7 Ingredients of Great B2B Marketing Teams
Marketing to other businesses is currently more difficult than it has ever been. A well-known statement that, sadly, is still entirely accurate.
Extra instruments. Additional technological advancements. More competition. Increased demands from the market.
Every every B2B marketing team encounters the same kinds of roadblocks. Nevertheless, some of them enjoy a disproportionate amount of success.
Why?
In today’s world, running a successful business that caters to other businesses requires you to assemble and oversee an exceptional marketing team. Today’s marketers must be fast, knowledgeable, nimble, and—at all times—data-driven.
After working with some of the most well-known businesses in the world, our team at Convince & Convert is familiar with the characteristics of a successful marketing team. Almost all successful B2B marketing teams share certain characteristics in common with one another. I’ve broken it down to seven key elements that contribute to success. You might be recognized by some, while others might take you by surprise.
• Specificity Regarding Aims and Achievements
• Bring Marketing and Sales into Harmony
• Organize Responsibilities According to Priority
• Base Decisions on Data
• Encourage People to Take Ownership
• Give Real-Time Feedback
• Champion a Positive Company Culture
The 7 Essential Components of Highly Successful B2B Marketing Teams
Building a highly successful team cannot be accomplished by taking a magic pill or finding a solution that is applicable to everyone. What we have found, however, is that there are seven recurring issues that come up when we are working with marketing leaders:
Clarity on the Aims, and Success in Achieving Them
The initial inquiry that we pose to our customers is, “What are the objectives of your group?” Typically, the next question asked is some variation of “How would cooperating with us get you closer to success?”
The situation is dire for a marketing team if they are unable to precisely articulate what it is they are working for. A red signal is raised when an individual has generic goals or objectives that are extremely detailed. Make sure that everyone on the squad can see where the finish line is. In this way, you are able to maintain your concentration on the appropriate topics. Include more specific objectives, similar to the mile markers in a race. The group will be able to take time to celebrate their accomplishments along the way to the finish line of a marathon.
The question “What is the most unique measure of success that you’ve ever set for a team?” is posed to each and every guest on the Masters of Scale podcast, which is hosted by Reid Hoffman. The responses provided by successful businesspeople are rich in both variety and motivation.
Everyone is aware of the need of maintaining goal responsibility, despite the fact that every team has its own unique measures and playing style. The most important thing is that every member of the team understands exactly WHAT the scoreboard is, and that every member has access to a real-time snapshot of how they are performing overall.
It is important to keep in mind that not everything that can be measured also matters, and similarly, not everything that matters can be quantified (in a traditional way).
Align Promotion and Business Development
Teams that are aligned have a common grasp of the broad strategies of the business as well as the requirements of both the firm’s internal stakeholders and its external audiences.
The importance of marketing is going to skyrocket as more and more clients educate themselves independently before engaging in conversation with a sales representative. In theory, the influence of marketing has the same outcome as increasing the number of sales representatives. The most effective B2B marketing teams have a strong relationship with the sales department, and they see their role as contributing to the success of that department.
Our own research in conjunction with Ascend2 found that when marketing and sales goals are aligned, collaboration becomes easier. More than three-quarters of integrated marketing and sales teams reported that collaboration was extremely easy, in contrast to only 28% of those who aren’t fully aligned with their goals.
The concept of alignment needs to move beyond the realm of strategies and into the routines of teams. It is important to encourage collaboration between marketing and sales on a daily basis and not only during meetings. When many points of view are brought together for the good of an organization, it is easy to see the benefits that result.
Prioritize Responsibilities
Marketers currently have a greater number of projects to work on than ever before. Keeping track of each of them might easily turn into a job that requires one’s full time commitment. Tools can be helpful, but selecting the appropriate tool is frequently its own effort in and of itself.
Utilizing a project management system such as Teamwork Projects is helpful in keeping everyone focused and on track; however, determining which projects should be prioritized and when they should be worked on is a major factor in the success of B2B marketing.
How do the most successful marketers deal with the various tools, priorities, and goals that they serve? To begin, they focus on what they consider to be their most important tool, which is strategy.
The team’s approach to working toward the accomplishment of its key goals should be laid out in depth in the plan. The majority of B2B marketing teams have as their primary objective the creation of an extraordinary and engaging customer experience.
The overarching tasks and distribution channels of each marketing team ought to be determined by the strategic direction. Keeping afloat while juggling the obligations of marketing tasks like as search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, and social media management does not leave much room for additional labor.
The most effective marketing teams also cultivate a flexible working environment and encourage individual team members to take ownership of their work, allowing them to move forward with projects that are focused on the short term and experiment with new prospects.
Use the Data to Guide Your Decisions
In B2B marketing, there are a large number of strategies, playbooks, and frameworks—possibly more than ever before. However, in the end, the most successful marketing leaders rely to statistics to guide their decision-making.
QUOTE: Decision-making that is informed by data is cited by a number of successful top marketers as an essential component of their continued growth.
Being a data-driven firm is not a passing fad; rather, it is an absolute necessity for B2B marketers who wish to demonstrate that they comprehend their target audience.
Research and testing are two methods that can provide answers to any this-or-that option. Do you want to experiment with a different kind of content or try to engage a different audience? Build a test that evaluates how well A performs in comparison to B, and record your findings.
Utilizing data encompasses much more than just analytics and performance measurements. Encourage members of the marketing team to utilize research and insights from external sources wherever possible. Seek the assistance of data scientists and analysts who are able to assist in making sense of the data that is already accessible in order to avoid falling victim to analysis paralysis.
Decision-making that is informed by data is cited by a number of successful top marketers as an essential component of their continued growth.
Encourage people to take ownership of the organization.
It doesn’t matter how well thought out your approach is, how well designed your tools are, or how fantastic your team members are; disagreements and difficult situations will still arise. I promise.
On the other hand, when disagreements occur, excellent marketing teams almost always find a way to resolve the issues on their own. They are able to accomplish this through excellent communication amongst the many parties involved. Even while no member of the team intends to seed or generate conflict, the capacity to develop a culture in which individuals can come to resolutions without the intervention of senior members is essential to the team’s growth.
Bringing on people who are self-motivated and nurturing their potential will allow the team as a whole to learn from their actions. Self-starters are a vital component of a successful team, according to Jason Keath, CEO of Social Fresh, who made this observation. Give these marketers the authority to lead a project or take on a greater role in the contribution they make. Give them extra ownership over the research process so that they can find answers, identify bottlenecks, and provide solutions.
The provision of feedback in real time
Leaders who are successful in B2B marketing provide their staff with advice on a consistent basis. Even though they may have annual evaluation periods, they do not wait for those to commend or direct their employees in the right direction.
Because to the COVID-19 epidemic, there has been a rapid and dramatic increase in the level of digital maturity and requisite abilities. This element is directly related with this rapid and dramatic acceleration. Over the course of the past two years, companies and their employees have been under increasing pressure to bridge the skills gap in the workforce.
The most effective leaders are those who place a strong emphasis on the development of their team’s capabilities. According to the findings of McKinsey, the repositioning of talented individuals into new jobs is the second most important approach to address skill shortages.
It is much easier to manage teams when there is a forum where observations and reactions can be shared, and this works wonders for removing surprises that may be lurking in the shadows.
Advocate for Positive Corporate Culture
At this very moment, we are witnessing The Great Resignation as it unfolds in real time. In 2021, over thirty percent more people than usual decided to leave their jobs. Many of you who are reading this are taking part in some way, whether you are actively looking for a new job or are forced to do so as a result of losing key members of your team or not having enough people to fill those positions.
One of the leading factors in employee turnover is because workers can no longer put up with unfavorable working circumstances and a toxic company culture. Toxicity in the workplace is a genuine problem, but it hasn’t been talked about publicly until recently, unless you count conversations that take place between lower-level workers during happy hour or in boardrooms during annual leadership retreats.
Liane Davey, an advisor to the executive team, discusses toxicity in the workplace not only from the perspective of policies and procedures, but also with regard to culture, leaders, employees, and consumers. Leaders in marketing cannot afford to ignore toxicity, and the best leaders confront this issue head-on to guarantee that their teams and the culture of their companies are as safe as they possibly can be.
Implementing Into Practice
The most successful marketing teams empower their marketers and have a balanced set of technical and interpersonal abilities. Which of these seven essential components of effective B2B marketing teams do you believe your team possesses?
Which one do you feel needs the most improvement?
