3 Tactics to Ensure Marketing Planning Success

Adam Gelles, Editor
Over the years I’ve seen hundreds of variations on the marketing planning process from nimble startups to large enterprise marketing organizations. And there are 3 tactics I see that elevates marketing strategy development that work all the time. Swim in the “Blue Ocean” The famous business book by Renée Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim, Blue Ocean Strategy, is about creating and capturing uncontested market space. My corollary for marketing strategy development is going through the same approach for your go to market. That is, ideation on developing a creative business idea that can drive your marketing forward. This can be… Read More

RMS: The Key to Make Sure the C-Suite Embraces Your Marketing Plan

Adam Gelles, Editor
One of the key challenges I see with many heads of marketing is the lack of the ability to communicate the value of marketing’s efforts in terms of business value. This gap translates into a fundamental challenge of ensuring the executive ranks and line of business owners are engaged in your marketing planning efforts. As I say all too often, if you plan marketing in terms of activities (e.g., website traffic or MQLs) then you are tactic of the business. But if you plan marketing in terms of revenue or growth then marketing has a seat at the c-suite table.… Read More

3 Traits Great B2B CMOs Must Have

Adam Gelles, Editor
Once a quarter I have a group conversation with several mentors. They mostly are CEOs and CROs at mid-market and enterprise companies. But a recurring discussion that comes up is: what makes a great CMO in B2B. Over the years, I evaluated hundreds of marketing leaders for a company’s c-suite or board of directors There are certainly three traits that I see regularly show up in great marketing leaders. Trait #1: Great Storytellers Marketing is storytelling – both internally and externally. And much of marketing leadership is about telling your brand’s, your team’s, and your product’s story. And great marketing leaders… Read More

3 Keys to Ensure Marketing Planning is Aligned with Company Goals

Adam Gelles, Editor
All too often, I see businesses whose go to market is not aligned with their overall goals and objectives. This is a function of marketing planning not taking into account business, revenue and margin goals of a company while being developed. Here are 3 keys to ensure your marketing planning efforts align to your company’s goals and objectives. Start Planning with Business ObjectivesTo begin your marketing planning effort, start by identifying the top 3 things that are important to the business. Is it revenue growth? New account acquisition? Once these are selected, put a quantitative goal in place for each… Read More

3 Keys to Successful Marketing Planning

Adam Gelles, Editor
As much as B2B marketing constantly changes, the more it stays the same. The ritual of annualized marketing planning is an important one to chart our GTM tentpoles, align our strategy across various marketing and communication channels, and align our teams on business and revenue goals. Over the last decade, I’ve written close to 50 marketing plans for clients. Here are some key things I’ve seen that create success for marketing planning. Key 1: Inclusive Participation Marketing is a collaborative process. Therefore, planning it should be as well. For larger teams, strategic offsite meetings are a powerful tool for the… Read More

3 Keys to Successfully Integrate Marketing and PR

Adam Gelles, Editor
Marketing Strategy
In an ideal world, B2B marketing and public relations strategy should work “hand and glove”. But the reality in many organizations, is that PR and Marketing are woefully mis-aligned. As we all start planning for CY 2022, here are 3 keys to ensure your communications (er, public relations) and marketing are integrated successfully. Key #1: Align Strategic Planning At many organizations, “PR” strategy and “Marketing” strategy development are done separately. One lead by the head of corporate communications and the other lead by head of marketing. And this is where the mis-alignment begins. Each team, then, goes off and eventually… Read More

3 Keys to Understanding Your Brand’s Health

Adam Gelles, Editor
Monitoring brand health is vital for growth and success regardless of the company. But, for B2B marketers understanding brand health presents a unique set of challenges. For example, every industry has its own sentiment. Each brand’s customers have a different user experience. Still, there are approaches that can help companies better assess how their brand is overall. Here are three keys to understand your brand’s health. Key #1: Monitor Brand Recall As marketers we get trained early that awareness is the foundation of brand success. If customers don’t know a brand exists, there is no way they will seek it… Read More

How Successful B2B Marketers Integrate Influence in the Marketing Mix

Adam Gelles, Editor
It is important to integrate your influencer marketing program with the rest of your go to market. #marketingstrategy #b2bmarketing #theb2bbuzz Influencer Marketing is a fast growing discipline for B2B marketers and while many brands view it as a stand alone tactic, mature marketers realize that influence can play a role across the customer lifecycle in virtually any business communication, content type or publishing channel. There’s plenty of evidence to show that business customers do not limit their information discovery and consumption to single communication channels or content types. Neither should business marketers. That’s w… Read more from the source: How… Read More

Brand Storytelling During A Crisis

Adam Gelles, Editor
Activate you brand story from our friends at Forrester Research with a great example from GE Healthcare. #b2bmarketing #theb2bbuzz #b2bbrands At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, GE Healthcare became the focus of intense media coverage Using elements of storytelling and brand journalism, the organization created a video series that showed how GE and frontline workers were responding to the crisis With 42 videos produced over 42 days, the campaign was one of the most successful in the company’s history At the beginning of 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic started to take hold, GE Healthcare found itself at the center… Read More