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“Marketing is not a gumball machine.”
Our addiction to MQLs has led us astray. We've taught people to view marketing as a "budget in, leads out" machine, and became hooked on the sugar rush of MQLs.
By bombarding buyers with unwanted emails and aggressive SDR tactics, we're not building relationships — we're burning them. These short-term tactics might boost MQLs, but they erode trust and hurt the customer experience.
The result over time? Missing pipeline, low SDR productivity, high CMO turnover, and poor alignment.
It's time for a new approach. One that shifts from quantity to quality, from quick wins to long-term relationships. One that treats buyers as people and seeks to help them succeed.
This new approach starts with the fundamentals: product-market fit, positioning, and brand. Get these right, and even an average marketing team can shine. Get them wrong, and no amount of heroic execution will deliver results.
Product-market fit: Your product satisfies a strong market demand and solves an urgent problem.
Positioning: You're differentiated and own a distinct place in the buyer's mind.
Brand: It's how people feel about you when you're not in the room. It's why they choose you over a cheaper alternative.
Driving this change requires a new kind of CMO. One who excels at collaborating with peers, who elevates marketing from a tactical lead gen function to a strategic driver of company growth: The Chief Market Officer.
It also requires new metrics. Brand awareness and reputation. Account engagement. Shared pipeline goals. NRR and NPS. Metrics that align with the new realities of B2B buying.
The old martech stack must evolve too. We need AI-powered solutions that support personalized, adaptive customer experiences while providing marketers with new efficiency and insights.
Are you feeling like your marketing has become less effective? Like your digital, content, and email campaigns are not creating the same amount of pipeline as they have in the past?
The marketing playbooks we’ve used for years just aren’t working. Buyers are numb to our traditional tactics.
In this post, I explain why nothing works anymore and share the new playbook, filled with go-to-market techniques that are working today, including conditioning the market to your solution and engaging the right accounts at the right time with the right plays.
In this post, I first look at my 2023 predictions, examining what I got right, and where I missed the mark including the unexpected impact of AI. And then I focus on exploring the trends that will shape our industry in 2024.
From the short-term challenges and long-term potential of AI to the evolution of email marketing, I delve into the forces driving change in B2B. I also discuss the decline of the traditional demand gen playbook and the rise of original research and data-driven content as the new thought leadership currency.
I explain why leading companies are investing in owned media and engaged communities, and why blended go-to-market approaches are becoming the norm. I also tackle the impending end of third-party cookies and why many B2B marketers aren't prepared for this significant shift.
Finally, I introduce the concept of Qualified Buying Groups (QBGs) as the new benchmark for success, replacing the outdated MQL.
Join me as I explore the challenges and opportunities that await us in 2024 and discover what the future holds for B2B marketing!
In this post, I share how my background in physics has shaped my approach to marketing. While these two fields may seem worlds apart, I believe that the rigorous, quantitative thinking I learned in physics has made me a better marketer.
I challenge the notion that marketing is a purely creative, "arts and crafts" function. Instead, I argue that marketing can and should be a data-driven, scientific discipline that can be tested and measured.
Drawing from my physics background, I discuss how the principles of harmonic oscillators, resonant frequencies, and other concepts from classical mechanics can be applied to marketing challenges. I also explore how mathematical skills and fundamental truths from physics have informed my marketing strategies.
Join me as I share the key lessons from physics that have guided my marketing career and discover how a left-brained approach can elevate marketing to a science.
Recent studies are shedding light on the impact of AI in the workplace, particularly in the context of B2B go-to-market strategies. The findings reveal a nuanced picture: while AI can significantly boost performance and productivity, it also has limitations, especially in areas requiring accuracy and creativity.
A Harvard Business School study found that consultants using ChatGPT-4 outperformed their non-AI-using counterparts in various tasks, completing more work faster and with higher quality. However, another study highlights how humans, not AI, still produce the most creative ideas.
I explore the concept of "The Jagged Frontier" – the unclear boundary between tasks where AI excels and where it falls short – and the risks of over-reliance on AI, which can lead to disengagement and poorer decision-making.
I present two approaches for integrating AI into workflows: the "Centaur" approach, which clearly divides tasks between humans and machines, and the "Cyborg" approach, which deeply integrates the two.
I discuss the implications of these findings for various aspects of B2B go-to-market, from ABM and content marketing to sales and customer success. I argue that a hybrid approach, combining AI's strengths with human creativity and nuance, is the most effective strategy moving forward.
Discover how to navigate the complex landscape of AI in the workplace and harness its power while avoiding its pitfalls.
Check out my latest and most definitive book ever: Unspam Your Brand: The Definitive Guide to ABM! It’s a comprehensive guide to modern B2B go-to-market with an account-based lens.
Thought leadership and content marketing are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same thing. In this post, I explore the key differences between these two important marketing concepts.
Content marketing is a business process that involves creating and distributing valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined target audience, with the goal of driving profitable customer action. It's about both the creation and distribution of content, and it needs to be tailored to a specific audience, provide value, and drive measurable business outcomes.
In contrast, thought leadership is the work product of individuals or firms recognized as authorities in their specialized fields. Thought leaders offer guidance, clarity, and sometimes contrarian ideas that require attention and can lead people in unexpected directions. When done well, thought leadership builds trust in your brand because buyers trust experts.
While both thought leadership and content marketing can build awareness and brand, true thought leadership is much rarer. If a firm wants to create thought leadership, it must hire genuine thought leaders.
Sometimes you write a simple post that seems to capture your audience's attention more than you'd expect. That certainly happened to me in my post How Do You Explain Marketing to a Six-Year Old?
It all started one day when I was trying to explain to my (then) six-year old son what I do, and he asked “what is marketing?” I thought for a second, and came up with this: “Marketing is what you do in business when you want to help persuade people to want and to buy what you have to sell.”
After my basic explanation, I tried to use the example of a lemonade stand. I asked my son what he might do to sell as much lemonade as possible. I expected him to talk about signs (that’s where my head went first), but he actually started by talking about pricing. (Start high, he said, and then lower the price if we need to.) And then he talked about making sure we had a good location. And only then did we talk about advertisements. (We also talked about the product itself, making sure the lemonade was good in the first place.)
For me, it was a great reminder that marketing is much more than just promotions and marketing campaigns. The 4 Ps (product, place, price, promotion) still matter, and marketing has a strategic role to play in the success of the business.
So, how would you explain marketing to a six-year old?
The Definitive Guide to Marketing Metrics and Marketing Analytics is one of my best pieces of thought leadership. Seventy pages long, it covers everything I've learned about:
How to build marketing respect and accountability
Which metrics to use (and which to avoid)
The best ways to measure marketing program ROI
How to forecast marketing's impact on revenue
How to design the best dashboards for your business
And much more!
As an executive, the journey of learning and growth never ends. In this post, I share some of the key lessons I've learned from various sources, including CMG Partners CMO's Agenda™ and Paul Albright, Marketo's former Chief Revenue Officer.
First and foremost, executives must be business leaders, not just departmental managers. This means earning a seat at the revenue table, balancing vision with action, and combining creativity with hard data and measurement.
Customer intimacy is another crucial aspect. Every successful strategy starts with a deep understanding of the target market, and high-growth companies are more likely to tie marketing executives' compensation to customer satisfaction.
Innovation is about transformation and reinvention, but it can be challenging, especially when it means moving away from what made you successful in the past. Effective executives continually ask how they can transform their marketing and business, even if it means embracing strategies that are alien to them.
Managing a high-performance team is also critical. This involves cultivating an execution-driven culture based on facts and results, setting goals and measuring progress, being data-centric and customer-focused, taking the initiative, and being direct and real with your team.
I conclude by asking readers where they go to learn and what their favorite lessons are, inviting them to share their own insights and experiences.
Introducing Atomic Buying Journeys – a model that views your brand as the nucleus of an atom and your customers as electrons orbiting in different energy states.
As B2B marketers, we're always searching for new ways to understand and engage our customers. We've gone from megaphones to magnets, from campaigns to conversations, from funnels to flywheels. What if the next analogy came from Physics and Chemistry?
In this model, your brand sits at the center as the nucleus. Around it orbit your customers and prospects in different shells, each representing a stage in the customer lifecycle.
This model flips our traditional thinking on its head. Instead of a funnel where customers fall through stages, we now have a model where moving customers outward — towards advocacy — requires energy input.