New B2B Marketing Framework

Why many B2B marketing initiatives fall flat

“Let’s write a white paper” or “We could offer a webinar” are suggestions in many meetings when it comes to B2B Marketing. In principle, of course, these are great ideas that show initiative and motivation. However, the disappointment later on is sometimes big, as this great measure does not lead to the desired effect. This is because brainstorming or marketing planning without a clear strategic foundation and alignment with the company’s goals often leads to content that does not generate the leads or awareness that were hoped for.

At Hopmann Marketing Analytics, we have been supporting marketing managers in measuring the success and data-driven alignment of their activities for almost 20 years. Which in many cases are the challenges: A missing or blurred foundation of vision, mission, goals and strategy. Only when this foundation is in place does it make sense to think about specific measures and content formats.

Successful B2B Marketing is not a puzzle that you put together spontaneously. It is a whole system that starts with the big picture.

1. Vision & Mission: Where does the company want to go and what does it stand for?
2. Company goals: What are the company’s concrete goals for the next year(s)? The more specific the information is, the better marketing and sales can plan their impact.
3. Marketing goals: What role should marketing play in achieving these goals? There should always be close coordination with sales here, as the two are interdependent.
4. Strategy: Which guidelines, topics and target groups are the focus? Which strategic sub-goals can be derived specifically for marketing for awareness, lead generation, employer branding, etc.?
5. Activities and formats: Which measures make sense to implement the strategy? Which content forms are best suited for this?
6. Channels: Through which channels should the content be played out and advertised? Is the focus on paid, owned or earned?
7. Measuring success: Which Marketing activities bring the desired results? What should be reduced? What should you do more of?

If you don’t go down this route and start directly with “Whitepaper or webinar?”, you can quickly end up with a patchwork of campaigns and content pieces without a common thread. Although the step-by-step plan requires a little more effort, it is much more effective and target-oriented in the medium and long term.

This is exactly where our framework for successful B2B marketing comes in. It provides a clear structure with which you can strategically align your marketing activities – from vision to KPI. The basis for this is a blueprint that we have developed from dozens of projects with SaaS companies, tech providers and B2B service providers. You can use the framework directly in Miro, adapt it and integrate it into your planning.

• Strategic structure instead of individual activities
• Clarity in target and action planning
• Can be used directly in meetings and strategy processes

What makes it special: Our framework not only helps with prioritization and planning. It forces clarity. And that is the basis for good Marketing.

Measuring the success of marketing activities is crucial in order to make the best possible use of personnel and budget capacities. In B2B marketing, it is crucial to determine from the outset how success should be defined and measured. The appropriate KPIs differ significantly depending on the objective. Here are a few examples:

• For awareness campaigns, reach, visibility, share of voice (SoV) or website visits can be useful.
• For lead generation, the focus is on conversion rates, webinar registrations, form completions, marketing qualified leads (MQLs) or sales qualified leads (SQLs).
• Recommendations, engagement rates, Net Promoter Score (NPS) or repurchase rates are relevant key figures for customer loyalty.
• For employer branding, recommendations, ratings on relevant platforms and the number of thought leadership posts by the company’s own team come into question.

It is important that metrics and KPIs are not only considered retrospectively, but are actively incorporated into the planning and evaluation of measures. Our framework helps to integrate these key figures in a structured way and derive specific recommendations for action from them. The following matrix, for example, can help you compare all measures at a glance and better identify potential:

Our framework is not a theoretical model. It is a tried-and-tested working template that you can use straight away: in the next planning meeting, in the quarterly workshop, when preparing an annual strategy, creating the marketing plan for the coming year or as a tool for internal coordination.

Especially for smaller marketing teams in B2B companies, efficiency is crucial. That’s why we recommend planning every content creation with a view to reuse. The principle: a strong piece of content gives rise to many smaller offshoots.

For example, a long and topic-specific whitepaper can be translated into the following formats:

• Three to five thematically focused blog posts
• LinkedIn Carousels with the key findings
• Short videos or snippets for social media
• A spoken summary as a podcast episode
• A short webinar that summarizes the key points of the whitepaper and leaves room for Q&A
• Infographics or slides for sales and internal presentations

Reusing content not only saves resources. It also strengthens the recognizability and reach of your message. Our framework supports you in systematically planning these derivations.

Before you plan an action or start creating any content piece, please answer these three questions. We do it in every one of our projects:

• Who is the ideal persona for this content?
• What is the one message that should stick?
• What action do you want the persona to take afterwards?

If you can answer these questions well, you are ready for implementation. Whether you’re writing a blog post, recording a video or creating a case study, think about these three questions every now and then and check whether your content is having the desired effect on your persona.