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The rise of influencers. The push towards automation and personalization. Tightening budgets and shrinking teams.
The marketing world has shifted quickly in our post-pandemic world, so it is no surprise that close to 80% of marketers believe their industry has changed more in the last three years than in the last 50, according to a recent HubSpot trend report.
But how exactly are B2B marketers feeling at the moment?
The general consensus is that companies selling products and services directly to other companies are currently dealing with new economic and technological challenges. Specifically, marketers are “being asked to deliver the same, if not more, value back to the business, but often with fewer tools and resources,” said Meredith Albertson, CMO at Zylo.
“In general, there are less leads,” said marketing expert Daniel Weiner. “I have seen the sales cycle extend across virtually every service I help with. Especially at the enterprise level. Bigger agency searches and RFP’s are taking longer than ever and oftentimes stalling during the process for a plethora of reasons.”
Nicole Wojno Smith agrees, saying that several factors have made the B2B sales cycle longer.
“The market has dramatically slowed down – it’s not growth at all costs anymore, it’s sustainable and efficient growth,” Smith told Hypepotamus. “Companies are freezing spend on software or controlling it very carefully. It’s crucial that your product is a ‘need to have’ not a ‘nice to have’. When you are selling you should go into conversations informed about the prospect’s tech stack and how you are reducing redundancies, improving efficiency, making the team more productive, and generating ROI. Consolidation is on everyone’s mind, and as a result, the buying committee has changed. You are seeing the CFO show up in a lot more deals and need to understand how to sell and market to this persona.”
Tips and Tricks: What’s Driving B2B Revenue Right Now?
But even as market conditions change and budgets constrict, CMOs and marketing leaders still have to work their magic and turn marketing dollars into revenue.
Gone are the days when just a booth at a conference or a few strategic social media ads could drive a marketing strategy. Today, marketing leaders told us they are getting savvier about how they talk to customers, where they spend their ad dollars, and what new tools they are using in their day-to-day tech stack.
We asked five leaders to share practical tips and tricks about what levers they are pulling to drive revenue in the B2B world. Here’s what they told us:
Masami Middleton, Chief Marketing Officer at CallRail:
“As marketing leaders select which technology you’d like to leverage to empower your team, there’s a couple things you should keep in mind:
- Make sure you’re tracking your entire lead journey, including calls. If you don’t have call attribution and your business is call-intensive, you’re missing a key part of the picture. It’s vital for businesses that rely on inbound calls to drive revenue to include these interactions for true multi-channel attribution.
- Use a marketing automation platform or CRM that includes customer insights at the customer record level to enable timely and informed lead follow-up. For example, setting up notifications and tags for sales representatives showing where leads came from, whether they are qualified, and what they need can enable more informed conversations.”
Meredith Albertson, CMO at the SaaS platform Zylo:
“Prospects are reaching out to their peers to learn about new SaaS offerings, researching their communities, looking at review sites, and consuming content before engaging directly with a company for a demo or further information. As a result, attributing the success of specific marketing campaigns and channels has become increasingly challenging. To gain more insights about the effectiveness of your marketing programs, consider implementing a straightforward addition such as a ‘How did you hear about us?’ question on your website forms. This simple step provides valuable insights and much-needed clarity to understand the effectiveness of your various marketing programs and channels at driving prospects to your organization and maximizing results.”
Amanda Elam, CMO at Bloomreach:
“We decided to “ungate” (remove barriers) our content, such as forms, to broaden the reach of our campaigns. Doing so allowed a larger audience to discover and engage with our brand. Freely sharing valuable knowledge without asking for anything in return establishes thought leadership, builds trust and generates organic traffic, leading to stronger relationships and more informed buyers. By accessing our content, buyers are empowered to educate themselves, make more informed decisions and gain a clearer understanding of our Bloomreach solution. As a result, they enter the buyer’s journey equipped with a higher level of knowledge, allowing for more effective evaluation and engagement with us.”
Daniel Weiner, founder of YouShouldTalkTo:
“I am personally leveraging community, 1:1 relationships, and referral relationships more than ever….I have posted virtually every day on LinkedIN for close to 3 years now. I also launched a podcast about a year ago. In times of economic uncertainty, or when the market is a bit wacky, like it is now, having a personal brand of some sort is paramount.”
Nicole Wojno Smith, VP of Marketing at Tackle.io:
“As a marketing team, we have become obsessed with Gong. Right now, I think it’s more important than ever for marketers to understand their buyers and customers and what they are saying. They should be using this information to enable sales and ensure the team is positioned effectively to move buyers through their journey, handle objections, talk to all relevant buying committee members, handle competitive objections, etc. Instead of going to the sales or CS team each week, month, quarter, etc and asking them for anecdotal feedback on what prospects are saying, we set up Smart Trackers in Gong. Now we get instant reports and insights into field adoption and market response on areas like new messaging, new features, pricing discussions, and more. The marketing team has instant insights to measure our objectives and help us adjust enablement, messaging, and sales plays in real-time.”
