Editorial
The Gist
- Prioritize creativity. Ignoring innovation in favor of automation can weaken audience connections in B2B marketing.
- Challenge data insights. Scrutinize data closely to avoid misguided decisions that can lead to marketing stagnation.
- Evolve communication channels. Adapt to where your B2B audience is now, not where they were, to maintain engagement.
Between a challenging economy, staff layoffs and longer sales cycles, B2B marketers are under increasing pressure to deliver hot leads that drive conversions with the least effort and lowest possible cost. Out of excitement for new tech and the need to do more with less, many are leaning hard into novel martech solutions that prioritize analytics and marketing automation to accelerate the pace of their work.
Unfortunately, this approach has inadvertently lulled many marketers into a sense of complacency. By going all-in on marketing automation and data to move faster, they’ve lost touch with the inherent value of creative B2B marketing strategies for building audience connections.
That’s a serious problem at a time when audience expectations for creative B2B marketing strategies are higher than ever. Buyers crave authenticity, useful thought leadership and real solutions, not just another AI-generated sales pitch. They can easily see right through the facade like a college professor recognizes the telltale signs of a thesis written by ChatGPT. While automated solutions certainly have their place, marketers need to continuously reinvigorate their B2B marketing solutions with bold ideas and experimentation that keeps content fresh, engaging and interesting to the humans who consume it.
5 Ways to Avoid Marketing Automation Ruts & Grow Your Creative B2B Marketing Strategies
Here are five symptoms of data-driven complacency and an antidote that can help reinvigorate your B2B marketing strategies and avoid the rut of automation.
Symptom No. 1: You’ve Put Marketing R&D on the Back Burner
If your marketing strategy has taken on a “set it and forget it” feel, you’ve likely deprioritized creative B2B marketing strategies, neglected A/B or multivariate testing and defaulted to the same worn out, “one and done” copy. It’s a common side effect of being stretched too thin: You need maximum volume at maximum velocity. However, marketing is as much art as science, and in the words often attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci, “Art is never finished, only abandoned.”
Antidote: Prioritize innovation.
Give yourself and your team the time for strategic, creative thinking and hold that space like it’s an important meeting. In marketing, ideation and brainstorming are a form of self-care, so make it a priority. Schedule an appointment or use time blocking to carve out the first half of every Friday, for example, and devote those hours to noodling on new ideas, level setting against your plan and investigating new content options or media channels.
Related Article: Staying Human While Using Generative AI Tools for Content Marketing
Symptom No. 2: You’re Chasing Data, Not Results
Sometimes, data can be deceiving, and if you continue to blindly follow the path it leads to, you’ll hit a dead-end. I recently read about a marketer who was focused on increasing email subscriber loyalty, and they found that they saw fewer unsubscribes when the unsubscribe button was difficult to find. Gee, you don’t say! It reminded me of the struggle of canceling a cable subscription — you get passed from one customer service rep to another before you finally give up in frustration. Neither of these are indicators of loyalty, but on the surface, the data makes it look that way.
Antidote: Think critically.
Examine the data and ask yourself whether it actually makes sense. If your data shows highly significant changes, validate the work and beware of the McNamara fallacy: making decisions based purely on quantitative data and ignoring subjective information that often provides insightful context simply because it can’t be measured.
Dive deep into the potential reasons behind the numbers and make sure you can explain why something is working or not. Keep in mind there may be some things you’ll want to keep doing even if they don’t appear to bring a strong ROI. A nurture campaign is a perfect example: it might not drive net new leads, but it’s keeping your database engaged and your company top of mind.
Related Article: Generative AI in Marketing: Smoothing Creative Operations
Symptom No. 3: Your Channels Aren’t Changing
There has been a tremendous shift in the way B2B buyers consume information — most notably, they’ve adopted traditionally consumer-facing channels like YouTube, TikTok and podcasts. Your channels should also evolve to ensure you are where your audience is, not where they used to be. Otherwise, you’re likely to lose contact with customers due to changing needs, shifts in media and reputation and the capricious whims of the fickle buyer.
Antidote: Always be learning.
Keep an open dialogue with your current customers and prospects along with your sales, customer service and product teams to keep you plugged into the latest hot spots to reach, engage and delight along the customer journey.
Related Article: The Unforeseen Consequences of Relying on AI in Marketing Strategies
Symptom No. 4: Engagement Is Stagnant
You’re playing it safe so you "rinse and repeat": if something is working well enough, your solution is to just keep doing it and all will be well. Until suddenly, it’s not and you realize your competition has passed you by. Your buyer personas will change as new generations join the workforce. The types of education, support and tools your customers need may change based on market forces. Or maybe it’s just that your content is outdated, boring, or worse, broken — “dead” images and resources, link rot, and clunky chatbots can easily turn your audience off when working with automated systems.
Antidote: Don’t get caught by surprise.
Never stop creating and developing new ideas so you’re always prepared to pivot with something fresh. You may not implement everything immediately, but having a strong bank of ideas will make it easy to pull one from the vault when it’s time to shake things up. Don’t take your eye off the ball: your data and systems need to be audited regularly to ensure accuracy, relevance and a seamless, easy-to-navigate experience for your customers.
Related Article: Regaining Humanity in B2B Marketing: A Conversation With Karna Crawford, CMO of Marqeta
Symptom No. 5: No Meaningful Uptick in KPIs
If more than one of the symptoms above rings true for you, it’s a sign you’re likely not racking up the wins you need to demonstrate a strong impact. Perhaps you’ve tried some new things here and there, but the results have not merited continued investment. Soon, your executive team comes knocking at the door for your budget, and the CEO wants to revert to the decades-old “dialing for dollars” approach.
Antidote: Prioritize measurement and attribution.
Focus on programs that are objectively measurable and segment them by the overall goal (e.g., demand generation, engagement, conversion, brand building, etc.). Be clear on your investments, goals and expected ROI for all campaigns. Before you veer off plan, weigh the cost-benefit of changes: Will that bigger (insert your new idea here) pay off? How, why and what increased impact do you expect to see?
To get ahead of that visit from the execs, make sure you are capturing the data needed for accurate measurement and attribution, home in on what’s working, cut what isn’t and be prepared with the analytics (not that you’ll need them as your results are sure to soar).
Related Article: The 5 Pitfalls of Marketing Automation
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Innovation Starts at the Top
To remain agile and avoid getting stuck in the rut of marketing automation, company leadership (specifically the CEO) must be fully onboard and believe in the role marketing plays in value creation. That includes not only supporting investments in new tools and tactics but also prioritizing MR&D (marketing R&D) and giving the marketing team the time and space for strategic thinking. It also requires enabling them with the resources needed to gather useful insights that will allow them to grow their impact and achieve their goals.
To rise above the competition or dive deeper into a market, it’s time to wake up from the comforts of marketing automation, uplevel your creative B2B marketing strategies, keep room for new opportunities, and consider how your successes may just unlock more budget as the year progresses.
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