Coming up at 2pm: B2B marketing learn all about Claude AI and how to use the tool effectively in 1 hour. Register now
Massive clicks on Google, but no sales. Three conversations with a prospect, but no business. Most B2B marketers encounter this regularly in the course of their career. Should you choose another channel? LinkedIn instead of Facebook? A trade fair stand? Cold calling? The pitfall here is panic football, where you end up burning a lot of money and can hardly show any turnover. Or do you not let yourself be deterred and continue undisturbed?
If it were up to Jaap Jacobs and Tim van IJsendoorn, the modern B2B marketer is someone with an elephant’s skin and a long breath. In their book ‘Stoïcijns Groeien zonder Leadgeneratie: de B2B-groeiformule’ (affiliate) they provide a formula for an effective growth strategy for your organization, brand and sales. They draw on their long experience as consultants in B2B marketing and illustrate their approach with numerous examples.
‘Not in the market’
Marketers like to focus on marketing actions that quickly lead the customer to the bottom of the funnel. After all, these lead generation and conversion actions are measurable and should lead to quick results. In practice, they quickly hit the ceiling, because their horizon is too limited. 95% of potential customers in B2B do not want to make a purchase at any given moment. They are ‘not in the market’.
Pulling harder on lead generation and conversion
therefore often leads mainly to irritation among prospects and to chasing leads that turn out not to be leads at all, but do require a lot of attention. By taking a longer horizon as a starting point and making yourself attractive to the target group, you increase the number of customers in the market and ultimately bring in more profitable customers.
The formula
Jacobs and Van IJsendoorn preach an approach that essentially revolves around gradually building a brand. A shift from many to good leads and creating an organization-wide customer focus.
Their formula: purpose + people + proposition + promotion + proof = profit
List formula
However, anyone who thinks they preach non-bindingness will be disappointed. Their formula is a flywheel built on a ‘palace of evidence’ that links well-converting customers to list of saint kitts and nevis consumer email action at the top of the funnel. Branding is also measurable, but this is only visible after some time. There is nothing wrong with accountability, as long as the term in which the return on activities is expected is realistic.
Also read: Customer loyalty in B2B is becoming increasingly important
The most important KPI for a B2B marketer is live commerce: the perfect combination for selling online achieving Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs). A relatively small, but profitable group of customers. All activities must ultimately be linked to this. Not striving for more leads and customers, but for more profit per customer.
To achieve this, you need to rethink your funnel. Marketing ao lists Qualified Leads (MQLs) fade into the background and engagement with your target audience comes to the forefront. Profitable customers are your end goal. It may seem cosmetic, but there are metrics behind every step and you