{"id":7447,"date":"2024-05-03T14:08:51","date_gmt":"2024-05-03T14:08:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tup.kxe.temporary.site\/the-problem-with-b2b-marketing-misaligned-measurement-is-stifling-innovation\/"},"modified":"2024-05-03T14:08:51","modified_gmt":"2024-05-03T14:08:51","slug":"the-problem-with-b2b-marketing-misaligned-measurement-is-stifling-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/okdesign.ca\/fr\/the-problem-with-b2b-marketing-misaligned-measurement-is-stifling-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"The problem with B2B marketing: Misaligned measurement is stifling innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"Why<\/div>\n

It\u2019s a tired cliche that B2B marketing is the \u201cboring\u201d sibling to B2C, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. When it comes to the creativity of our advertising and its effectiveness, there are more systemic issues at play.<\/p>\n

Also, while B2B deals with leadership mindsets that make creativity difficult, that is only part of the problem. Most of the problem is that marketing success is measured by outcomes that have nothing to do with how advertising works.<\/p>\n

Delivering qualified leads who don\u2019t know us<\/h2>\n

The underlying B2B problem, before we even get to advertising, is that marketing success is judged by MQL. That creates major limitations.<\/p>\n

Marketing is a channel<\/h3>\n

MQL has caused marketing to limit its impact to only what it can source itself, often in a competitive manner to sales. What this means in practice is that marketing pursues activities that create leads, and works to tie those leads to outcomes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The term \u201cinfluence\u201d has become a dirty one when talking about marketing effectiveness, because sourced pipeline is the only acceptable form now, and everything else is seen as marketing reaching for credit.<\/p>\n

So, when marketing is dependent on MQLs, it means that everything revolves around creating leads, and that bleeds directly into how we use advertising.<\/p>\n

Marketing needs to act like sales<\/h3>\n

One of the other major shortcomings of the MQL is that marketing needs to add a layer of qualification, and that has come to mean additional marketing touchpoints. At one point, qualification came from expressed intent, by way of a demo request form fill, but that volume didn\u2019t feed the engine, so the \u201cscored MQL\u201d was added.<\/p>\n

The trouble with this is that it means marketing is attempting to take people from passive to passionately ready to purchase, which has never been a power that marketing possessed.<\/p>\n

Only about 5% of buyers<\/a> are in the market at any given moment. This means marketing\u2019s job isn’t bringing them in, but to have the brand be top of mind when customers are ready to buy. That brings us to the next issue with the MQL.<\/p>\n

Marketing has to create near-term outcomes<\/h3>\n

The MQL marketing model is about handing over leads ready for sales to talk to. This has come to limit marketing to try and find only the customers who are in-market because it\u2019s not able to move them there by way of scoring tactics.<\/p>\n

As a result, marketing is not creating future customers. It’s trying to scoop up customers currently in market, even when they\u2019re destined for a competing brand. This is often a futile effort because 80%\u201390%<\/a> have a set of vendors in mind before they do any research, and that is who they buy from the majority of the time.<\/p>\n

Dig deeper: Why B2B marketing needs brand building more than lead gen<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Every ad is a button that must be clicked<\/h2>\n

All of this means that advertising in B2B is generally in pursuit of immediate outcomes, treating it as a direct response lead gen channel rather than a brand awareness one.<\/p>\n

B2B purchases are not impulse decisions but considered ones. The decisions in that consideration are made well in advance of the in-market moment when it comes time to purchase.<\/p>\n

Marketing needs to stop trying to convince people to buy product now. It needs to focus on being top of mind when customers are ready to choose a solution. The goal is not to get them to do something but to remember something.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And yet we judge our advertising on whether it caused the audience to do something \u2014 visit the site, download an asset, submit their contact details. And, when it fails to do that it\u2019s deemed to have failed.<\/p>\n

Availability over conversion<\/h2>\n

There\u2019s a well-researched idea from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute<\/a>, that marketing growth comes from being easily thought of and easily found when buyers are choosing solutions, known as mental and physical availability. <\/p>\n

Having someone know your brand and even like it only matters if that comes to mind in association with problems that you solve. Advertising campaigns built around the hope that our selling moment lines up with their purchasing moment is a lottery play. And, like with most lotteries, it rarely pays off.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Instead, advertising needs to be used for what it does best: Creating and sustaining awareness of our brand as a solution. We can\u2019t control buyers’ timing, but we can ensure that we\u2019re mentally available when it comes.<\/p>\n

And there are a few ways that advertising can be strategically used to increase the chances of this:<\/p>\n