Kim's Marketing Matters | No. 10

I get questions and inquiries to "pick my brain", and a newsletter following a (sounding)B.O.A.R.D. format seemed like the best way to give structure to the hodge podge of reflections and lessons learned. I appreciate you subscribing and please share with anyone who might find this content helpful!

B2B Marketing Trends & Best Practices.

Marketing attribution is critical for marketers, especially for B2B so that we can analyze how and where prospects find us on their buying journey and allocate spend accordingly.

But to others outside of marketing, attribution might come across as a credit-hogging exercise - even when the core issue is that people often don't take marketing seriously and don't consider marketing as a business growth driver to begin with, hence, the need for marketing attribution to "prove our worth" and justify our existence in the first place.

But, stand strong and keep on keepin' on. The reality is, no one puts a ring on it after the first date, and everyone loves hearing about how a couple first met and other embarrassing or cute relationship stories at the wedding.

As marketers, the onus is on us to continue educating our stakeholders so that we can continue doing what we do best/better. Three things I recommend for success:

1) Refine your mixed attribution model, even if you have to do so manually and make inferences in a privacy-first world. It's not enough to just track first and last touch attributions. What happened in between?

2) Focus on top three channels at a time, especially with restrained budgets and resources. This shows fiscal responsibility. It's not about doing more with less - a recipe for burnout and resentment. Do less first, so that you can do more.

3) Share any attribution trends and insights you're seeing, how you're taking action and making decisions, and what worked v. didn't work. Rinse and repeat.

Just for kicks:

Opinions, Observations & Optimizations I'm making, both at work and/or outside of it.

Women's Equality Day was this past Monday but most of the posts and content I saw revolved around highlighting the meaning and historic milestones behind the day v. sharing tangible, practical actions for individuals and especially employers and companies to support women every day.

Some examples of constructive interactions I've personally had in the past few months:

1) A conference organizer personally reached out, asking me why I wasn't speaking at a specific industry conference this past year. In a world where "manels" are still rampant (panels comprised of only men), he then offered to either moderate a panel discussion where I can participate, or we could work together on crafting and submitting a session for next year.

2) On a live talk, a guest speaker corrected himself right away when he referred to a hypothetical CEO as a "he" and self-reflected out loud that this was an internalized belief. During a meeting, a partner executive explicitly credited my perspective, "Kim brought up a good point and I'd like us to get back to discussing it", rather than letting me get interrupted or pass along my thoughts and words as theirs.

3) Leaders and C-suites introducing me and referring me to otherwise "closed networks" and communities that women and other marginalized identities have often been gatekept from.

True allyship is in the action, not just the awareness and act of saying you are one.

Analysis of a great marketing ad/campaign I came across this week.

Who doesn't have a crush on Hugh Jackman, man or woman?

I now can't unsee this brilliant ad featuring Wolverine and that other guy. It also reminded me to grab more condiments this weekend as we grill out by the pool with family and friends as a last hurrah to summer.

The secret sauce for the best partnerships and advertising is bringing together unexpected elements into something cohesive, maybe even provocative. Either way, the goal for brand awareness is to be memorable, generate buzz, and stand out. (Think: NBC enlisting Snoop Dogg for the Paris Olympics. Simply ICONIC!)

Research & Resources I'm currently digging into.

2023 was rough for many organizations. GTM Partners report that 56% of GTM leaders missed revenue targets last year, primarily citing longer sales cycles and misalignment between GTM teams.

For marketing leaders especially, aside from measuring metrics that matter and tracking marketing attribution, it's important for us to relay our impact in terms of real dollars and revenue.

Last year, as we revamped departmental KPIs across the company, I aligned on Marketing Contributed Pipeline as our guiding light. It helped redirect conversations from the tired "We NeEd MoRe LeAdS!!" to more nuanced, strategic discussions across the marketing funnel.

I recently came across the below graph from Shiv Narayanan 's book, Exit-Ready Marketing, and it really helped benchmark my team's phenomenal progress and marketing's integrated effectiveness across channels, especially as we only recently became a team of 5 as of Q2 2024.

Data point(s) that caught my attention.

76% of high-performing women receive negative feedback compared to only 2% of high-performing men, according to a research report by Textio.

This year's findings further analyzed and expanded on performance reviews and surveys from 25,000+ people across 250+ companies.