✋ Stop Caring So Much About Lead-Gen
There's courage in committing to campaigns that don't use pipeline as the only measure of success
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Brand Building
🚫 Don’t Be ‘That’ Website
I don't know about you, but the mysteries of what people like on Twitter continue to elude me. I'll spend hours crafting a thread of my cumulative decade of marketing experience and... crickets.
And then I'll fire something like this out with less than two seconds of thought and it'll end up as one of my best performing tweets ever.
What can you do?
Well, below I've suggested something you could do to build an audience instead of going down the path of the website that irked me so.
Stop Caring So Much About Lead-Gen
Now hear me out. I am fully behind the "marketing is responsible for revenue just as much as everyone else" train. A belief that the department cannot meaningfully contribute to the bottom line is the reason why some B2B companies still view it as nothing more than a swag factory.
But you can swing too far the other way, where every activity is measured against short-term, revenue-based metrics. Or, to phrase it differently, you dedicate 100% of your time and energy to generating leads.
This is problematic for two reasons:
It leaves little room to invest in brand building activities that will influence long-term growth
It can turn every interaction with your customers into a value exchange - “we'll give you this asset, you give us your email, sound good?”
There's courage in committing to campaigns that don't use pipeline as the only measure of success.
One thing I've been thinking a lot about in this context recently is Clubhouse. Some sector-specific rooms I've attended with one or two big-name speakers have had audiences in the high triple-digits, where the equivalent as a webinar would probably only collect a fraction of that.
Sure, you're not getting email addresses. But you're reaching an audience organically who you would otherwise either need to a) already need to have on your mailing list or b) pay through the nose to target.
It's just one example of how you can grow your company's credibility and position as a thought leader in a zero friction, non-transactional way.
And, if you must, you can always include a strong CTA throughout the talk. Direct people to your website where you have a high-value lead magnet plastered all over the home page.
🥡 Takeaway
85% of B2B marketers say lead generation is their most important content marketing goal. IMO this should be closer to 50%. The other half should be dedicated to thought leadership brand-building without a direct focus on 'building pipeline' so as to capitalise on out-of-market demand for your product or service in the future.
And to do this, you have to get comfortable with giving away value for free. Over and over and over again.
🍴 Nibbles
This isn't strictly B2B-related - hell, what's life if that's all we talk about? - but I have to highlight this excellent article from Julie Young on Roblox. I had no idea of the reach the game/app/metaverse has attained with Gen Z or the long-term potential of the company as a whole. One to watch in advance of its direct listing at some point in the near future.
Shout out to Gia Cattaneo for sharing a great piece with me earlier in the week. The two of us have been chatting on Twitter for a while on ABM so this article on outdated sales techniques was right up my alley. My personal favourite to ditch - and a common pastime of many a B2B company - was "talking to buyers like they're companies, not people." Ew.
I LOVE marketing content that talks in practicalities, not theory. There's too much fluff out there. Give me something I can read and action straight away. Hence why 'How to Create a B2B Content Machine' from Nemanja Zivkovic struck a particular chord. He details his exact step-by-step process for producing and repurposing content for his agency. Gold.
And finally, I’m not one to usually self-promote (😏) but I did really enjoy sitting down with Alex Price on the FINITE podcast to talk about the role of marketing through an acquisition process. You can check it out on Apple and Spotify.
📅 Upcoming
Pumped to be giving a presentation to the members of ContentUK on Thursday 25th February on building a killer content strategy that hits brand and revenue targets. Sign-up to the community and event here.
...…and here’s my podcast
Every two weeks I sit down with a marketing leader to lean how they hit their goals by thinking outside the box - and dig into how this can be applied to other B2B businesses. Here are a few of my most recent episodes.
What it Takes to Build a Successful B2B Community w/ Christina Pashialis
Tell Me Why… You Need Pop Culture in B2B Marketing w/ Brianne Fleming
Building a 10,000 Strong B2B Email List from Scratch w/ Sean Blanda
How to Use Instagram to Promote People and Culture w/ Nicole Tabak
You can also find the B2B Better on Apple Podcasts and almost all other podcast directories.
And that's it! See you next week.