s 100-1500 prospects every week.?If you can tell all of them who you are and what you’re doing, there’s a higher likelihood they will engage with you, especially if your approach is different to the tedious and annoying approach most B2Bs adopt.
This is your opportunity to be different – and clean up! Here’s the show flow – presentation: - ??
Engaging with Your Prospects at Scale
Here’s the link to register or set up a calendar reminder via LinkedIn:
05 Planning More Than Just Shows for the Future
You’ve invested in the technology, you’re reaching every possible prospect around the world, now’s the time to take the show on the road and meet your prospects face-to-face.
In this penultimate show, we talk about all the possibilities your digital selling infrastructure can achieve from doing shows at strategic locations to possibly revolutionising the way your whole dustry engages with prospects.
The bottom line, all this has greater reach, greater engagement, and significantly higher profitability than anything your organisation has ever done in the past.?Here’s the plan for Show 05: -
Planning More Than Just Shows for the Future
Here’s the link to register or set up a calendar reminder via LinkedIn:
06 The Digital Selling Live Show Review 'Show'
After delivering five live shows, it makes sense to review them, tell you how they went, what flew and where we crashed and burned…
I think the show flow is self-explanatory: -
The Digital Selling Live Show Review Show
Here’s the link to register or set up a calendar reminder via LinkedIn:
I hope you get to join me on one of the shows.
All the best - Nigel Maine - Managing Director
Contact details:
Email: [email protected]
Call: 08009709751