7 Signs It’s Time to Get Serious About Your B2B Marketing

By Jennifer Kelly

As a B2B CEO, you’ve likely seen substantial growth riding on the wings of your quality products, services, and sales-driven initiatives. A bit of ad-hoc marketing support might have given you a boost along the way.

But, like many, you might find yourself stalled at a revenue plateau. When the old strategies start to lose steam, it’s a clear sign that it’s time to shift gears. How do you know when to step up your marketing game? How do you know it’s really time to invest more seriously in marketing?

Watch out for these seven signs that suggest it’s time to invest seriously in B2B marketing:

Plateaued Revenue: Your company was growing steadily, but now growth has slowed or even stalled. This can be an indication that your existing strategies have hit their limit.
Sales Take More Effort: Your sales efforts aren’t working like they used to. You’ve tried bringing on more salespeople and making more calls, but it’s not moving the revenue needle.
Longer Sales Cycles: The time it takes to close deals is increasing, as customers are taking longer to make buying decisions and buying committees are increasing in number.
Increased Competition: You’re noticing more competitors in your space, and they’re gaining market share. Or, a competitor that you know has a sub-par product or service that is getting more attention and is better positioned than your company with higher quality products or services. Or, you’re struggling to compete with larger companies (and their even larger budgets).
Fewer Leads are Coming In: You used to get a steady stream of new leads in from your sales-led initiatives (such as prospecting, events and conferences), your website and some of your ad-hoc marketing agency-led campaigns. But you’re noticing that these leads are becoming fewer and fewer, and it’s taking more effort to bring them in.
Your Lead Quality and Conversions are Declining: When you do get leads, many are not ideal, and it’s taking more and more time and effort to qualify, convert and close the ones that are.
Poor Customer Retention: Customers are leaving or not renewing. Your churn rate is increasing and you don’t know why.

Do you recognize any of the seven signs you need to invest more seriously in B2B marketing in your own organization?

If any of these signs sound familiar, then it’s likely time for you to consider investing more seriously in marketing. And investing is the keyword. Marketing is not meant to be a cost center, it’s meant to be an investment in growing your business. When done right, marketing helps you address all of the challenges highlighted previously. .

With the right B2B marketing strategy, foundation and system in place, marketing can help you:

Position your company effectively in the marketplace, so you aren’t overlooked in favour of competitors with sub-par products and services or larger companies and their large marketing budgets
Really understand your ideal client’s buyer’s journey and how your clients prefer to take in information and make decisions – and then identify exactly what’s needed to move them along their journey at every touch point (which is key to bringing in the right high-quality leads and increasing conversions)
Allow your sales teams to focus on what they do best, talk to more high-quality leads, and get the right materials and support to make the conversion process faster and easier.
Understand why your customers buy from you and stay with you, so you can make sure they’re happy, continue buying from you and become raving fans who refer you to others.

So now that you know it’s time to invest more seriously in marketing, what is your right next step? How do you decide which marketing resources and approach align best with your business?

Next Steps: The CEO’s Ultimate Guide to Building a B2B Marketing Team in Today’s Complex Marketing World

To help you make important decisions around your B2B marketing investment, we’ve created a comprehensive 33-page eBook: The CEO’s Ultimate Guide to Building a B2B Marketing Team in Today’s Complex Marketing World

In this eBook, we walk you through the six most important questions B2B CEOs need to answer in order to build their first marketing team and choose the right B2B marketing model for their stage of business:

How Do You Know It’s Time to Invest in Marketing?
What are B2B Marketing Best Practices?
How Has B2B Marketing Become More Complex?
What Are the Top Challenges in Getting Started in Marketing?
What Does a B2B Marketing Team Look Like?
Should You Hire In-House or Outsource?

You can download the eBook RIGHT HERE.

If you have any questions about this blog post or the eBook or would like to schedule a consultation with Jen Kelly, NIM’s Founder and one of the Fractional CMOs to get more guidance around your next steps in marketing, you can send her an email RIGHT HERE or book a consultation time RIGHT HERE.

Jen Kelly leads New Initiatives Marketing, Inc., a Fractional CMO & Expert B2B Marketing Team company. Since 2009, our team of senior marketing leaders and expert marketing specialists has been helping B2B CEOs with the strategic leadership and real-world marketing execution needed for practical, long-term results. Sign up for our Ask a Fractional CMO Newsletter to follow my answers to the top questions from our B2B CEO clients and followers.