The Critical Test of a Marketer: Understanding the Customer and Marketplace
I've worked as a B2B marketing leader for nearly 20 years and have seen marketers, sometimes my competitors, make a common yet critical mistake: They lose track of customer needs and market trends. Let's be clear: This is a marketer's Achilles heel. Why? Because this knowledge is central to the value and effectiveness of any marketer. In fact, I would go so far as to say that without this knowledge, you aren't really marketing.
The Disconnect
A few years ago, I was asked to consult for a mainframe company with Fortune 500 clients that included major airlines and banks. They had developed some new applications to help organizations connect their legacy mainframes to modern servers giving them the ability to drive the mobile services demanded by today's customers. The problem was that business had stalled, their pipelines had dried up, and new deals were not getting across the finish line.
We started our engagement by getting the executive team together for a positioning workshop. My team and I had interviewed internal team members and customers, analyzed the competition and market trends, and identified potential opportunities. The first thing I noticed when the leadership team came together was how little executives knew about what was going on outside their business. This was most obvious with their head of marketing. He had spent years (and lots of capital) outsourcing core responsibilities to PR firms and agencies. Over time, he had lost touch with the market and let other entities communicate with, and get to know his customers.
While this may sound like an extreme case (of course, not all marketing leaders outsource their core responsibilities), many well-meaning marketers do, in fact, spend all their time drowning in the tactical day-to-day. I, myself, am not immune to this reality. We can lull ourselves into thinking that if we deliver the next project, the boss will be happy. But productivity alone doesn't drive revenue - which, in the end, is what the CEO and CFO are after.
How To Know If You’ve Lost Touch
I do not want what I just described to be your story. As a marketing leader myself, I get it. Our jobs can be so incredibly consuming. We're all busy doing our best to support our organizations and keep our heads above water. This is why we may not even be aware that we've lost touch.
Consider Forrester's 2023 Global Buyers' Journey Survey, which found that "nearly 90% of global business buyers that year indicated that their purchase process was stalled due to price sensitivity and complex decision-making processes."...90%!
As marketers, we’re taught that our job is to inform, if not lead, the 4Ps - Product, Price, Place and Promotion. So, losing track of customer needs and market conditions in 2023 as B2B buyers tightened their belts meant you placed your company at serious risk.
How, then, can we know if we've veered off course? Let me offer a few clear warning signs that indicate you may be out of touch and at risk of losing your influence as a marketing leader:
Sign #1: Your CEO does not include you in market expansion or new market opportunity discussions
Sign #2: Your business development leaders do not ask for your support in landing large, strategic accounts
Sign #3: Your product leaders do not consider you a valuable resource for building product roadmaps
Leveraging Marketing As A Strategic Multiplier
If any of the signs I mentioned above are true for you, don't worry; all is not lost. Improving your reputation and regaining your seat at the decision-making table may still be possible. Here are some things you can do starting right now to begin turning things around:
Resist the urge to allow tools or channels to guide your marketing decisions.
Attend conferences and events to connect with influencers, publishers, partners, and buyers and to gather market intelligence.
Pay attention to the latest developments impacting your industry.
Join online communities where your ideal customers interact.
Conduct interviews with internal customer-facing team members and your ideal customers at regular intervals (at least every six months).
Continuously collect competitive intelligence and pay attention to how competitors position themselves in the market.
Keep track of the latest surveys and studies released by reputable analyst firms.
Remember that to a B2B CEO and CFO, a marketer's function is to act as a multiplier. They give you X amount of budget and resources; you multiply that investment 10X over some agreed-upon period of time. In this scenario, the most effective way to use our time, resources and marketing budgets is to focus our efforts on those most likely to succeed. But how can you know if an effort is likely to succeed? Remain connected to your customers and the marketplace, of course.
