Building a Marketing Team for a B2B Firm
In my conversations with marketing professionals the topic invariably arrives at how to generate high quality leads for the sales team. Along with that, a discussion ensues around building out new systems and processes, otherwise known as change management – as a firm seeks to adapt new tooling and technologies into the fold, for both sales and marketing.
Change management for marketing teams
A challenge for busy marketing managers is often how to keep up to date with all of their campaign topics and staying up to date on the newest trends and technologies to help their own teams and their clients to adapt their thinking about digital transformation.
Not only that — Often, saying no to doing things the old way, can be equally as hard. Doing things differently in a group setting is even harder because we’re conditioned as humans to form habits. They’re especially complex to unravel in a group or organizational environment.
Leveraging data as part of your integrated marketing stack
Trying to attain closed loop analytics is the best way to get a real sense of your team’s ROI, as relative to revenue generation. It’s most CMOs dream to be a revenue driver as opposed to a cost centre, but very few new marketing teams achieve amazing results immediately. As with any practice in life, the art and science behind marketing takes time. There will be some wins and some losses – and it’s unrealistic to expect that every campaign will be a homerun. However, perfecting the art of lead scoring and continually adjusting and making refinements to scores and personas as you go, by adapting your campaigns and translating learnings across departments and teams will help.
Honing your communications
Communication is key and yet, we so often do the hard work and don’t communicate enough about it. My best advice that I need to take more of is to over-communicate. Be honest with yourself and others about what you can do better next time. Really effective marketing ought to be about continuous improvement over time, as you get to know your industry, your market segments and your customers. Being able to develop programs to convert new sales and business is key, as is providing value to your community and clients.
Staying ahead of marketing trends
Sources like Forbes CMO Network, HBR on Marketing, and searching out your competitors and top-tier consulting firms (such as Deloitte and McKinsey) that release white papers are valuable for you, in order to stay abreast of trends. Attending events locally and conferences abroad are excellent for both networking and professional development.
The series of Lean Branding books by O’Reilly are also very good, as are podcasts for getting information while multi-tasking. Something like over 50 percent of podcast audiences tend to be doing other things, such as commuting, while listening. Some of my favourite podcasts are HBR Ideacast, The Women in Tech Podcast by Espree Devora and Startup by Gimlet.
Hiring for high-potential and track-record
It’s a balancing act, but when hiring, it’s always nice to find someone who is both hungry to learn and grow, but who has already mastered their craft. It’s best practice to hire team members who are clear about their own vision and mission and ensure that there’s a clear fit with the company and its vision and values. Some of the best advice I’ve received is to hire people that are smarter than you.
I value marketers who understand their role within the greater context of the team, are team players who show creativity, excellent communication skills, problem-solving capacity, tenacity and grit.
Defining and communicating value at a services firm
When talking about the value of a services firm, it’s important to acknowledge that value is determined by the needs of the users and the community that will be engaging with your brand. Your solution should be something that enhances their life, bringing them joy, or convenience, solving a need or a pain point, and making them feel better in some way. There’s an emotive component to branding and marketing and content should often be communicated through stories that evoke emotion on the part of the reader or viewer. Those stories that connect with audiences emotionally will have a far longer lasting impact and be remembered. But the experience should not stop there, the experience should continue through every marketing touch-point created, even after the point of sale, so you have loyal customers and clients evangelizing what you do.