Blog
28th September 2022
Newsletter • Autumn 2022

 

Investing well in marketing leads to business success and growth

Marketing has never been more important in B2B. Now is the time to ruthlessly focus on ensuring your marketing budget is being spent on the right things.

“Companies that have bounced back most strongly from previous recessions usually did not cut their marketing spend, and in many cases actually increased it. But they did change what they were spending their marketing budget on, and when, to reflect the new context in which they operated.”
HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW

Investing well in marketing will be essential to surviving and thriving in the coming months – and years. This means you need to:

✔️ Add as much science as you possibly can to your marketing.

Customer insight, 1st party data, tech, analytics, and data-led strategy must now be built into every marketing function – no matter how large or small your organisation.

Sufficiently relevant, personalised and impactful marketing campaigns can only be possible if you have a strategic, analytical approach, and the right level of investment in your martech and data infrastructure.

✔️ Reduce your data and martech debt – now.

Before it’s too late, put in place:

  1. A well structured database – with good coverage of your target market
  2. Smart marketing automation tools – much more accessible now than a few years ago in terms of cost and user-friendliness
  3. A well-integrated tech stack – with well set up data flows

The longer you carry a legacy of low investment in these essential areas, the more it will cost you to ensure your marketing is effective in the future, especially if you want to grow your business.

By paying attention to the critically important above-mentioned areas, you can get exactly the right messages to exactly the right people, at exactly the right time.

The quality of the content and creative elements you add to your marketing campaigns will certainly also make a big difference. But you need the scientific elements in place first to make sure these campaigns hit their mark.

In this issue of the MPG Insights quarterly newsletter, we focus on how a scientific approach to marketing can make a difference to every business. We highlight the things that senior executives and heads of marketing should be paying close attention to right now when it comes to future marketing investments:

#1 When was your marketing last audited? Do you know where your gaps are?

Your business will suffer if you spend blindly on your marketing. You need to understand which elements of your marketing are performing well, which areas are performing poorly, and where your biggest and most important gaps are.

To ensure a strong ROI, and to future-proof your marketing, you need to know how different types of channels and tactics you have used have worked so far. You also need to know whether the systems, processes and people you need for success are in place.

The MPG Insights team have written a ‘how to’ guide to help you invest in a good marketing audit – so that the money you spend on marketing in 2023 and beyond will deliver a strong return. Questions answered in this resource:

  1. Why should I do a marketing audit?
  2. How should I approach a marketing audit?
  3. What should I include in a marketing audit?
  4. Who should conduct my marketing audit?
  5. What should I expect the output to be from a well-run marketing audit?

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

#2 Do you have the marketing skills you need in your business? How will you get the missing skill sets plugged in where you need them?

Your marketing audit will probably tell you there are skill gaps in your team. Some will be critical.

Team MPG have created many resources for leaders considering how best to go about getting all the marketing skills they need in their marketing team. Here are our top 3 most relevant pieces for leaders right now:

  1. Creating a robust, sustainable marketing function: a strategic, hybrid approach
  2. Copywriting: how every B2B marketer can improve this skill set
  3. Don’t take marketing skills for granted: they’re precious and need investment

Enquire about MPG’s Academy for essential marketing skills development

#3 Have you activated advocacy as a powerful marketing tool?

Activating and leveraging advocacy is an important way to get your message out to more of the right people. You can gain almost instant credibility, as well as the trust of a potential customer, based on a recommendation or endorsement from someone they already trust. That ‘someone’ is your advocate – and could be an employee, supplier or customer.

To help MPG’s community get to grips with advocacy marketing, and to understand how to use it to grow rapidly and profitably, we’ve created a number of relevant resources. The top 3 are:

  1. A guide to advocacy and referral marketing
  2. Leveraging the power of advocacy to make your business more resilient
  3. Employee advocacy: unlock this powerful marketing channel

Find out more about how MPG approaches Advocacy Marketing

#4 How well integrated are your marketing and sales processes and KPIs?

Your business will never reach its full potential if your marketing and sales are not well integrated. And marketing and sales integration needs to be approached strategically and holistically – with your customers, and their experiences in dealing with your business, at the very centre of every process.

Take a close look at your marketing and sales funnel. Is it joined up? Are your marketers playing the part they need to at every stage of the funnel? Are they focused on generating, nurturing and qualifying leads? And are your sales people focused on the bottom of the funnel, where they can work their best magic in selling to people who are ready to buy?

Do you have integrated marketing and sales metrics and KPIs – where your marketers and salespeople are all working towards the same end goal, and are rewarded for achieving success together?

These are the KPIs your marketers and salespeople should be focused on (together):

  1. Number of leads
  2. Conversion rates
  3. Number of sales
  4. Average order value
  5. Length of sales cycle
  6. Total revenue

 

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”
PETER DRUCKER

Download MPG’s guide to sales and marketing integration

#5 Are your website analytics tools delivering the value you need? And is your Google Analytics update to GA4 – so you don’t lose data?

Not having the most basic website analytics tools in place means you really are flying blind.

Relying on anecdotal evidence from your marketers or sales people is going to hold you back from growing your business. Not having the metrics to tell you how your customers are engaging with your website could be fatal – especially in the current business environment.

If you use Google Analytics, GA4 is the new version you need to put in place very soon. As a team of digital-first, analytical and data-led marketers, Team MPG have been through extensive GA4 training, and ensured GA4 is well implemented for websites we work on, to deliver essential customer insight. Have you done the same with your marketing function?

This MPG Insights article explains how, quite soon, you won’t be able to collect any more tracking data via your Google Analytics account, unless you have implemented GA4.

It is also important to note that there are a number of significant differences between Google’s current Universal Analytics (UA) and GA4, such as not being able to track through the use of 3rd party cookies. This means you won’t be able to easily deploy GA4 without training – even if you’re an expert in UA.

We strongly recommend – as an urgent priority – that you ensure you have strong analytics expertise plugged into your business. This may require training of current internal staff members, or you may want to hire in an analytics specialist (if your business is sizeable). The other option you have is finding an external partner to implement GA4 well for you. The same partner should then be able to help you pull valuable data from GA4 into your business, as ongoing intelligence, to enable de-risked, data-led, decision-making.

Read MPG’s guide on GA4


Get in touch with Team MPG to find out how you can add more science to your marketing – so your campaigns always hit their mark!

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MPG Newsletter | Autumn 2022

Blog
28th September 2022
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