The Great B2B Marketing Reset: Reclaiming Our Seat at the Strategic Table
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This newsletter is a departure from my usual media updates and tactical tips, but it feels like the marketing role - especially in B2B - is at an important inflexion point.
What follows is my take on the marketing landscape, careers and what we need to do as marketers to elevate our roles within our organisations.
I hope you find this helpful.
B2B commerce isn't just a segment of the economy - it's half of it. Yet despite representing such a massive economic force, B2B marketing faces an existential crisis. With only 2.6% of board members having marketing experience, we're witnessing a dangerous disconnect between marketing's true strategic value and its perceived role in business leadership.
The Hidden Psychology of B2B Decision-Making
The greatest threat to B2B sales isn't losing to competitors - it's losing to indecision. When behavioural scientist Gerd Gigerenze studied corporate decision-making, he discovered something fascinating: groups don't choose what's objectively best. They choose what's least likely to result in personal career risk.
This creates a profound truth in B2B marketing: FOMU (Fear of Messing Up) trumps FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). Teams would rather miss potential gains than risk a decision that could be questioned later. This explains why category leaders capture 76% of the market - there's safety in following the crowd.
The 95-5 Rule: Rethinking Marketing Resource Allocation
Traditional marketing funnels have led us astray. The reality is that 95% of potential buyers are out-of-market at any given time, while only 5% are actively buying. Yet most B2B organisations focus their resources on that 5%, creating a massive strategic blindspot.
Think about this: In a $62B market like CRM, exclusively targeting in-market buyers shrinks your addressable market to just $3.2B. The real opportunity lies in building mental availability with the 95% who will enter the market in the future.
From Funnels to Flywheels: The New Model for Growth
The traditional marketing funnel is dying because it treats customers as outcomes rather than growth engines and assumes everyone is following a linear path from awareness to conversion, which, as we all know, is just not true.
The future belongs to the flywheel model, where customer experience creates momentum that drives sustainable growth. This isn't just a theoretical framework - it's a fundamental shift in how we approach value creation.
In building my startup, ContentCal, we discovered this truth firsthand. By embedding deep user empathy into every touchpoint and building a community-driven growth engine, we created momentum that traditional paid media could never match. Marketing wasn't just a department - it was the business's operating system.
We made the Hubspot Flywheel Model part of our marketing DNA, with wonderful consequences.
If you’re not familiar with the flywheel model, here’s the high-level;
The model operates through three interconnected phases:
Attract: Creating valuable, educational content and removing barriers to engagement (un-gating content, working with influencers and communities) - focusing on earning attention rather than forcing it
Engage: Facilitating natural relationship development through personalised, multi-channel communications
Delight: Empowering customer success through proactive support and seamless service experiences
The shift is particularly relevant in today's landscape where:
57% of B2B decisions happen before vendor contact
81% of customers trust peer recommendations over business advice
Trust in businesses is declining (55% report decreased trust)
The flywheel model drives marketing transformation by:
Aligning teams around customer experience
Eliminating silos and reducing handoff friction
Converting customer success into business momentum
Creating a more holistic approach to growth
The key takeaway is clear: sustainable growth in modern business isn't about competing with rivals – it's about creating remarkable customer experiences that generate their own momentum.
Reclaiming Marketing's Strategic Value
To reclaim marketing's seat at the strategic table, we must bridge the perception gap. While only 20% of non-marketers believe marketing drives critical business priorities, CMOs understand its fundamental role in margin improvement, enterprise growth, and future cash flows.
The solution starts with speaking the language of finance. Warren Buffett once said that the skill of ‘capital allocation’ has "an enormous impact on enterprise value." It's time for marketers to think like strategic capital allocators, not just campaign managers.
The Path Forward
The future of B2B marketing lies in balancing two critical priorities:
1. Building mental availability before buyers enter the market
2. Creating customer experiences that transform buyers into growth engines
This isn't just about working smarter - it's about fundamentally reimagining marketing's role in business value creation. As product differentiation becomes increasingly challenging, your marketing strategy becomes the moat that protects and grows your market position.
The B2B marketing revolution won't be driven by yet another marketing technology or channel strategy. It will be driven by marketing leaders who understand that our discipline is about more than promotion - it's about creating the conditions for sustainable business growth.
Putting This Into Action
Given how critical Hubspot has been to my business’s growth over the years - when I heard that HubSpot's CMO is hosting an exclusive masterclass, I knew this was an opportunity not to be missed.
In this live, 60-minute session, you'll discover:
Strategic frameworks for navigating 2025's marketing challenges
CMO-level insights into building sustainable growth engines
Actionable strategies you can implement immediately
This is a live-only event, hosted on Tuesday 18th between 3pm and 4pm – no recordings will be shared afterwards.
The future of marketing demands more than tactical efficiency; it requires a fundamental shift toward data-driven, AI-enabled growth strategies that deliver measurable financial outcomes. Join us in reshaping the marketing narrative.
I’ll be listening in, I hope you will be too.
[The above is part of a paid partnership with Hubspot, but my thoughts are 100% genuine]
📬 That’s it! See you next time!
I hope you found this useful! If you have any questions at all, I’m always happy to help!
Made with ❤️ by Andy