Is more marketing the answer after all?

A successful business founder once explained to me their route to growth: 'find out who you need to speak to. Speak to them.'

Back in my business management days I'd probably have sympathised with this view. That was how we won new business.

But then I didn't really understand what marketing was. And it wasn't something the company went in for anyway, other than a few brochures and trade shows.

I now see how tough we made life for ourselves. It was like trying to access our entire potential market through a tiny ice hole.

The initial conversation was so much harder than it needed to be. It frequently happened too late to make a difference, which I'll explore in a minute.

Quality, quantity and frequency

Gradually the light dawned - until marketing became how I make a living.

For all the time I've been involved with marketing my mantra has been 'better, not more.'

I'm starting to wonder if this might be misguided.

Don't get me wrong, quality and relevance remain the bedrock of effectiveness. But there's a snag. Although it feels like we're overwhelmed with B2B marketing content, the plain truth is that most businesses aren't doing anywhere near enough.

Or they're not doing marketing in a sustained way (pursuing activities today that will result in a sale in 9-12 months).

They're doing what my old company used to do - not much. Not because they're incapable of understanding marketing (they're not fools and it's not that complicated) but because they don't trust the results or the quick fix pedlars who haunt this platform.

Only one thing worse than being talked about...

Now consider this: according to the Harvard Business Review 90% of businesses buy from a vendor who was on their day 1 list. In other words, potential vendors they'd already heard of.

So the most important task for your marketing is to help your business come to mind at the right time. When potential buyers become active.

If you've never worked with or interacted with that prospect you can start to see the scale of the consciousness gap you have to bridge.

At some point you'll need deeper sales enablement content, that's for sure. But it won't do you a bit of good with a prospect that's half way down the road without having heard of you.

Randomness and forgetfulness

Two more things we know.

First: advertising (or any top of funnel content) has a limited life span in the minds of potential customers. Your message doesn't matter to them anything like as much as it matters to you.

Second: it's impossible to reach all of your target customers through digital channels without an awful lot of repetition. Some people will see it many times before everyone sees it once.

Dabbling now and again won't get you far.

Do you need marketing?

If you're a B2B business that wants to grow I can virtually guarantee that you're not doing enough to register in the consciousness of potential customers.

I'm not saying 'throw any old crap out there and hope some of it sticks.' In any case, not everything has to be new - it just has to be memorable.

But I am saying that stepping up marketing activity significantly is your most reliable route to growth.

You can take that leap of faith or you can carry on dangling the occasional line through the ice and hoping something bites.

Only one option has the potential to change your fortunes.