B2B Marketing Strategy: Plan in 4 Steps
Summary
TLDRThis video script outlines a four-layer framework for creating a B2B marketing roadmap in 2024. It addresses common issues arising from unclear marketing strategies and emphasizes the importance of a clear direction, solid foundations, and well-defined tactics. The framework includes surface-level marketing actions, structural systems, strategic decisions, and core branding and product development. The speaker highlights content marketing as a powerful tool for B2B businesses, offering guidance on building a marketing strategy that generates awareness, authority, and revenue.
Takeaways
- 📈 The importance of a B2B marketing strategy for acquiring new clients and building brand authority is emphasized.
- 🗺️ A marketing roadmap is crucial for clarity and direction in marketing efforts over the next months.
- 🔍 Five common problems associated with an unclear marketing roadmap include lack of clarity, ineffective tactics, inconsistent messaging, addressing the wrong market problems, and blaming superficial factors.
- 🤝 The necessity of aligning marketing strategy with business strategy to avoid misdirection and ineffective marketing actions.
- 🎯 Identifying a clear direction by focusing on a specific market opportunity and avoiding the 'shiny object syndrome'.
- 📝 The significance of having a unique solution with a clear use case to stand out in the market.
- 🤔 The value of understanding the VAR (Vital few and Trivial many) principle in marketing strategy to focus on key decisions that impact the majority of outcomes.
- 👥 The four pillars of a strong marketing strategy: ideal customer profile, positioning, messaging strategy, and offer.
- 🛠️ The necessity of having robust systems and processes to execute marketing strategies effectively.
- 📈 The role of marketing actions as the visible outcomes of the foundational work done in strategy and systems.
- 📚 The power of content marketing in the B2B space for generating awareness, building authority, and increasing trust with the target audience.
Q & A
What is the primary purpose of a B2B marketing strategy according to the video?
-The primary purpose of a B2B marketing strategy is to acquire new clients, build authority, generate awareness about the brand, and have a clear plan for the next several months to help the business grow.
What are the five common marketing problems associated with an unclear marketing roadmap?
-The five common marketing problems are: 1) Lack of clarity on marketing vision, 2) Trying new tactics without solid foundations, 3) Unclear messaging strategy, 4) Solving the wrong market problems, and 5) Blaming surface-level factors instead of foundational issues.
Why is having a clear marketing direction important for a business?
-Having a clear marketing direction is important because without it, a business may end up going in multiple directions, spreading different messages, and ultimately not making progress, which can lead to a lack of clarity, confidence, and increased mental load.
What is the 'hack loop' mentioned in the video and why is it problematic?
-The 'hack loop' refers to the never-ending process of jumping from one marketing tactic to another without a solid strategy, seeking quick results. It is problematic because it leads to a lack of clarity, decision paralysis, and poor results as prospects are not interested in constantly changing approaches.
How can a business avoid the issue of constantly rewriting its messaging?
-A business can avoid constantly rewriting its messaging by first understanding who they are targeting and what their messaging strategy is. By having a clear target audience and desired positioning, they can maintain consistent messaging and avoid becoming a distant noise in the minds of their target audience.
What is the significance of the 'solution first' approach versus the 'problem first' approach in marketing?
-The 'solution first' approach can be problematic because it involves building a product or service first and then trying to find customers who need it, which may not align with actual market needs. The 'problem first' approach is more effective as it starts by identifying a specific market problem and then creating a solution to address that problem.
What are the four layers of the marketing roadmap framework presented in the video?
-The four layers of the marketing roadmap framework are: 1) Surface level - visible marketing actions, 2) Structural level - marketing organization, systems, and processes, 3) Strategic level - decisions shaping the marketing strategy, and 4) Core level - the product and brand addressing the market problem.
Why are the core layers (product and brand strategy) considered the most important in the marketing roadmap framework?
-The core layers are considered the most important because if the foundations of the product and brand strategy are not properly set up, the marketing system and actions will not be effective, regardless of how well the other layers are executed.
What are the four pillars of a marketing strategy as outlined in the video?
-The four pillars of a marketing strategy are: 1) Ideal customer profile - who to target, 2) Positioning - how to position the brand, 3) Messaging strategy - how to communicate with the target audience, and 4) Offer - how to solve the audience's problem.
What is a marketing backlog and why is it useful for early-stage B2B companies?
-A marketing backlog is a table that helps list and prioritize marketing actions and track results. It is useful for early-stage B2B companies because it aids in organizing and executing marketing strategies effectively, ensuring that all planned actions are accounted for and can be measured for success.
What is the recommended approach for selecting the best marketing tactics for a B2B business?
-The recommended approach for selecting the best marketing tactics starts with understanding the audience's pain points and motivations, considering available resources such as budget and time to results, and balancing tactics for both fast and long-term revenue pipeline acquisition.
Why is content marketing considered a powerful tactic for B2B businesses?
-Content marketing is considered powerful for B2B businesses because it helps push buyers through the buying journey, generates awareness, builds authority, increases trust at scale, generates inbound leads, accelerates the sales cycle, and helps increase sales closing rates.
Outlines
📈 Building a B2B Marketing Roadmap for Growth
This paragraph introduces the necessity of a B2B marketing strategy to acquire new clients, build brand authority, and raise awareness. The speaker outlines a four-layer framework for creating a marketing roadmap in 2024, addressing common issues arising from an unclear roadmap such as lack of clarity, confidence, and direction. The paragraph emphasizes the importance of a step-by-step process to avoid problems like random tactics, unclear messaging, and misalignment on business strategy.
🛑 Common Pitfalls of Unclear Marketing Roadmaps
The speaker elaborates on five common marketing problems associated with unclear roadmaps, including lack of marketing vision, foundationless tactics, inconsistent messaging, solving the wrong market problems, and blaming superficial factors for deeper strategic issues. These problems can lead to a lack of direction, decision paralysis, and poor results, highlighting the need for a solid marketing strategy and clear plan.
🏗️ Establishing the Foundations of Marketing Strategy
This section discusses the importance of the product and brand as the foundation of a marketing roadmap. It suggests focusing on solving specific market problems with a unique solution and avoiding the 'shiny object syndrome.' The speaker introduces the VAR principle, emphasizing that 20% of strategic decisions significantly impact 80% of outcomes. The paragraph outlines the four pillars of a marketing strategy: ideal customer profile, positioning, messaging strategy, and offer.
🔄 The Importance of Marketing Systems for Execution
The speaker explains the significance of having strong marketing systems to execute strategies effectively. It suggests that without proper systems, even the best-laid plans will fail. The paragraph outlines the need for a marketing backlog to organize and prioritize marketing actions and track results, which is crucial for early-stage B2B companies to manage their marketing efforts efficiently.
🚀 Selecting Effective Marketing Tactics for B2B Businesses
The final paragraph focuses on selecting the right marketing tactics based on audience study, resource availability, and the desired timeline for results. It presents a quadrant graph categorizing tactics into content marketing, outbound, paid ads, and networking, and emphasizes content marketing as a powerful tool for B2B businesses to push buyers through the buying journey. The speaker invites viewers to access further resources on content marketing through free guides or an online course.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡B2B marketing strategy
💡Marketing roadmap
💡Authority
💡Mental load
💡Marketing vision
💡Tactics and hacks
💡Messaging strategy
💡Market problems
💡Blame game
💡Marketing backlog
💡Content marketing
Highlights
The necessity of a B2B marketing strategy for acquiring new clients and building brand authority.
Importance of a clear plan for the next months in business growth.
Introduction to a step-by-step marketing roadmap process with four layers.
Common marketing problems arising from an unclear roadmap.
The issue of lack of clarity on marketing vision and direction.
Risks of trying new tactics without solid foundational strategies.
Challenges with unclear messaging leading to inconsistent brand perception.
The problem of solving the wrong market problems due to an unclear roadmap.
Tendency to blame surface-level factors instead of examining strategic foundations.
The four-layer framework for creating a B2B marketing roadmap.
Details on the surface level of marketing actions visible to the audience.
Explanation of the structural level involving marketing organization and systems.
The strategic level decisions that shape the marketing strategy.
Importance of the product and brand as the core of the marketing roadmap.
The concept of VAR (Vital few and Trivial many) in marketing strategy.
The four pillars of a marketing strategy: target audience, positioning, messaging, and offer.
The significance of a marketing backlog for organizing and prioritizing actions.
The invisible 70% of marketing work that amplifies visible marketing actions.
Process for selecting the best marketing tactics based on audience study and resource availability.
Quadrant graph for categorizing marketing tactics based on time to results and investment level.
Content marketing as a powerful B2B tactic for buyer journey and brand authority.
Final note on building a marketing roadmap using the four-layer process.
Transcripts
you need a B2B marketing strategy in
order to acquire new clients but also to
build authority to generate awareness
about your brand and also to have a
clear plan on what to do in the next
months those are crucial elements for
your company it will help your business
to grow and in this video I'm going to
explain how to plan a marketing road map
in 2024 so you can actually use my
process in order to create your
marketing strategy and your road map you
will see it's a stepbystep process with
four layers that come from a framework
that I've created I'm going to explain
each layer individually so you actually
have a good overview of what you should
do for your marketing step by step but
before I deep dive into this process I'm
going to give you the five most common
marketing problems that come with an
unclear road map so if you have an
unclear marketing Ro map it means that
you don't have a plan for your Marketing
in the next 6 months or 12 months you
simply don't know what exactly you're
going to do and this leads to a lot of
problem because you lack Clarity you
lack confidence it's hard to know where
you are going so it generates a lot of
mental load and I'm going to explain the
five main problems when you don't have a
clear marketing road map the first one
is a lack of clarity on your marketing
vision the worst marketing scenario is
when you don't have a clear direction or
even worse when you have multiple
directions at the same time let's say
you have three co-founders and each of
them has a specific vision of how
marketing should be done and they all go
in a different directions that's even
worse than just staying where you are
because you will build a strong
marketing depth by spreading different
messages and action all over the place
what happens when you don't have a clear
marketing direction is that you go one
step ahead two step back and one step
ahead again and two step back again it's
really hard to move on when you don't
have a clear Direction the lack of
Direction often comes from a big problem
which is that the founders are trying to
do everything at the same time sell
anything to everyone because of the fear
of missing out of lack of clarity in
business strategy because of the shiny
object syndrome or the cofounders
misalignment they say things such as we
don't want to miss this opportunity get
cash first and we will refine the
strategy or we are an all-in-one
business for your growth so we can do
whatever you see here all those problems
lead to a lack of Direction the second
one is when you are trying new tactics
or hacks when your foundations are not
solid enough the direct output of an
unclear marketing strategy is doing
random actions and making random
decisions often Founders hear about a
tactics online and they try to replicate
it for their business while they don't
even have a messaging or positioning
strategy that's a typical example of
building tactics without foundations
they can even get trapped in the hack
loop hole this is a never ending process
they are always jumping from a tactic to
another one and getting back to the
previous one because they always want
quick results this never-ending negative
process leads to this kind of problems
lack of clarity where should we go now
decision paralysis what should we do
exactly and poor results prospects are
not interested right now the third
problem when you don't have a clear
marketing road map is that you re write
messaging and messages with an unclear
messaging what happens typically is on
the website you will have to write your
headlines when you don't even know who
you are targeting or what is your
messaging strategy or you are writing
some posts some content or some ads but
you don't actually know who you're
talking to or what is your desired
positioning if you do that what will
happen is that you will actually change
all your headlines all the time because
you will never be 100% sure that it's
the right messaging and by changing all
the time you will become a distant noise
in the head of your target audience and
they will not be able to position you in
their mind then they will say things
such as I don't understand what they do
they change all the time I think they
boost Reven you but I don't really know
how exactly the fourth problem is if you
don't have a clear marketing road map
you will end up solving the wrong Market
problems and this will lead to a very
hard time to sell you will have a
solution first approach instead of
having a problem first approach so you
will build your solution first then you
will try to look for customers and you
will push your solution to people who
don't even need it the problem number
five is if you don't have a clear
marketing road map you will blame
surface level factors when you get
problems an example is if you hire an
agency that is in charge of your ads
when they don't get results you will say
let's fire the agency while actually the
problem is that you don't have a strong
marketing strategy you don't have a good
positioning a good messaging a good
target audience all of this is not
defined so the surface level factors
such as the agency cannot really work
but it's not because of them it's
because you don't have a solid strategy
what usually happen is that Founders
have a big ego so they don't want to
blame the Strategic foundations it's
easier for them to blame other sers
level factors because they are not
directly responsible for those factors
the agency is a typical case because
it's an external Factor so it's so easy
to say is their fault our strategy is
good while in fact the funders should
always question their strategy and
especially their marketing road map so
in summary if your marketing roadmap map
isn't clear you will have those five
problems you will lack proper direction
you will try new tactics and hacks all
the time you will have an unclear
messaging strategy you will solve an
inexistent or wrong Market problem and
you will blame surface level factors
while it's the foundation that is bad by
now you understand that you really need
a marketing road map in order to create
a plan set up your tactics generate
awareness beond Authority increase trust
generate Revenue Pipeline and get more
clients so now I'm going to explain my
four layer framework that explain how to
actually create a marketing road map for
B2B businesses your marketing is not
doomed to fail you can install a proper
marketing road map by covering those
four layers you can see in this graph my
framework that I've designed based on
eight years of markeet experimentation
and over 300 marketing projects and you
have four layers that go from the
surface to the core of your business the
layers are distinct but they are
actually linked together the first one
is the surface level it's all the
marketing actions that are visible by
your audience the ads the content the
websit the emails the pr the founder
speech and so on the second one is the
structural level it's the way you
organize your marketing structure your
systems your processes your kpis and so
on the third layer is the Strategic
level it's all the decisions that shape
your marketing strategy your target
audience your positioning your messaging
and your offer and the fourth level it's
really your brand and the product you
are using to address the market problem
here you have a good overview of the
four layers now I'm going to explain
each of them in details we will start
from layer four and three which are the
most important because let me tell you
one thing if your foundations are not
properly set up you will not be able to
have a good Marketing System and good
marketing actions those two layers will
have an impact on everything else that
you do in term of marketing so you
should not try to change the wallpaper
of your house while it's built on a
Ravin I give you two examples if your
product is bad your strategy cannot be
good if your product is good but your
strategy is bad your marketing actions
cannot be good that's why we will start
from layer number four which is about
your product and your brand your
marketing road map starts from your
solution this layer is all about making
the right business strategy decisions so
you see here marketing strategy is
really linked to the business so for
example you should solve a specific
Market problem from a specific audience
second you should focus on on one market
opportunity and not have the shiny
object syndrome and third you should
provide a unique solution with a clear
use case not too many use cases with too
many angles because it will be hard to
understand so as you can see on this
graph Your solution should come from a
market problem you should actually pull
insights from the market to your
business and based on those insights
Create Your solution and create your
marketing strategy there are two good
processes in order to have solid core
foundation for this level four the first
one is the problem first business and
the second one is the audience first
business first the problem first
business you need to choose a specific
audience in a specific industry and
identify a pure problem painful urgent
recognized then you need to conduct
interviews and experimentation with a
Lin startup methodology in order to
identify a solution to this problem and
then third your job is to launch a
solution as fast as possible get
feedback and iterate based on the
feedback with an infinite feedback loop
this is the problem first business and
then the audience first business you
will first build an audience on social
media or newsletter or Community around
a specific topic then you will run
Discovery workshops discussions and
brainstorms with this community and
audience you will identify a problem and
also a solution with them it's almost
like Co creation and third you will
distribute the solution to this audience
so you will have a full circle from
co-creation to distribution so what you
need to understand for the level number
four about your core brand and product
is that you should make the right
business strategy decisions if all of
this is not properly set up your
strategy cannot be good now let's talk
about the layer number three which is
the most important for us today it's
your marketing strategy as you can see
on this graph VAR is the parto principle
in marketing as well it explains that
20% of your decisions will affect 80% of
your actions and results in other words
if you make 20% right decision on the
strategy the 80% of action will be much
easier faster and generate better
results the question is what are those
important decisions
well I can tell you there are four
important pillars you need to cover in
your marketing strategy and in this
level the first one is always the most
important your ideal customer profile
who do you target the second one is the
positioning how do you position your
brand the third one is the messaging
strategy how do you communicate to those
people and fourth one the offer how do
you solve your audience problem so it's
the target audience positioning message
in and offer as you can see those four
pillars will actually support and
sustain your marketing strategy and all
the actions that you will do if they are
not properly set up all the actions will
be blurred there will lack of Direction
and lack of clarity first let's have a
look at your ideal customer profile who
do you target you are probably
experiencing a heavy shiny object
syndrome meaning that there are so many
potential Target customers you would
like to reach all of them but it's not
possible you should focus on one target
audience for this you can have a
targeting with philographics
demographics and psycho graphics and
also bio profile I deep dive in this
topic and other topics in my content
marketing course you can find more
information in the description below but
what I can tell you is that you need to
mix those different elements in order to
Target a specific type of customers the
second one is positioning how do you
position your brand here I can give you
an overview of the five positioning
principles first avoid the shiny object
syndrome second find and understand your
audience problem third identify the
market competition fourth choose your
positioning angle and fifth positioning
is actually really linked to your
messaging strategy then the messaging
strategy is the third pillar what
messages do you use how do you
communicate with your target audience
the best way is to actually address
their problem and propose a solution
with a dream outcome you simply need to
explain your capability to solve your
audience problem and then pillar number
four it's about your offer how do you
solve your audience problem with your
offer you can see in this graph there
are seven key factors in order to create
a successful offer you can actually
answer those seven questions first what
painful current limitation are you
solving with your offer second what is
your value proposition third what makes
your offer unique fourth how are you
going to deliver this value proposition
five how do you charge and how much with
what guarantees six is your offer
clearly explained seven how are you
presenting the offer by answering to
those seven questions you will be able
to have a good offer that solve a
specific Market problem with a specific
solution okay I explained the two most
important layers the core of your brand
and product and second your marketing
strategy now I'm going to explain the
two other layers which are layer number
two your systems and layer number one
your marketing actions for layer number
two about your Marketing Systems let me
tell you one thing it's a code that I've
read you do not rise to the level of
your goals but you fall to the level of
your systems it means that you can have
brilliant goals but if if you don't have
the culture discipline and processes to
actually achieve your goal you will fail
to the level of your current systems now
let me tell you one thing what I see a
lot is a lot of Founders and marketers
have a lot of brilliant ideas plans and
tactics but they have a bottleneck when
it comes to execution because they don't
have a good planning system so between
strategy and execution you have the
planning and if you don't have this
strong system you will not be able to
generate results with your marketing
actions you can see clearly this buttl
neck on this graph so the key to
implement a strategy is to actually have
a strong Marketing System and to get
this system you should answer those
seven questions first how do you plan
your marketing actions second how do you
set objectives for your marketing
actions third how do you prioritize your
marketing actions fourth how do you
allocate resources for your marketing
actions number five how do you actually
track results of your marketing actions
and number six how do you analyze your
marketing actions to install this system
you should answer those six questions
when you have the answer to each of
those question you have the plan to
build your Marketing System but let me
tell you one thing in my opinion and
especially if you are in an early stage
B2B company you should use a marketing
backlog a marketing backlog is a table
that will help you to list and
prioritize your marketing actions and
list the results to have a track record
of what you conducted I published a
video about this marketing backlog you
can have a look after this video and by
the way if you like this video make sure
to like comment and subscribe this will
help the channel and this will help me
to release better video step by step now
here is the last level the layer one
your marketing actions they are visible
by your target audience so you see the
three layers that I explained previously
are not visible it might be frustrating
but let's say 70% of the job is not seen
by the target audience but when it's
done properly it will amplify the
marketing actions that are visible by
the target audience so you should not
try to always push push push to your
audience sometime you should take a
break and work more on the free layers
that are invisible before pushing
marketing actions you can see in this
graph that indeed marketing is 99% of
invisible work the marketing actions
include content social media your
websites all your headlines your posts
your ads the videos the events
everything that you do that is visible
by your audience and at the end of the
day it's those actions that will create
your positioning because if your desired
positioning is to be passive as fast but
in all all your brand touch Point people
notice that you are slow somehow to
answer or to actually book calls or so
on you will be perceived as slow even if
you want to be perceived as fast so the
position happens with the actual brand
touch point that happen on the market
now as I explained the marketing action
will only work if you have the good
foundation of the three other layers and
then it's all about making the right
decisions choosing the right tactics for
your business it's a very complex topic
but I will give you a quick process in
order to help you here is a process to
select the best marketing tactics for
your business first choosing the right
tactics should always start from your
audience study why they buy so you will
know their pain and motivations and
second study how they buy with those two
elements you will be able to know what
to say and where to say it why they buy
how they buy second your target audence
is important of course but let's face it
your resources are also very important
you have two questions your budget how
much can you afford in the tactic and
second the time to results how long can
you wait before you actually get results
from this tactic and third part of the
process to choose your marketing tactic
you should have two types of marketing
tactics you should have tactics for the
fast race results to acquire Revenue
pipeline fast and tactics for long-term
results to acquire Revenue Pipeline on
the long term now I can give you this
quadrant graph that gives you an
overview of the marketing tactics that
are available based on two key criterias
the first one is the time to get results
and the second one is the level of
investment that you need you can also
see in this graph that you have four
type of tactics you have content
marketing in Green outbounds in blue
paid ads in yellow and networking
effects in Red by the way this
infographics and all the infographics
that you've seen in this video are
available as part of my online course in
a library of best practices with
infographics like those ones so what I
recommend is that you click pause on
this video to see the different tactics
that you can have or you can also check
on my LinkedIn this infographic is
available or you can access all
infographics in the library of best
practices now for a final note on the
marketing actions in my opinion for a
B2B business right now the most powerful
tactic is content marketing because
content marketing helps you to push
buyer through the buying Journey from
the first touch punch to the last touch
punch which is the sales it helps you to
generate awareness build Authority
increase trust at scale generate inbone
leads accelerate the sales cycle length
help help sales to close deals increase
sales closing rates so honestly content
marketing is so powerful right now and
it's a great way to increase the
personal brand of the founders and also
the team members so if you are
interested to learn more about content
marketing you have two options you can
download my free guides in the
description or second you can actually
have a look at my online course which is
100% about B2B content marketing it will
teach you the five steps system that I
use to create a Content marketing
strategy to build and launch it and to
turn it into a profitable Revenue
channel in the course I go much more
into the details and explain exactly the
step by step of what you should do all
right that's the end of the video you
know now exactly how to build your
marketing road map for your business
make sure to use this four layer process
and to build step by step in order to
build this marketing road map it will
help you to have a clear Direction in
the next months and year and it will
help you to generate awareness build
Authority in your industry generate
Revenue Pipeline and close more deals
thank you for watching the video make
sure to subscribe so you will be able to
receive the next one and you can also
follow me on the other channels in order
to download my guides or follow my Daily
Posts thank you for watching
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