Mary Keough’s Post

A focus for me right now: How can I do less with more? 👉 Less activities, more effort 👉 Less one-offs, more programs 👉 Less rushing, more focus 👉 Less doing to check the box, more POV and strategy Sometimes, we B2B marketers get so caught up in the tactics and the rush of it all, that it's tough to stop and think about what we're doing and why we're doing it. Anyone who's looking to apply this should read Wes Kao's newsletter. Pure gold. #b2bmarketing

If this whole marketing thing doesn't work out, I'd go into teaching. It's where I thought I'd end up for most of my pre-real life days. It's also why I do what I do on LinkedIn. I want to give everything I've learned away. And, I want more than just a few people to read what I write 😉 Annnnnd, I don't think I could write another paper on "The significance of exegesis when studying The Scarlet Letter and Moby Dick" Yes, seriously.

I read a post the other day and I can't stop thinking about it. It said something along the lines of: "B2B marketers don't understand traditional marketing campaigns. Here's how it works... oh, and BTW these are the prerequisites to a great marketing campaign: Your org has done the strategic work to identify what sorts of personas you're targeting and what sorts of content pillars make sense to cater to those personas and your mission/vision/values." And I agree! Which means, in order for B2B marketers to create a great traditional marketing campaign, they need the following from their leadership team: 👉 Mission / vision / values 👉 Personas 👉 Content strategy 👉 Greater business strategy And in my experience, this is incredibly rare in B2B today. Even large companies often lack the focus to nail down a persona for their marketing team OR lack the connection between the business strategy -> persona -> marketing capacity. So, maybe they have a business growth strategy predicated on marketing to 4-5 personas but the marketing team is 5 people with a pauper's budget. And this is what makes B2B marketing so nuanced... and in many cases so frustrating for strategic marketers who can also execute. Now, what I can tell you is that IF you have the prerequisites and those prerequisites are attainable (maybe even a bit of a stretch), then building traditional marketing campaigns is not only doable, but fulfilling and effective. So, where does that leave you, as a marketer without the prereqs for a great marketing campaign? You have a few options: 👉 Do sh*t anyways and report on what you can report to start building trust and credibility for Marketing 👉 Get clarity from the top-down: mission/vision/values, then biz strategy, then personas, then content strategy 👉 Reflect and reframe: decide what you want out of your career and if this company, despite its lack of marketing strategic knowhow, is where you want to invest your time and effort. Remember, I have seen very few, like count on 1-2 hands, companies who have these prerequisites. 🤗 You're not alone. #b2bmarketing

Can we get an ACV filter on all LinkedIn content, please? 🙏 Bonus: ARR / Revenue filter. TIA #b2bmarketing

I joined CoLab to get my teeth kicked in. 👉 To have my work burned and shredded 👉 To have my thinking questioned and poked with holes 👉 To get my ideas flayed and prodded In other words: I joined CoLab to grow. And I knew going in that growth can be painful. But when you go in with that mindset: growth is pain -- every kick in the teeth, hole poking, burning, shredding and flaying is a MASSIVE opportunity. To be the freaking best at what you do 🤘 🔑 The key here is: You must choose a company/boss/team willing to put the work in to refine you. Not just burn your work to burn it. Or, flay your ideas with little explanation as to why. Or kick your teeth in without proper feedback. A company/boss/team who's already doing great things, they just need you to 10x the output. Then, they're willing to do the work to refine you and you're ready to get refined. #b2bmarketing

If you're a marketing leader - or aspiring marketing leader - one of the most important things you can do is own positioning. And from positioning -> messaging. If you're just getting marketing started, this does NOT have to be complicated. Here's how I've done it for midmarket industrial companies and early-stage SaaS just getting a modern marketing program off the ground: 👉 Interview 8-12 customers OR listen to 8-12 discovery call recordings OR sit in on 8-12 customer calls with sales What you're looking to pull out here is: 🔷 Job title, industry, company size 🔷 Why are they looking at your product *now*? (What was the catalyst for reaching out?) 🔷 What problems are they experiencing that they're hoping your product will solve? 🔷 What is the downstream impact of those problems? 🔷 What features are they looking for? 👉 Create an MVP positioning doc After summarizing these 8-12 calls, you'll pull out some key positioning pieces: 🔷 Who are these folks and what is their job like? 🔷 What problems do they have? Ranked from most to least important 🔷 What features of your product solve these problems AND HOW 🔷 Who are your competitors? 🔷 What features do you have that your competitors do not? 👉 Use this to build customer-facing messaging I recommend starting with your Solutions, Features or Product pages. Then, your homepage. Then, your main conversion page. As this gains traction (leads, conversions go up) start meeting with your sales teams on what messaging is resonating and why. Help build a slide deck that matches the positioning that's working. The hardest part about this process is: it's slow. Depending on the size of your team and the resources you have, this may take 1-6 months. So, you'll have to find other ways to generate "results" while you're doing this bigger (more important) project. #b2bmarketing

What's been taking up an inordinate amount of marketing mental space for me? Creating distribution flywheels. Or, making sure every content piece we create: 👉 Lives in more than one place 👉 Creates value in the channel it's on 👉 Enters the same-ish flywheel to produce consistent results #b2bmarketing

Here are a few things I couldn't care less about (and a few things I care a lot more about): ❌ "Competitors" copying website messaging That messaging is first and foremost centered on our differentiators for our ICP. Copying website messaging means you haven't done your homework on either: your differentiators or your ICP. And because we're constantly doing homework on both, that messaging will probably change in 3-6 months. Also, note how I put competitors in quotes. These are not actually our competitors. Sure, folks might use them. But we ain't losing any deals to them. Because we do our homework. ✅ Is our messaging resonating with our ICP on key website pages? I spend waaaayyyyy more brainpower analyzing heatmaps, click data and conversion rate on key website pages. And how customers are message matching our key value props in discovery calls. ❌ Email unsubscribes ✌ Adios! Au revoir! Buh-bye! No hard feelings. Our marketing stuff isn't for you. Maybe you'll come back one day, maybe you won't. ✅ Overall email health I've said it before and I'll say it again. 🐂 I am bullish on email. So, I am obsessed with delivering value in every single email interaction. I care about open rate, click rate, read rate and growth rate. IMHO: Our email list is one of our most valuable marketing assets. ❌ Keyword research, or Blog content for the sake of blog content Our content strategy is instead focused on: 👉 The problems our customers experience 👉 The questions they ask during sales calls 👉 The issues that crop up during the sales process and post-sales process 👉 Trends across our ICP's industry Couldn't care less about how many people search it, because the right people will find us. We also don't post and ghost (like that one?) The blog will becomes social posts, part of an email newsletter, internal links throughout key website pages, etc. ✅ Creating content SO GOOD our ICP wants to share it with others And in as many formats as possible when we find a winner. Any other marketing tactics y'all think are taking a nosedive? #b2bmarketing

Something I noticed no one in marketing really talks about: 👉 How much more difficult distribution gets the further your team goes down the awareness funnel. Quick refresh on awareness funnel: 1️⃣ Problem aware: knows they have a problem, need to know options for solving it 2️⃣ Solution aware: knows there is a solution, but doesn't know what products exist to solve it 3️⃣ Product aware: knows the products available to solve the problem, doesn't know specifics about your company and why/how you're better 4️⃣ Most aware: Has selected you as a short list vendor, needs to know specifics about your offering to choose you over others So, when you're creating stage 3 and 4 content, no one really talks about: 👉 How it's really freaking hard to create this content in the first place. You'll need help and buy-in from sales, applications specialists, product, leadership... Then, you need to actually create high-quality content that speaks to this awareness stage. Few companies do this well, and when you do... 👉 It's EVEN harder to distribute this content. This ain't a comparison page that sits on your website collecting dust. These are quality pages that took a lot of effort to plan and create. You'll want to have multiple repurposing and distribution plans. For example, one competitor comparison write-up could be: 🔷 A website page 🔷 A training session with sales 🔷 2-3 social posts 🔷 1-5 videos showcasing specific use cases and features 🔷 A slide deck 🔷 Print collateral The list goes on. And this is where I see the biggest miss. For companies savvy enough to create product aware and most aware content, ensuring these are distributed in many ways across many "channels" flops. You need to get creative about what you define as a distribution channel, then how you distribute becomes much clearer. And the stakes are high because these are - by far - the most valuable assets you can create. #b2bmarketing #productmarketing P.S. Don't even get me started on "measuring" this 😉

🙏Reaching out to y’all for help! Anyone looking for or can take on a college marketing intern for the summer? Super sharp young woman at Univeristy of North Carolina Charlotte. She’s looking for anything in the realm of marketing :) Mostly looking for just some exposure to the industry. She can commute to anything in the local Charlotte area or do remote. Please DM me if you can help and I’ll send her info along. Thanks for anything!