Why B2B marketers must take a stand against mediocrity

Are you a B2B mar­keter who feels that you’re a vic­tim of a risk-averse cor­po­rate cul­ture? If so, 100% of busi­ness lead­ers think that you should stand up for your­self. That’s accord­ing to research we’ve con­duct­ed at the alan agency, includ­ing a sur­vey of 175 C‑suite exec­u­tives.

Say­ing that you need to stand up for your­self is nei­ther vic­tim-blam­ing nor uphold­ing a macho cul­ture. This is about per­cep­tion – specif­i­cal­ly, the com­mon belief among B2B mar­keters that they are some­how fac­ing insur­mount­able bar­ri­ers cre­at­ed by an insti­tu­tion­alised aver­sion to risk in their organ­i­sa­tions. 

‘Walk­ing into the room know­ing what you’re sup­posed to be doing hap­pens the minute you stop ask­ing for per­mis­sion’

Rosie Guest, chief mar­ket­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions offi­cer, Apex Group

Although 53% of the B2B mar­keters respond­ing to our research feel that they’re work­ing in a risk-averse com­pa­ny and 33% think that their firm doesn’t even under­stand what it takes to build a brand, the CEOs, COOs and CFOs we’ve polled are unit­ed in want­i­ng them to take the ini­tia­tive and solve such prob­lems them­selves.

All of the CEOs and COOs in the sur­vey believe that mar­keters must get a grip on risk aver­sion, for instance, while all COOs and CFOs think that mar­keters need to edu­cate oth­ers about brand-build­ing. Their mes­sage is clear: stop mak­ing excus­es, step up and hold your­selves account­able for over­com­ing such obsta­cles. 

It ain’t what you do; it’s the way that you do it

As a breed, mar­keters aren’t renowned for hid­ing their light under a bushel. Why are those in the B2B field seem­ing­ly more will­ing to do so?

Rosie Guest, chief mar­ket­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions offi­cer at Apex Group, believes that they need to change a long-embed­ded cul­ture.

“B2B mar­keters are so used to being sub­servient to the busi­ness in a very dif­fer­ent way from how they are in B2C, where their work is slight­ly more respect­ed,” she argues. “They need to shift from there to a more author­i­ta­tive posi­tion. That means they must lead the con­ver­sa­tion – not by ask­ing ‘what do you want to do?’ but by say­ing ‘this is our mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy’. It’s such a tiny dif­fer­ence.”

Mar­keters can be their own worst ene­mies. Their lan­guage of clicks and con­ver­sions, engage­ment and salien­cy is like­ly to mean lit­tle to a sales team chas­ing a quar­ter­ly tar­get or a CEO look­ing to wow the share­hold­ers. 

Mark Choueke is a B2B mar­ket­ing direc­tor, most recent­ly of refer­ral firm Men­tion Me, a for­mer edi­tor of Mar­ket­ing Week and the author of Boring2Brave: the ‘brav­ery as a strat­e­gy’ mind­set that’s trans­form­ing B2B mar­ket­ing. He notes that the “accept­ed indus­try met­rics” for scal­ing up a soft­ware-as-a-ser­vice com­pa­ny are “often at odds with the notion of con­scious­ly invest­ing in build­ing a strong and spe­cial brand. Mar­ket­ing strate­gies that start out vibrant and high in val­ue often play out as vanil­la once they’ve been run through a spread­sheet by some­one who doesn’t under­stand mar­ket­ing.”

Áine Bryn, part­ner and CMO at the Mer­cer con­sul­tan­cy in the UK, won­ders why, giv­en that mar­keters are hap­py to put them­selves at the ser­vice of the end cus­tomer, it seems so hard for them to com­mu­ni­cate this to the busi­ness.

“This is all about speak­ing to who­ev­er is sit­ting in front of you if they’re the bud­get-hold­er or they can influ­ence or veto the deci­sion. Speak their lan­guage and ask them what they’re try­ing to achieve. Then show them how you can help them to achieve it,” Bryn advis­es.

Trade on experience

B2B mar­keters have some­how become afraid to inno­vate and come up with chal­leng­ing ideas. Account­abil­i­ty is one thing. But, if they’re to attempt some­thing new and dif­fer­ent, there’ll be few (if any) tan­gi­ble indi­ca­tions that it’s going to work. How should they mar­ry going out on a limb this way with proof, key per­for­mance indi­ca­tors, met­rics and con­fi­dence?

Per­haps the key lies in that last word: con­fi­dence. As Guest says: “Walk­ing into the room know­ing what you’re sup­posed to be doing hap­pens the minute you stop ask­ing for per­mis­sion.”

The irony is that CEOs want mar­ket­ing to be provoca­tive, but mar­keters seem to have got into a habit of crav­ing approval. Noth­ing provoca­tive ever came pre-approved.

It appears that every­one else in the organ­i­sa­tion apart from mar­keters has con­fi­dence in the mar­ket­ing func­tion. Three-quar­ters of CFOs in our sur­vey agree that the mar­keters in their com­pa­nies have the skills to break down the bar­ri­ers of risk aver­sion, for instance. 

Yet more than half (53%) of CMOs and mar­ket­ing direc­tors think that their depart­ment tends to show a lack of con­vic­tion and/or ambi­tion. What if, after all this time, firms per­ceived by their mar­keters as too demand­ing or unsup­port­ive are mere­ly just wait­ing for them to take the ini­tia­tive? 

If that is indeed the case, how do B2B mar­keters com­bat the fear fac­tor and adopt a growth mind­set that brings sat­is­fac­tion, self-actu­al­i­sa­tion and some much-need­ed vim and vigour? Becom­ing more provoca­tive is unlike­ly to be an easy ride. Busi­ness lead­ers do want to hear chal­leng­ing thoughts, but they don’t have to show­er those who deliv­er them with praise. The strength to plough on regard­less is a mus­cle that mar­keters need to flex more.  

“If you’re good enough at your job, you’ll be able to get away with that because it usu­al­ly means that you know what you’re doing is the right thing,” Guest argues. “They may not love it when they hear it, but ulti­mate­ly it’s the results that show the val­ue. That’s the dif­fer­ence between B2B and B2C.”

Ulti­mate­ly, this is about pair­ing pas­sion with prag­ma­tism. You can be a mav­er­ick vision­ary and still have your company’s best inter­ests at heart – just be sure that every­one else appre­ci­ates that. The C‑suite seems hap­py to accept a con­trar­i­an stance and it wants mar­keters to be bold. But gain­ing the con­fi­dence to be bold is a mat­ter of lay­ing foun­da­tions. 

Bryn would urge any B2B mar­keter to “prove that you can do the fun­da­men­tals. Then they’ll let you run with all the vision­ary ideas. Some­times mar­ket­ing promis­es the Earth but can nev­er deliv­er it, because it doesn’t under­stand what the busi­ness is try­ing to achieve. Mar­ket­ing needs a clear under­stand­ing of what suc­cess looks like for the com­pa­ny. Then they are empow­ered to ideate and deliv­er.”

Be the change

Bar­ney O’Kelly is dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing direc­tor at Alix­Part­ners, a US-based man­age­ment con­sul­tan­cy. His advice to B2B mar­keters would be to “find the pro­gres­sives in your organ­i­sa­tion. There are three kinds of peo­ple in a busi­ness: those who want to change, those who can be per­suad­ed and those who don’t want to at all. Invest your ener­gy in the two kinds who are open to change.”

O’Kelly con­tin­ues: “You have to build rela­tion­ships and trust with your col­leagues. If you do that, they’ll have much more faith in your more out­landish ideas. Of course, you should apply good judge­ment. You’re not going to do some­thing daft – or, if you are going to do some­thing daft, you deserve to be held to account for it. But exper­i­men­ta­tion is a big field to play on in B2B mar­ket­ing.”

Choueke says that, when he’s talk­ing to any busi­ness, “I want to know: do you like mar­ket­ing and does it mean some­thing of val­ue to you? Do you have an out­come for it to aim at? Will you let us come up with ideas or have you already decid­ed how you want some­one to do your mar­ket­ing for you? If it’s the lat­ter, I’m not inter­est­ed.”

He adds: “When you’re a mar­ket­ing leader, it’s incum­bent on you to be inspi­ra­tional – in a real part­ner­ship with your prod­ucts and clients. You can have so much impact. That’s the gor­geous­ness of it. But you need to put the work in and have the pres­ence and the evi­dence to back it all up.”

‘There are three kinds of peo­ple in a busi­ness: those who want to change, those who can be per­suad­ed and those who don’t want to at all. Invest your ener­gy in the two kinds who are open to change’

Bar­ney O’Kelly, dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing direc­tor, Alix­Part­ners

Research methodology

The research was con­duct­ed in August 2022. An inde­pen­dent field­work team sought the views of UK-based B2B busi­ness lead­ers using online ques­tion­naires and tele­phone inter­views. Their respons­es were analysed by Mar­ket Research Soci­ety-cer­ti­fied ana­lysts in the research and intel­li­gence divi­sion at alan.

Bene­dict Buck­land is Chief Cre­ative Offi­cer at alan.

Click here to read the full research report.

Are you a B2B marketer who feels that you’re a victim of a risk-averse corporate culture? If so, 100% of business leaders think that you should stand up for yourself. That’s according to research we’ve conducted at the alan agency, including a survey of 175 C-suite executives.

Saying that you need to stand up for yourself is neither victim-blaming nor upholding a macho culture. This is about perception – specifically, the common belief among B2B marketers that they are somehow facing insurmountable barriers created by an institutionalised aversion to risk in their organisations. 

‘Walking into the room knowing what you’re supposed to be doing happens the minute you stop asking for permission’