Moshe Pesach, Author at StepUp Marketing

How is Marketing Different for Early Stage Startups?

Posted on February 9, 2023September 28, 2026 by Moshe Pesach

With 90% of startups estimated to fail, there’s a high probability that an early-stage startup won’t survive its first year.

Why do startups fail so often?

As it turns out, the answer lies in marketing. As much as 70% of startup failures can be attributed to ineffective marketing strategy or poor execution.

That’s why in order to form the right marketing strategy, it’s important that early-stage Startup companies shift their approach as to what marketing should achieve at this early stage.

Why So Many Startups Fail Because of Marketing

Today there are dozens of good marketing strategies for startups out there. Some are geared for a minimal marketing budget others for making as much noise as possible.

The reality is, that even if these marketing strategies with all the fancy marketing tactics are executed to perfection, they will not achieve much until problem market fit has been proven.

To be clear, you can grow before you have figured out your problem market fit. Envisioning the sweet sound of media buzz and heralded demand for your product may feel like success.

And that’s why companies with large budgets pour money into PR, social media, content marketing, with SEO, blog posts and email campaigns. But that growth eventually proves unsustainable.

But the quickest way to risk your startup’s demise is by scaling too early before having proof of the market problem that you solve.

What Early-Stage Startup Marketing Needs to Focus On

Every business needs to adjust their marketing strategy based on their maturity stage.

Startup founders will romanticize the days when having a marketing budget was only a fantasy. Back when lean operations relied solely on creative problem-solving in order to develop a Minimum Viable Product (MVP).

After MVP is proven, startups look for their first market validation via someone in their inner circle. Either trying the product themselves or connecting to someone who tries the product (usually as a favor).

Even after gaining a few of these ‘early adapters’, sooner or later the pressure comes to prove that the market agrees if the product actually solves something that they’re willing to pay for.

The only focus marketing should have at this stage is to decipher who that market is and why.

The 3 Stages of a Business According to Sangram Vajre

Sangram Vajre, co-founder of Terminus and author of “ABM is B2B,” defines the three stages of a business as follows:

Problem Market Fit: In this stage, a business identifies and defines the problem that it wants to solve for its customers. The focus is on understanding the pain points of the target audience and developing a solution that meets their needs.
Product Market Fit: In this stage, the business has a working solution to the problem and is focused on refining and improving the product to meet the needs of the target market. This stage is all about testing and validation, and making sure that the product is delivering real value to customers.
Platform Market Fit: In this stage, the business has a fully-formed product and is focused on scaling the solution and expanding its reach to new markets. This stage involves developing a platform that makes it easy for others to use the product, building partnerships, and finding new ways to generate revenue.

These three stages are critical for businesses to go through in order to be successful in the long term. By understanding and focusing on each of these stages, a business can develop a strong foundation that will help it grow and scale over time.

How Does go-to-market (GTM) strategy fit in?

A GTM strategy leaves no part of your product launch to guessing. Every step of the way is mapped out.

In a GTM strategy you will detail your target market, define how your product brings them value, map their customer journey, workout the messaging guidelines, the exact marketing channels you’ll use, how much budget to allocate and what the goals look like for each individually.

We talk about how to build a winning GTM strategy in 2023 here.

Build A GTM Strategy According to The Objectives Of Your Business Stage

The company’s Go To Market (GTM) strategy changes as the company progresses from stage to stage. The GTM strategy is a comprehensive plan for bringing a product or service to market, and as a company grows and evolves, its GTM strategy must also evolve.

Navigating the vast array of marketing tactics and channels can be intimidating. To best leverage your marketing efforts, so that they achieve the objective of your company’s business stage you need to create a Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy.

Implementing your GTM strategy should streamline the processes you use to execute each actionable step. When you streamline your system, executing your strategies becomes straightforward and achievable.

For example, in the Problem Market Fit stage, the focus is on finding the right problem to solve, so the GTM strategy might involve market research, customer interviews, and other forms of customer discovery. In the Product Market Fit stage, the focus is on testing and refining the product, so the GTM strategy might involve customer feedback, beta testing, and other forms of product validation.

In the Platform Market Fit stage, the focus is on scaling and growing the business, so the GTM strategy might involve building a platform, forming partnerships, and expanding into new markets.

In each stage, the company’s GTM strategy must change to meet the new challenges and opportunities that come with growth. By having a flexible and adaptive GTM strategy, a company can maximize its chances of success as it progresses through each stage.

B2B Go-to-Market Strategy: How to Build One in 8 Steps

Posted on January 17, 2023September 27, 2026 by Moshe Pesach

With the new year comes the daunting task of building your B2B go-to-market strategy.

Competition is tight and the market is evolving at a pace we’ve never seen before.

Launching a product is not easy. Keeping focused every step of the way is essential. Without a well-thought-out strategy, you won’t achieve the desired results.

How do you create a go-to-market strategy that will be successful?

What Makes a B2B Go To Market Strategy Effective?

Without a good plan, you can chase the wrong customer base, arrive too late or early to your market, or target an area inundated with similar solutions.

All which result in wasting time and resources on a product that won’t be successful.

An effective B2B Go To Market strategy

– Identifies the available market to target

– Determines where your product fits in the marketplace

– Sets a clear plan of action

How to Create a B2B Go-to-Market Strategy

First, identify your target market and understand their needs, wants, and preferences. This will help you create a tailored message that resonates and drives conversions. Once you have identified your target market, you can then proceed to outline how you will reach them.

1. Identify your target audience

Identifying a target audience is essential for any successful B2B go-to-market strategy. Narrow down your target audience using parameters like company size, industries, locations, the technology profile.

To drill down further, work alongside the product development team to understand the problem they set out to solve.

A focused approach to your marketing efforts, helps tailor your messaging and campaigns.

2. Breakdown Your Buyer’s Journey

Mapping your buyer’s journey is foundational to the go-to-market strategy. It helps to understand the path from problem to buy. Think about how best to target and create your messaging for each stage of the buyer’s journey. The buyer’s journey consists of three stages: qualified, aware, and engaged.

There are only two factors that matter in the qualified stag:

The lead fits your ICP and target persona descriptions.

They have interacted with your website or your campaigns.

In the awareness stage, the lead may not be engaged yet. This is where you need to focus on providing helpful content that educates them about what you offer and why it’s better than other options. Finally, in the buying stage, prospects are researching solutions and comparing different vendors.

Provide detailed product information and customer success stories that show how you solve the problem.

3. What can you learn from your competitors?

Conducting competitive research on the key players in the market to assess how they have brought their products to market. By understanding your competitors’ strategies, you can identify gaps and opportunities.

Identifying the gaps and opportunities in your competitors’ strategies can offer insight to how best to highlight your own offering and its desirable features that are missing from the competition’s.

Analyze customer reactions to their products by reading reviews and any online chatter about the products, which will help you identify the strengths and weaknesses of their product.

Understand how each competitor markets their product: Which offers are they using? What approach are they taking in their messaging?

Look for what you can do better for your own product launch. Your strategy should account for both the successes and failures of your competitors’ launches.

4. Develop your value propositions

A value proposition is a statement that communicates the unique benefits and advantages of your product. Tailor your value proposition to the needs and wants of your target audience. It’s important to understand what they are looking for and how you can provide it.

When developing your value propositions, start by researching your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. This will help you identify areas where you can differentiate yourself from them. Then, create a list of features that make up your offering and ask yourself questions about each. By answering these questions, you can develop a value proposition that sets your product or service apart.

Additionally, try to understand how recent events in the market may have changed your prospect’s perspective. Did their experience shift in any way when it comes to the challenge your product helps them overcome?

This may take you back to the buyer journey ‘drawing board’. But it will be key to creating unique content that is relevant to where your buyer stands today.

5. Establish a messaging strategy

Creating effective messaging for your product is essential to connecting with potential customers.

Start by refining the wording of your top value propositions to ensure they are concise, clear, and easy to understand. Avoid bombastic language or jargon that could be off-putting and make sure you make promises you can deliver on.

Once you have your refined value props, rewrite them in the context of your buyer personas’ pain points.

Key areas to focus on when establishing your messaging:

Clarity and conciseness – Can the reader understand what you mean and what you want them to do next?

Benefits – Are your product’s benefits conveyed?

Hook – Get your reader’s attention right off the bat with an interesting opener.

Truthfulness – Is your messaging accurate and truthful? Don’t exaggerate and make unsubstantiated claims.

Simple language – Don’t use language that your customers won’t understand. don’t assume that your reader uses all of the industry jargon or acronyms.

6. Generate Demand

Demand generation is about educating your audience on the problem and your solution.

It can involve a combination of marketing tactics like blog posts, videos, webinars, email campaigns, social media, and more.

Consider which channels make most sense when it comes to reaching your audience.

Avoid trying too many distribution channels at once without mastering any. This can lead to a lack of focus and an inability to measure success or failure.

7. Establish KPIs

When evaluating the success of a go-to-market strategy, define the terms of success for each tactic that you choose.

Set KPIs to measure progress toward the goals that determine what success looks like for your product launch.

Additionally, it’s important to track your progress so you can make adjustments as needed based on performance data.

8. Put in place an Optimization process

The optimization process is essential to the success of any B2B go-to-market strategy. By collecting user insights and data, you can refine your offering and increase customer satisfaction.

This helps to build trust and loyalty with buyers, as they know that their opinions are being taken into account.

Based on the feedback you return to the drawing board.

Also, a feedback loop can help you identify areas where to improve.

Adjust messaging and value propositions, tailored to meet the needs of your target market.

By implementing a comprehensive feedback loop, your GTM initiatives will be on point and empower you optimize execution.

Launch Your Product with a Strong GTM Strategy

Creating a go-to-market strategy is essential for any new venture. It helps to ensure a successful product launch.

With a strategy in place, you can execute your sales and marketing programs and win new business.

Not Understanding How Your B2B Buyer Makes Decisions = Marketing Failure

Posted on January 9, 2023September 27, 2026 by Moshe Pesach

90% of marketing and sales failures stem from missing something crucial in how your B2B buyer makes their decisions.

The B2B market has changed dramatically in the last couple of years.

The B2B buyer has taken control of the sales process:

They strive to research everything on their own terms.
They expect to find the relevant answers when searching on their own.
They want to evaluate their options before talking to a sales rep.
They give an advantage to companies who help them in their process.

Building your marketing based on your buyer’s decision-making process is still very challenging.

B2B buying decisions are often made by a long and complex process that involves multiple stakeholders.

Also, you will not know where your buyer stands at any given moment in the process and they can disappear without a trace.

On the one hand, B2B marketing is more challenging than ever, but on the other, marketers have never had as much influence on a company’s growth as they do today.

This article will show you how to reinvent your buyer’s journey and how it can be the key to unlocking your company’s growth potential.

Today’s Challenge of Deciphering the B2B Buyer Journey

The challenge is that the B2B buyer journey is non-linear.

Using all the data and scientific methods isn’t enough to truly understand how your potential customers decide to purchase.

Here are a few examples of the challenges we B2B marketers face today.

You need to account for the multiple stakeholders who will have a say, each with varying interests, concerns and goals.

There are technical specifications involved depending on the detailed requirements of individual challenges that your company is solving.

You can’t be sure where your buyer actually is in the process at any given moment. And the sales cycle can take what feels like forever.

You can celebrate one day because your prospect just moved to an advanced pipeline stage. And then you don’t hear from them for the next two months..

When you finally do hear from them, their level of understanding of your solution regresses to that of someone who has visited your website for the first time..

You Probably Don’t Know Your Buyer Like You Think

Now, you’re probably thinking, “I know my buyer and their journey, it’s one of the first things I mapped out when I first started the position”.

I’m sure you do have a buyer’s journey mapped out. But when was the last time that happened? When was it last reevaluated in light of changes in the market?

Your buyer is a human and sees things differently today than a year ago. This is definitely true in many areas of their life in general. When it comes to their problems in the perspective of where the market is today, your product/service has a good chance to have changed drastically.

The first place to begin the reevaluation process should actually be your ICP.

Don’t work on an entire 2023 strategy before covering these basics.

Developing a strategy can only begin after you have a clearly defined updated ICP and decision maker that reflects today’s reality. Read our article on updating an ICP in 2023 here.

How to Create A B2B Buyer’s Journey in 2023

There are many good B2B buyer journey mapping guides out there today.

This is not meant to replace those, rather, these pointers are meant to give you additional factors to use for further refining your buyer’s decision process.

1. Know your ideal buyer persona

Reevaluate your ICP and your ideal buyer considering the biggest shifts that occurred in their world over the past year. Personalize your messaging and make your sales funnel more effective accordingly.

2. Buying triggers

Focus on your buyer’s specific trigger that causes them to initiate the journey. When you map it out, you can clarify their pains and goals.

3. Know the buying shifting point

Every buyer has a moment when they decide internally if they want your solution. IT IS THE SELLING SHIFTING POINT. They are now ready to proceed and are looking for a provider who can provide the solution.

4. Always be learning and testing what works

Buyers are not robots. Every buyer makes decisions at a different pace. Find out what works and test variables so they can relate to different types of buyers.

A Different Approach to Your 2023 Go-To-Market Strategy

You might be considering going with the obvious and easy route for planning your 2023 strategy by replicating whatever ‘worked’ in the previous year. And, of course, dump whatever didn’t work.

For instance, a webinar you ran that was generated the number of leads to help hit the MQL KPI.

Well, that obviously means that there will definitely be a webinar this time as well. Right?

Or, maybe you tried to run an ABM direct messaging campaign on LinkedIn that didn’t generate enough leads – it will not be part of 2023’s plan.

While this may seem like a logical approach, it is, in reality, wrong and likely to set you on a path of failure.

Why One Tactic Worked And The Other Didn’t?

Looking back at 2022, Did you evaluate which marketing tactics actually worked and which didn’t?

How different is your 2023 marketing strategy from what you ran in 2022?

Will you be dropping the tactics that didn’t work?

You’re in the wrong direction if you’re focusing on the determining factors for which tactics will make the cut in your new plan because it’s not a question of one tactic or another.

It’s Not About Tactics, It’s About Knowing Your B2B Buyer

Your marketing efforts failed because they didn’t meet your buyers where they needed to. The reason for the failed campaign in 2022, is that you didn’t address what actually mattered to your buyer.

Go back and look at the offer. The messaging. How did you communicate the challenge that your buyer is experiencing? How did you communicate your solution?

If you didn’t see the success that you were hoping for, it’s most likely that your messaging simply did not resonate with your buyer.

Why Reevaluating Your Ideal Customer Profile is The Most Important Thing To Do for 2023

Posted on December 25, 2022September 27, 2026 by Moshe Pesach

Identifying, clarifying, and accurately describing your Ideal Customer Profile is the #1 priority for any B2B marketer in 2023.

Here’s why…

As a result of the magnitude of the shifts in the market over the past year, your Go-To-Market strategy will have to look very different in 2023.

Suppose you want your marketing to result in an increase in conversion rates and accelerated sales. In that case, you have to adapt your strategy and execution to the way your audience is buying today.

The first part of your strategy that needs to be addressed is the Ideal Customer Profile.

Without defining your ICP first, you won’t be able to craft any personalized messaging or understand which media to use.

To be honest, when was the last time you redefined the ICP for the company?

Over time, almost all businesses change and pivot in some way or another as they gain a deeper understanding of their solutions and customers.

As a marketer, you need to be confident that your Ideal Customer Profile is on point in terms of what you’re solving for them today.

Your 2023 Go-To-Market strategy may use advanced tactics, and your tech-stack may be the latest, but unless you understand your target audience and what drives them to buy today, your strategy will fail.

How A Correctly Defined ICP Translates to Bottom Line

By defining an ICP, you can determine who and why you should target.

So that

You can target your marketing message and deliver it to the most valuable prospects
You get better insights and focus into the buyer’s journey

Once you have these, you can then

? Increase the speed of the sales cycle

? Boost your conversion and retention rates

So What’s Wrong With Your Current ICP Definition?

The market looked different when you last defined who would benefit most from your product or service – or the ideal customer for what your business offers.

Their company looked at things differently.

Their problems were different.

Over the course of 2022, things have changed in the market across industries and especially in the technology industry.

The tech bubble bursting (When Covid hit, investors moved all of their capital from the traditional industries that were shut down and poured it all into tech. Tech companies gave nonproportionate evaluations of their capabilities of profitability).
The economic recession brought on by the Ukraine war. Costs skyrocket while tech companies have mass layoffs.

What does it mean for you? That your buyers also have changed. Their needs have changed, and you need to rethink everything you thought you knew about them.

How to Redefine your Ideal Customer Profile in 2023

The basic definitions for your ICP are based on Firmographic data like the industry, size, revenue, and demographic data like location.

But it’s not enough.

How do you categorize these companies? What are the characteristics of these companies?

To maximize the effectiveness of your marketing efforts, you need to narrow the ICP audience as much as possible.

As competitiveness is increasing In 2023, your audience needs to be super niche and defined by new categories.

“But, hey… If I narrow down my audience so much, how would I be able to build a scalable business model?” You might ask.

ICP + ICP + ICP = Target Market (TAM)

Many companies suffer from this issue. They’re afraid to narrow down their ICP and miss a huge part of their potential TAM.

But that is the wrong to look at it!

By nailing your first ICP, and generating consistent revenue, you will be able to grow your business and reach a larger audience.

Redefine Your Audience Based on These Three Criteria

We recommend defining your audience by the following 3 things:

Urgency
Significance
Budget

Urgency

How urgent is the problem that you are solving in 2023 for your audience?

Making sure your buyers want the problem solved as soon as possible is the most important part.

If there is a subcategory within your audience that doesn’t understand this urgency, drop them.

Significance

How big is the problem that you are solving? How significant is the solution for the company?

You should focus less on features because that kind of messaging resonates with an audience that is already using your competitor.

And if they are using your competitor then your solution falls into that “Nice-To-Have” category.

Get out of the “Nice-To-Have” mindset.

Instead, focus on what your happiest customer will say about your product/solution after they have experienced its full potential.

Only those who can benefit from the solution you offer at that level are who you should target.

Budget

Are you sure there is a budget allocated for this issue?

The answer is likely not known at this point because it depends on you to get them there!

It is your job to crystallize the significance and urgency of the problem by giving it a name and story that will come to life in a well-planned and razor-sharp Go-To-Market strategy and execution plan.

You have to take a progressive approach to help you clarify who your messaging is resigning with. The audience that connects to your execution on the messaging of the first two criteria, will allocate the budget.

You must have predetermined stages of reflection on which part of the audience is not responding and simply drop them.

What You Should Do Now

In order for your marketing to succeed in 2023 you must go back to the basics and rethink your audience and the buyer’s journey.

Reevaluate the value of your solution through the lens of your audience and where they are today.

When you have the right audience defined, only then can you focus on their journey and break it down by stages and understand each stage’s triggers.

Once confident that your ICP and the buying journey are adjusted accordingly, you can proceed to build a kick-ass Go-To-Market strategy that will bring home the money.

Digital Marketing in China: The 7 Channels That Matter

Posted on August 18, 2021September 27, 2026 by Moshe Pesach

A massive digitally connected population with untapped potential is a marketer’s dream. China being the second-largest economy with more than 90% of its population on the internet presents exciting business opportunities for both B2B and B2C businesses. However, despite the ideal circumstances, most outside businesses fail to capitalize on the Chinese market and replicate the same success they experience everywhere else.

The most popular digital marketing channels in Mainland China

Marketing in China is very different. Many tools that are a big norm in business transactions worldwide are either ignored or are rarely used in China. One such example is email. Chinese professionals seldom use email for communications. They instead prefer WeChat, a popular tool that’s covered later in this article.

So, let’s take a look at the 7 most important channels you’ll need for running successful marketing campaigns in China.

2 –Baidu

The first listing, Baidu, is the Chinese equivalent of Google. It is the most popular search engine in China and is the preference of more than 88% of Chinese netizens. If you are looking for business opportunities in China, then Baidu is the place to be.
On a foundational level, both Google and Baidu work similarly. You’ll have the option to rank your website organically on Baidu through SEO practices or go towards the paid route.
One thing to note is that the average user will see more PPC ads (around 8-10) on Baidu when compared with Google. The Chinese population is also more likely to click on PPC ads because they believe they are more credible.

2 – ZhiHu

ZhiHu is a free platform where industry experts share their opinions, preferences, and knowledge. If you look for a western equivalent of ZhiHu, the closest example would be Quora. The general user demographic on ZhiHu are elite industry professionals and decision-makers between the ages of 25 – 40. Posting content on ZhiHu is completely free, but you’ll have to ensure that it’s effectively written for best results.

3 – LinkedIn

Finally, a recognizable name. LinkedIn is among the most effective platform for marketers looking to connect directly with decision-makers and potential leads. However, you must remember that the Chinese version works as a separate entity from the international version and require an intricate process for digital marketing. Despite this, the channel is effective and can deliver results.

4 – HuoDongXing

HuoDongXing is among the biggest event marketing platforms that allow you to access multiple customer segments through SMS, WeChat, and other channels. It allows you to market your seminars, webinars, corporate events, product launch, and multiple other events to a wider population at reasonable rates.

5 – WeChat

This is perhaps the most important tool for marketing in China. If you enter the Chinese market, WeChat is among the primary requirements for any campaign. Without it, success is next to impossible. It was already stated at the start that Chinese professionals prefer WeChat over email. However, its importance is not limited to that. From personal correspondence to multimillion-dollar business deals and live streaming events, everything happens on WeChat.

6 – KOL’s

KOL is the Chinese counterpart of Instagram where you can use different influencers to market your business among their followers. Influencer marketing is quite effective in the west but it is nowhere close to China. Chinese influencers have a lot of sway over their followers and you can leverage that for effective digital campaigns.

7 – Tencent ads

Tencent-ads is quite similar to Baidu when it comes to advertising, but focuses on apps and programs it hosts on the platform. For businesses with a wide array of applications across different industries, Tencent can be an effective mass-marketing tool that can generate quality leads. However, it is often deemed as the last tool you need in the B2B sphere and is generally recommended if you are doing everything else already.

Final thoughts

As opposed to the rest of the world, marketing in China requires you to use different tools and techniques because of the strict digital regulations and a different outlook to digital marketing among the people.
The 7 aforementioned tools are among the most popular choices for B2B marketers in China. The final decision depends on your product, budget, and expectations from the campaign. China has a lot of potential for western businesses and you can surely get good by proceeding with a plan.

Want to take your B2B company to the next level? Schedule a Free customized Demo Session to see how demand generation can work for your company, and get more tips and analysis on your website, competitors, and market.

Demand Generation Vs Lead Generation – What Are The Differences, And Why It Matters For B2B Growth?

Posted on May 5, 2021September 27, 2026 by Moshe Pesach

Demand generation vs lead generation. Many marketers use these terms interchangeably because of their similar traits. However, the goals, tactics, and approaches to both lead and demand generation are quite different. Both concepts have a crucial role in any B2B marketing strategy and understanding the fundamental differences between them is important. Leveraging them together and effectively translating demand into qualified leads can accelerate your growth and potentially reduce your CAC.

In this article, we’ll take a look at the main differences between demand and lead generation and discuss how using them together can help you create an effective marketing strategy.

The need for demand generation in B2B businesses

For the longest time, companies have been using lead generation as a metric to gauge their marketing performance. Marketing professionals are always under a lot of pressure to increase more qualified leads through different marketing channels. However, the digital marketing sphere has changed. Customers want more control of their buying process and dislike being pushed to sales before they are ready. Just like the B2C model, modern B2B customers expect to have all the information before they decide to buy anything.

Most marketing departments have yet to recognize this change and continue to operate as before. As a result, there’s been a noticeable drop in overall B2B conversion rates for many businesses. Today, about 80% of marketers rate their lead generation effects as slightly or somewhat effective.

Sales teams get increasingly frustrated from the lack of quality leads and think that marketing is wasting both time and resources. Consequently, the departmental divide and lack of direction further deteriorates the customer experience and ultimately hurts the business.

Optimizing the buying experience and nurturing potential customers through proven demand generation techniques is the only way forward for modern businesses. Changing their approach to a targeted, and more personalized model can make things significantly better. This approach allows businesses to generate more high-quality leads at a lower cost and increase their overall revenue with consistent sales.

Demand generation vs lead generation: The main differences.

Many make the mistake of grouping demand and lead generation together and thinking of them as similar concepts. However, that’s wrong. Both frameworks have separate aims and use different methods of leveraging content to meet them. Lead generation is a single tactic to obtain more contacts of potential customers while demand generation is a complete buyer’s journey funnel that focuses on building authority and creating awareness through engaging content.

Primarily, the lead generation process is designed to maximize the number of leads and reduce the overall cost per lead. It captures contact info through gated content and passes out that info to the sales team. On the other hand, demand generation considers the big picture and focuses on measuring different metrics until closing the deal. This approach distributes content freely and creates engagement with the prospects. Demand generation requires detailed attention to every step of the buyer’s journey in order to create a comprehensive nurturing process. The results of which are genuinely qualified leads that produce better conversion rates and sales.

Another prominent difference between lead and demand generation frameworks is the involvement of the sales team. The lead generation process is purely a marketing effort with little to no involvement from sales and other departments. Contrarily demand generation is a combined effort. Both marketing and sales work together in an ongoing effort to facilitate customers and streamline the entire buyer journey.

The ultimate marketing strategy – Demand generation framework

After understanding the key differences between demand and lead generation, you’ll naturally want to learn more about the method of integrating them into your strategy. What is inbound marketing’s role in demand generation? How do you implement demand generation in your company? How do you build a demand generation plan? All of these are important questions that any marketing professionals starting with demand generation would ask.

We, at StepUp, have come up with an infallible and easy-to-implement formula that can work for any B2B marketing environment. We call it the Demand Generation Framework.

The demand generation framework stands on 5 pillars starting from customer profiling to the very end of the marketing funnel. Let’s take a brief look at it now!

1 – Ideal customer profile mapping.

As a marketer, you’ll need to deal with the inherent duality of trying to make your business scalable whilst niching down to attract more sales and traction in your target market. An ideal customer profile (ICP) is a perfect tool that makes it easier for you to get those sales by first focusing on customers that are excited, ready, and willing to buy your product. Your ICP doesn’t have to be a real company. As its name suggests, it’s an ideal organization that checks all the boxes when it comes to the kind of company your product/solution is suitable for.

Generally, there are numerous factors you’ll need to consider while making an ideal customer profile. Your selection process will evolve over time and the list can get exhaustive. The more details you add, the easier it will be for your sales team to qualify or reject a lead. If you haven’t done this before, setting up an ideal profile by focusing on the following 6 aspects is a great starting point.

Industry: What is the ideal industry you want to target. Your product or service can be used across many fields, but there will still be some that you’ll prefer over others.
Firm characteristics: Everything from the company size to its revenue matter. You don’t want to join a sinking ship or punch above your weight from the get-go.
Demographic and geographical traits: Are your solution more leaned towards a particular age group or a geographical region. If that’s the case, you’ll have to identify these details as well.
Technological awareness: Some solutions can only be for a particular profession or audience. Can your solution have any intricate processes that need prior industrial knowledge?
The limitations of your solution: You can’t serve everyone. So, you need to make sure that the solution you are selling will be able to solve an existing issue for the business. This is very important for gaining marketing credibility ensuring a sustainable business.
Psychographic behaviors: In the end, it’s the people making the buying decisions. Your marketing strategy and content should focus on them and try to answer the questions they might have. For this, it’s a common practice to create buyer personas that represent the same things as your ICP. The only difference is that the ICP is the business you want to deal with, while the personas are the people.

2 – Crack the buyer’s intent

Modern buyers do not want to deal with a traditional marketing department that pushes them along different stages. They instead want to become aware of the current solution, consider all the benefits, and then finally decide to purchase at their own pace. It’s a three-stage process and requires you to present information about your product/service to help the buyer reach a decision.

Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/what-is-the-buyers-journey

Demand generation requires you to create appropriate strategies to facilitate, not direct the buyer’s journey. Mapping out the expected journey will also help you streamline the process and make sure that you won’t be losing out on any opportunities to capitalize.

3 – Generate and distribute value to the buyer

One thing is always constant in any marketing approach you adopt, and that is the importance of content. You’ll need to create engaging content that adds value to the buyer and moves them along the journey.

You’ll have to plan and execute multiple content strategies for each stage of the buyer’s journey. Every piece must also have some conversion points to help the potential client contact you for more information or anything else. You’ll also need to ensure that your content covers all the media channels your targeted customers frequent as a multi-channel approach yields better and faster results by solidifying your brand authority.

4 – Sales and marketing alignment

You may have different departments for certain jobs, but your customer is dealing with a single entity and expects a streamlined process. To ensure that, you must align the priorities of your marketing and sales department and ensure a smooth and timely process. The customers control the pace in demand generation models, but they also expect to get quick answers whenever they initiate contact. Through a well-defined lead handoff process, you can ensure a smooth and consistent process for all your customers.

5 – Utilizing advanced technologies

Advanced CRM tools and data analytics has completely changed the marketing landscape. Businesses now have access to multi-channel data streams that track the customer’s journey and can create dynamic strategies with marketing and sales automation tools. If you are still not leveraging data analytics and modern tools for your marketing campaigns, you are probably behind your competition and might need to overhaul your processes.

Navigate the modern marketing landscape with StepUp

Modern marketing has changed. According to a survey, 70% of B2B marketing professionals believe that the quality of the lead is more important than quantity. Demand generation is the proven methodology of attaining that quality.

Today, numerous top-tier marketing companies use demand generation to guide their customers throughout their marketing journeys till the closed deal. Implementing demand generation in your team is easier than you think. The best part is that StepUp can help you improve your chances of success. Our demand generation framework, along with other customized solutions, can help you successfully navigate the modern marketing environment and increase your revenue pipeline in the most efficient manner.

Want to experience the power of demand generation on your company? Schedule a Free customized Demo Session to see how demand generation can work for your company, and get tips and analysis on your website, competitors, and market.

Case Study: How through Transformational Quick-Win Strategies and HubSpot Onboarding Process, Elsight Gains Vision For Growth

Posted on December 28, 2020September 27, 2026 by Moshe Pesach

Digital marketing in a B2B environment is difficult, especially for new players with limited exposure. Businesses demand quick results and immediate returns on their investments to prove the effectiveness of a marketing campaign. To make this possible, they approach industry experts who can guide them and generate results in the shortest time.

This case study sheds some light on how StepUp used excellent strategies and HubSpot tools to improve the marketing approach of Elsight. Working with the marketing team on optimizing their processes, we saw a 470% increase in MQLs and a 26% increase in organic traffic.

Client profile

Elsight strives to revolutionize the connectivity market and reduce the existing digital divide through its unique software and hardware solutions. The company develops comprehensive end-to-end connectivity solutions to propel businesses towards success in a seamlessly connected environment. Elsight specializes in customized and mass-market solutions for various industrial sectors and keeps everyone connected on-site and on the go.

The company started in 2009 and currently operates from Tel Aviv, Israel. Elsight has established itself as a top brand with multiple projects for public security organizations, militaries, fleet management companies, government offices, logistics/fleet management companies, and other essential industries.

The major challenges

Elsight approached us with little to no experience in the digital marketing domain. lack of a digital marketing strategy meant Elsight was significantly lacking digital presence. The marketing team was stressed because higher management demanded tangible results and new leads.

StepUp started by identifying Elsight’s key challenges and worked with the marketing team to address them. We also trained Elsight’s marketing team on using Hubspot Marketing Pro which provides the tools they needed to maximize productivity. Check out what Asaf, Elsight’s marketing director, has to say about our services:

“When I reached out to StepUp I was a young marketing manager. Elsight had minimal digital presence or processes in the B2B environment. StepUp coached, taught, and made everything work for Elsight in the digital marketing sphere, ‘from zero to one’ and more. Hiring outsource services is not an easy decision to make, there are a lot of doubts and questions in the beginning. With StepUp everything was clear, with a plan, timeline, and transparency to the highest level….”

Here are the three main issues Elsight had that needed immediate attention:

Connecting the digital marketing strategy to Elsight’s marketing goals

Elsight was new to digital marketing. The marketing department did not have a customer segmentation system or helpful personas to target through its content strategy. This meant that the overall marketing effort focused on hitting KPIs but lacked a clear digital marketing path.

Improving departmental alignment

Converting a lead requires seamless operations and collaboration from all concerned departments. But marketing and sales alignment can be very complex. Most organizations don’t even realize how much of a priority it is and a key factor of success. Luckily, Elsight’s leadership understood the importance and jumped on our plan to create a joint system that would enable a productive and collaborative operation between marketing and sales.

Limited marketing budget

Elsight’s marketing department had found themselves in a challenging position. They felt there was a discrepancy between the KPIs put in place that was expected of them to hit in comparison to the budget they had to work with. The primary challenge was in understanding how to correctly assess and prioritize the KPIs and calculate according to the budget at their disposal. This left them with the decision to either not fully reach each KPI or to prioritize a select few whiles completely giving up on the rest.

Our solutions

After understanding the expectations and challenges of Elsight’s marketing team, we implemented a series of effective changes for immediate results.

Identifying Elsight’s Buyer Persona and Developing a Content Strategy

We started by revamping the content strategy and introducing basic customer segmentation to optimize the process. Appropriate buyer personas from each segment were developed, and we built a content strategy around each profile.

Leveraging Technology for structured and systemized growth

We used HubSpot to ensure a seamless and automated onboarding process. HubSpot allows users to manage all campaigns and conversions from a single platform, so tracking progress became simpler. We also worked with the marketing team to develop functional KPIs that allowed the department to gauge its performance and take corrective measures when needed. HubSpot’s reporting feature proved to be most helpful as it allowed Elsight to track its incoming traffic and keep a record of MQLs from digital sources.

The reports and insight feature of HubSpot allowed us to track and measure the performance of ongoing marketing activities and determine the best course according to a situation. Our team worked with Elsight to create a comprehensive marketing plan with an attractive campaign and distribute the brand’s message across various media platforms. The insights from HubSpot also allowed us to further optimize Elsight’s customer segments and come up with a razor-sharp approach for guaranteed results.

Training the marketing team for consistent performance

While working on the strategy and integrating the necessary technology in Elsight’s existing setup, we also trained them on the basics and demonstrated how to deal with prospective clients according to their digital journey. Our team worked with the clients to show them how to effectively use insights to make informed decisions.

The impact

Elsight’s marketing department immediately saw the potential of our solutions. The project was a success for Elsight as they saw an immediate spike in organic traffic and gained new customers in a short time.

Some of the most noteworthy benefits we were able to introduce are:

1 – 470% increase in marketing qualified leads (MQL)

Our targeted content, along with excellent distribution strategies increased Elsight’s engagement with potential customers. Marketing qualified leads (MQLs) are an industry-standard metric for gauging the success of a marketing campaign. In only 4 months, we were able to increase them by 470%, which shows just how much of a difference strategizing can make.

2 – Significant increase in digital marketing budget

Once the marketing department started showing results and generating converting leads, increasing their overall budget was imperative. Many new clients appreciated the professional content Elsight was creating with us and admitted that it was among the major reasons for their consideration. This indicated the importance of inbound marketing to the management, who complied with the department’s demand and increased their budget by five times.

3 – Optimized resource allocation through HubSpot

HubSpot tools are a must-have for any effective marketing team. Having all the key data in a single platform allows the concerned parties to make informed decisions at the right time and improve their overall marketing strategy. This platform also allows the users to effectively allocate the resources at their disposal and seamlessly work towards capitalizing on new opportunities.

Summary: StepUp helps effective demand generation campaigns using HubSpot tools

StepUp successfully changed the marketing approach of Elsight in a short time span. Our proven methodology and focus on efficiency through automation was well received by the client, who wholeheartedly recommend our services. Asaf declares that:

“I have never experienced anything like it. I trust them, I enjoy working with them, and will continue to work with them, as they are one of the main reasons we are now scaling, generating valuable accurate leads, and marketing our products to the right people while reaching our quarterly and yearly goals like a charm. Oh, due to my work with StepUp I got promoted to become a marketing director. Not only the work done helped the company, but my personal career path changed, as I got a significant promotion.”

Thinking about getting started with HubSpot? Are you an existing user looking to make the most out of the tools in hand? Contact StepUp today and revolutionize your marketing approach.

B2B Market Research: Methods, Questions and a Four-Week Process Small Teams Can Run

Posted on May 23, 2020September 30, 2026 by Moshe Pesach

Originally published May 2020. Updated September 2026.

B2B market research has a reputation problem. Say the words in a planning meeting and people picture a 60-page report from a firm with a Swiss-sounding name, a six-figure invoice and one very confident pie chart.

The fancy version has its place. The cheap version is a survey sent to 3,000 contacts and answered by eleven people, four of whom work in your sales team. (One of them was just checking that the link works.)

Most B2B marketers live somewhere in between.

And the pressure comes from above, as usual. Someone at the top read that the best companies are “customer-obsessed” and would like you to be obsessed too, by the end of the quarter, with no budget and the same calendar you had last week. (In my imagination, the obsession gets its own Slack channel and nobody ever posts in it.)

Truth is, the research that changes your marketing rarely costs much. It takes a few honest conversations, a close look at data you already have, and someone willing to write down what they heard, even when it contradicts the website.

So this is B2B market research at the size most teams can actually run: the methods that work, the questions to ask, and how to turn the answers into something your team will use.

What is B2B market research?

B2B market research is the work of learning who buys what you sell, why they buy it, how they decide and what else they consider. It covers your market, your customers and your competitors.

It differs from consumer research in three ways that shape everything else. First, the audience is small. You may have a few hundred real prospects, not millions. Second, buying is a group decision, usually involving several people with different concerns. Third, the cycle is long, so the reasons someone buys are often set months before they ever talk to sales.

As a result, B2B research leans on depth over volume. Ten good conversations usually teach you more than a thousand survey responses.

Why most B2B companies skip it, and pay for it later

Most B2B teams believe they already know their customer. In a sense, they do. The founder knows the early deals, sales knows the objections, and marketing knows what gets clicks.

The trouble is that these views rarely match. So the website describes one customer, the sales deck describes another, and the ads target a third. Then, when deals slow down, each team blames a different stage of the lead funnel.

Research settles the argument with evidence. It also gives you the raw material for everything that follows: your ideal customer profile, your positioning, your messaging and your content.

B2B market research methods that work for small teams

You do not need all of these. Instead, pick two or three and do them properly.

Customer interviews

This is the most valuable method, and the one teams skip most often. Talk to recent customers, ideally within six months of their decision, while they still remember how it happened. Thirty minutes each is enough. Aim for eight to twelve.

Record the calls if they agree, because the exact words customers use are the most useful thing you will collect. Later, those words become your headlines.

Lost-deal conversations

Next, talk to prospects who chose someone else, or chose to do nothing. They are harder to reach. However, they tell you what customers never will: where your story broke down. Even three of these conversations can change your messaging.

Sales call reviews

Your sales team hears buyers every day. So listen to a handful of recorded calls, or sit in on a few live ones. Note the questions buyers ask, the objections that come up and the words they use to describe their problem.

Your own data

Before spending anything, look at what you already have. Search Console shows which searches bring people to your site. Your CRM shows which industries and company sizes close fastest. Meanwhile, your support inbox shows what confuses customers after they buy.

Competitor research

Read your competitors’ websites, pricing pages, case studies and reviews. In particular, look for the promises everyone makes, since those are the ones buyers have stopped hearing. We walk through the full process in our B2B competitor analysis guide.

Short surveys

Surveys work best after the interviews. Use them to check how widespread something is, once conversations have told you what to ask. Also, keep them to five questions. Response rates drop fast after that.

The B2B market research questions worth asking

Good questions ask about past behavior, not opinions or predictions. “What did you do?” gets a more reliable answer than “What would you do?”

These are the questions we come back to most often.

About the problem

What was happening in the business when you started looking for help?
What had you already tried?
What would have happened if you had done nothing?

About the decision

Who else was involved, and what did each person care about?
What other options did you consider, including doing it in-house?
What almost stopped you from going ahead?

About the result

What changed after you started?
How would you describe what we do to a colleague?

That last question is often worth the whole interview. The answer is usually clearer than anything on your website.

How to run B2B market research in four weeks

Week 1: decide what you need to learn

Write down the three decisions this research should inform. For example, which industry to focus on next year, why deals stall after the demo, or how to describe the product on the homepage. Research without a decision attached tends to end as a slide deck nobody opens.

Week 2: collect what you already have

Pull the numbers from your CRM, Search Console and past campaigns. Ask sales for their five most common objections. Then list the customers and lost prospects you want to interview, and send the invitations.

Week 3: run the conversations

Hold the interviews and the call reviews. Keep a shared document open and write down the exact phrases people use. After each call, add three lines: what surprised you, what confirmed what you already thought, and one quote worth keeping.

Week 4: find the patterns and write them down

Read all the notes in one sitting. Look for anything that came up three times or more. Finally, write a two-page summary: who buys, what triggers the search, how they decide and the words they use. That document is the output, and everything else builds on it.

Turning research into something your team will use

Research only matters if it changes what people do. So translate it into three things.

An ideal customer profile. The research shows which companies get the most value from you and decide most easily. Our guide on how to create an ideal customer profile shows how to write one.

Buyer personas, kept practical. A persona earns its place when it describes a real role, the problem in that person’s own words and what they need to see before they say yes. For that reason, skip the invented hobbies and the stock photo.

Your messaging. Put customer language into your homepage, your sales deck and your content. If customers call it “chaos in the handoff” and your website calls it “pipeline optimization,” use their words.

These documents are also exactly what AI tools need to write well for you. We explain how in brain files: how to teach AI your brand voice.

How often should you do B2B market research?

Run a full round once a year, ideally before annual planning. In between, keep it light. Two customer conversations a month and a quarterly look at lost deals are enough to notice when the market shifts.

In addition, run it again whenever something big changes, such as a new product, a new market or a sudden drop in the share of deals you win.

Frequently asked questions

What is B2B market research?

B2B market research is the process of learning who buys your product, why they buy, how they make the decision and which alternatives they consider. It usually combines customer interviews, sales insights, your own data and competitor research.

What are the main B2B market research methods?

The most useful methods are customer interviews, conversations with lost prospects, sales call reviews, analysis of your own data (CRM, Search Console, support tickets), competitor research and short surveys. Small teams get the most from interviews and their own data.

How many interviews do I need for B2B market research?

For most B2B companies, eight to twelve customer interviews are enough to see clear patterns. If the same themes keep coming up after the first six or seven, you are close.

How is B2B market research different from B2C research?

B2B audiences are smaller, decisions involve several people, and sales cycles are longer. So B2B research relies more on in-depth conversations and less on large surveys.

What questions should I ask in B2B market research interviews?

Ask about past behavior: what triggered the search, what they tried before, who was involved in the decision, which alternatives they considered, what almost stopped them and how they would describe your product to a colleague.

The firm with the Swiss-sounding name will still be there next year.

By then, you may not need the pie chart.

5 Successful Marketing Strategies Examples to Adopt During and After Covid-19

Posted on May 9, 2020September 27, 2026 by Moshe Pesach

The Covid-19 outbreak has disrupted people’s lives as well as businesses. In this article, we want to give you, as a marketer, examples of the most successful marketing strategies that you can immediately implement in your company.

This crisis has changed the business landscape, and the unprecedented consequences are felt around the world. No business or market has been left untouched. Fortunately, all is not lost. With disruption comes growth opportunities and mechanisms to overcome challenges. Crisis times force businesses to become sharper, more creative, and more efficient than before.

With the right mindset, you can use the crisis to your benefit and find future strategic ideas to make your company thrive. The secret lies in understanding your market and customers to identify new opportunities to take your business to higher levels of success.

Continue reading to discover the holy grail of your next growth hack, and ensure the success and survival of your business during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. This article outlines five creative ideas that you can customize to fit your industry and customers to achieve better corporate results during and after the crisis.

Request a FREE one-on-one session to review your company’s Marketing Strategy

1. Recreate your Marketing and Sales Funnel

Things are hard right now and will be for a while. Most industries are registering low conversion rates. In the travel industries, for example, things are terrible, with Delta Airlines losing $60 million daily.

Nevertheless, although consumers are not buying right now, they will do so in the future. Therefore, it is best practice to change your marketing and sales funnel to accommodate this new reality.

Offer your audience something free during these hard economic times: free trials, free courses, or free sessions. Provide them with more content and even give them premium content for free.

By offering consistent and high-quality content to your customers, you build trust, connect with your audience, and increase brand awareness. You also encourage conversions because consumers have the information they require to make informed purchasing decisions.

Digital marketing gurus, HubSpot, and Neil Patel are leading the way with freebies and discounts. Neil Patel is offering Ubersuggest premium features for free while HubSpot is giving out up to 50% discount on their platform.

2. Respond to the Crisis

A recent study by the American Association of Advertising Agencies reveals that 56% of consumers are happy that brands are helping in the Covid-19 pandemic. While some brands are supporting affected communities, others are offering the much-needed help in healthcare institutions. They are giving levity, relief, and resources that those who need them most.

A good number of companies are responding to the Covid-19 crisis with special offers, new services, special resource pages, and other helpful approaches. Here are some examples.

Sisense is helping customers and communities fight Covid 19 with analytics. It is offering relief packages for customers, free analytics, professional services, and strategic consulting.

HubSpot has introduced several support measures and resources to help customers and communities adapt to these challenging times. Among them include new content series, marketing and sales benchmark data, and a HubSpot community for people to connect with like-minded professionals globally.
Quasar: it is helping customers during these times of struggle by offering aid on business continuity. By expanding its manufacturing capacity, the company is helping medical device firms that are facing challenges meeting production goals.

3. Invest in Content Marketing

Currently, social distancing is the new norm. Even after the crisis is contained, distancing between people will stay with us. To tackle the distancing, many people turn to the internet to learn. Also, people still want to research products and services online before they contact a company.

Another great marketing strategy example to survive this crisis is to invest more in educating customers. It will offer a great opportunity for businesses to connect with customers and build healthy relations. Below are a few ways of educating your customers;

Develop a learning center on your website, endowed with guides, whitepapers, webinars, and courses.
Use online learning tools. You can create applications and automation tools that can help your customers. Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest is a prime example of an online tool that generates keyword ideas for clients. Also, HubSpot excels in creating online tools for its customers. Its free Blog Ideas Generator gives customers numerous blog post ideas in seconds.

4. Virtual Events

We are uncertain when real events will be back in our lives. However, thanks to technology, you can host a virtual event. Virtual events occur on the internet and are not restricted to a single locality. With internet connectivity, you can participate in a virtual event from anywhere around the globe.

Virtual events are invaluable for companies during this crisis for several reasons. First, you reach a wider audience because people can join in from anywhere in the world. Second, virtual events are cheaper to hold –you don’t have to incur the costs of booking a venue and hiring an event planner. Third, these events are measurable –you can determine how many people attended, their residence, which sessions were popular, and how the attendees paid for their tickets.

Wista CounchCon is an excellent example of a video marketing platform for enterprises. In 2018, it held its first virtual event called CouchCon. The virtual event featured 13 influencers who taught attendees about using video for marketing. Content Marketing Conference allows you to watch CMC 2020 on-demand for free in May during the pandemic. AltGDC is a primarily-virtual conference on game design and development.

5. Watch Your Industry Pains

The Covid-19 crisis has affected many industries. These industries need to reinvent themselves for the future. The tourism industry, for example, can look into options like virtual tours or 3D visuals of tourist places.

Businesses that fail to reinvent themselves will be removed from the market. To emerge winners in this crisis, enterprises must combine resilience and agility. They must determine where they should be strong, and where to be flexible.

So, a good marketing strategy example is to examine your industry to identify the new pains your customers may be experiencing. It will offer lucrative opportunities for your business to leverage. Here is an outlook of how companies are capitalizing on new customer pains in the wake of the crisis.

Quasar Medical, a medical device manufacturer, saw that there was an increased demand for medical devices, and many manufacturers were shutting down due to the pandemic. The company was fully operated and sought clients who were looking for new manufacturers to meet their demand.
Vintage Grape: like most wine manufacturers, Vintage Grape adopted crisis opportunities and opened an online store to sell wine online.
Game makers and sellers are winning big in the pandemic. With so much time in their hands, people are turning to traditional board games and puzzles. The demand for board games and puzzles has increased significantly.
Artists and handcrafts: artists are coming out prominently as essential professionals in the time of crisis. They are using art to unite people as well as help the masses cope and heal in the face of the pandemic. Artists and handcrafts are taking their works online and getting extensive viewership in return.

Bottom Line

Covid-19 has sent businesses spinning, with many struggling to survive. Luckily, all is not lost. When a crisis looms, it is the ideal time for bold and creative entrepreneurs. This article offers five successful marketing strategies examples you should adopt during and after Covid-19 to ensure the survival and success of your business. You can find one thing to do to make a difference in your business. And if you need help, we can brainstorm together.

Check availability for a free Discovery Session with a StepUp Strategist >>>

5 Keys to Success For The CMO of The Future

Posted on March 19, 2020September 27, 2026 by Moshe Pesach

How the Digital Revolution Affects the Role of the CMO:

One of the main challenges of marketing managers today is the overwhelming amount of marketing tactics and technologies. Most marketers are busy trying to figure out how to implement the latest marketing tactics, gimmicks and glittering trends they discover. But the clearest of all is that most of today’s CMOs just don’t have a clearly planned and measurable customer conversion strategy. Often, management will end up frustrated by the gap between the opportunity and lack of results. This, of course, is where the CMO finds him or herself feeling defeated.

Act Accordingly When Management is Not Marketing Oriented

When management has an engineering or financial-based background and not marketing oriented you can expect a lack of patience to see results. Small disappointments in marketing results can immediately impact the entire marketing department. Budgets are cut, and the frustrated marketing managers find themselves looking for a new challenge in another company.

Request a FREE one-on-one session to review your company’s Marketing Strategy

So What Can be Done? Should You Just Accept this Reality? Or, Is There Something You Can Do About It?

Yes, there are things we must accept, it’s not always up to you. There are CEOs and owners of well-established, successful companies that do not “believe” in marketing. They’ll say we have a solid existing customer base that we need to be loyal to and that’s enough to sustain the business. You can also expect to hear something about what worked “in the good old days”: personal relationships, a quality product that’s worthy enough to strive on word of mouth. All of which is great of course but limited as a single strategy for a company’s growth. The likelihood of these companies succeeding or even holding up in the coming years is not high.

Consider if You’re in the Right Place to Make the Impact You Seek

If you’re an ambitious marketer looking to create an impact, you must consider if you’re in the right place to do so. And so, if you feel you don’t even have the desire to deal with this kind of management, I would suggest that you simply look for another place with management that is ready to give you a chance.

But if you have confidence in your manager and you want to succeed with your marketing plan in the company you work for, here are the 5 Keys to success. Following these will help you strengthen your position as well as the entire marketing department within the company.

1 – Set Common Goals with the Company’s Business and Sales Plan.

Your CEO wants to know that you can increase revenue for the company’s bottom line and how you can go about doing that. CEOs’ commonly express their frustration when marketing managers consistently demand additional budget. The problem is there’s never a straight-up explanation of how that budget will actually make more money for the company (ROI). Therefore, my advice for gaining management’s understanding is to communicate that your priorities are aligned.

You can begin by building a marketing system that clearly presents how your marketing activities directly influence the company’s sales and profits. You must be able to prove that marketing has a direct impact on sales. Determine measurable and accurate marketing goals and commit to meeting those goals.

Even if you fail to reach the exact goals you set, the growth process that you put in place will present you as a professional that is devoted to the company’s success.

It’s Crucial to identify if your management is not marketing oriented. That means you have to limit the usage of marketing jargon and limit going into depth on the marketing side of your plan. Instead, you’ll want to focus on the revenue side – and say “This is how we will grow and make more money”

You should consider using the SMART method when setting goals:

Specific: Calculate how much traffic you need to reach sales goals.

Measurable: Use real numbers you can track

Attainable: Be reasonable with setting goals that you can reach

Relevant: Set the marketing goals to align with the company business plan

Time-bound: Set the time table and KPI’s so you can track your progress

At the same time, it is very important when setting goals to involve the entire team and senior management. It is important for everyone to be in sync and up-to-date on what final purpose marketing serves.

2 – Don’t Go Into Battle, Without A Set Marketing Plan

Professionals have a plan to succeed with a clear route toward achieving their goals. A common mistake is to build a complex program, full of details and descriptions. It’s a mistake because it’s these complicated plans that are difficult to understand and execute.

What’s interesting to me is, when it comes to creating a marketing plan the most successful ones are usually the most simple.

Creating a Successful Marketing Plan is No Easy Task

You’ll find yourself asking “what methods should I use?” “Which tools and strategies are right for my company?” ”How can I effectively communicate the plan to management so that I get enough budget approved”?

To build a good plan, you need to know what needs to be done to succeed.

Pareto’s 80-20 rule is well known but not put into practice nearly enough. The rule says 80% of the outcome comes from 20% of input. The principle is to identify the best assets and use them efficiently to create maximum value. 20% of the marketing activity you do will produce 80% of the results. The same is usually true with customers – 20% will bring you 80% of the profit. If you know how to focus on 20% of the most profitable activities, you can grow quickly.

How Can You Determine Which of your Marketing activities is The Productive 20%?

Working with a digital marketing and sales platform that has the ability to monitor results with accurate metrics will empower you to figure this out. (Hubspot for example) With such a system in place, you’ll be able to connect your marketing activities with sales and analyze the entire customer acquisition process. From the content familiarization process to the closing of the transaction and service delivery.

The Importance of Setting SMART Marketing Goals

Applying SMART goals to your digital marketing plan will be the basis for creating a system for tracking and measuring results. You’ll be able to analyze the entire customer acquisition process. From the content familiarization process to the closing of the transaction and service delivery. If your company doesn’t currently have SMART goals in place – this should be the first priority to first focus on for your marketing plan. This is the most significant investment you can make for the long-term and is sure to cement your legacy in the company’s future.

3 – Building Momentum is More Important than Meeting Goals

The goals you set and the plan you create will serve as the company’s compass. However, the real measure of success is not necessarily meeting the goals. The main goal of a company that is just starting out in digital marketing or still in its early stages, is to build an infrastructure and a marketing system that consistently produces positive momentum in the company.

Marketing Momentum is Created by the Consistency and Stability of New Traffic and Leads

When there’s a system in place, the momentum can be continuos and build upon itself. And so, the main goal is to build a systemic marketing and sales processes that create a setting for continuous growth.

The system and momentum have to be built and it’s up to you to do it.

Weight Loss as an Example

You can lose weight and become fit with exercise and good nutrition but there has to be consistency and commitment to a plan. With patience and perseverance, your weight loss success transforms from being a goal you achieve to you becoming a new person in the process. The person you become doesn’t only weigh less. You form a new determined mindset that nothing can stop you from reaching your weight loss goal.

You won’t lose weight after two workouts in the gym. You do know that if you persevere, and work out in the gym for six months, you are sure to strengthen your body and lose weight. What’s important is to recognize the progress which creates momentum. A win is a win. One win gives you encouragement and confidence to go get another.

4 – Performance and Trust

Two Most Important Metrics for Generating Growth in the Company

In the marketing world, this would be Performance and Brand.

Simon Sinek talks about meeting the Navy Seals and what he learned from their process for deciding the best candidates to make the team. What’s interesting is the balance between the deciding factors. It boils down to performance and trust. Which do you think would take precedence?

Obviously, the ideal candidate is the high performer and the guy who can be trusted in any situation.

It comes down to these two qualities: There’s the soldier who aces every test and has extraordinary skills and ability. However, when it comes to trust, there are question marks. The other soldier is someone that you’d trust with your wife and children but has low scores across the board. Who do you think makes the team? High performer with low trust or the weak performer with high trust?

The Navy Seals always choose the high trust candidate.

In the marketing world, these are exactly the same questions the customer asks. Today more than ever, the customer weighs not just the quality of service or product but also the brand.

It is, therefore, essential to take both of these sides into account when creating a digital marketing plan. How to improve metrics and performance, but also answer the question – how to strengthen the brand in the market? Your audience must trust your brand and not just come your way because of a specific feature of the product you’re trying to sell them.

5 – Metrics and Technology

In the world of B2B, measuring results is a very big challenge where the sales process is long and often complex. Many companies don’t possess the tools to track and measure their ongoing activities accurately.

It’s important to maintain a healthy perspective when setting goals. It’s not all about hitting that specific KPI. (If you do that’s great). Your overall goal is to create consistent and systematic growth of the company’s marketing and sales.

In order to Measure Growth, You Need Clear Metrics

You need to know what the status is at any given time. You should be able to clearly see how your current status compares to the goals you set. The progress must be consistent and measured periodically.

Metrics are important to you as the CMO, but they’re especially meaningful to management. Metrics can be used as a powerful tool for building trust if correctly communicated to management. Metrics that are presented each quarter with an explanation of how they impact the bottom line can be your key to management’s trust.

It Needs to Be Easy to Implement

In order to build a metric analysis infrastructure, you need simple, easy-to-work technology tools. It needs to be easy to implement. And lastly, it must synchronize between the company’s marketing and sales systems.

This is a very big challenge for companies in growth stages. The platform we believe to be most advanced and also most simple to implement and operate is – Hubspot.

With Hubspot you can track every step of your customer’s acquisition process. From the initial digital interaction to the final steps of the deal being closed. The entire process will be documented in the system. The platform offers options for analysis and measurement to examine any direct and indirect impact of marketing on the company’s bottom line results.

The CEO’s Confidence in You Will Evolve as You Bring Results

When that trust builds, you will have more freedom, more credit and support. This paves a path to promotion and in a positive spirit. If you want to upgrade your salary, get promoted or simply validate your success, there’a no better way than having proof of how your work positively affected the entire system and there is nothing more fulfilling and exciting than knowing you were responsible for it.

There is nothing more fulfilling and exciting than seeing how the activities you have designed and implemented, brought results to the company, increased revenues and profits, and brought the company to a new place, both in terms of revenue and positioning the company as a market leader. With proper work and perseverance, it’s all thanks to you, and you can get credit for that too

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Why So Many Startups Fail Because of Marketing

What Early-Stage Startup Marketing Needs to Focus On

The 3 Stages of a Business According to Sangram Vajre

How Does go-to-market (GTM) strategy fit in?

Build A GTM Strategy According to The Objectives Of Your Business Stage

What Makes a B2B Go To Market Strategy Effective?

How to Create a B2B Go-to-Market Strategy

1. Identify your target audience

2. Breakdown Your Buyer’s Journey

3. What can you learn from your competitors?

4. Develop your value propositions

5. Establish a messaging strategy

6. Generate Demand

7. Establish KPIs

8. Put in place an Optimization process

Launch Your Product with a Strong GTM Strategy

Today’s Challenge of Deciphering the B2B Buyer Journey

You Probably Don’t Know Your Buyer Like You Think

How to Create A B2B Buyer’s Journey in 2023

1. Know your ideal buyer persona

2. Buying triggers

3. Know the buying shifting point

4. Always be learning and testing what works

A Different Approach to Your 2023 Go-To-Market Strategy

Why One Tactic Worked And The Other Didn’t?

It’s Not About Tactics, It’s About Knowing Your B2B Buyer

The first part of your strategy that needs to be addressed is the Ideal Customer Profile.

How A Correctly Defined ICP Translates to Bottom Line

So What’s Wrong With Your Current ICP Definition?

How to Redefine your Ideal Customer Profile in 2023

ICP + ICP + ICP = Target Market (TAM)

Redefine Your Audience Based on These Three Criteria

Urgency

Significance

Budget

What You Should Do Now

The most popular digital marketing channels in Mainland China

Final thoughts

The need for demand generation in B2B businesses

Demand generation vs lead generation: The main differences.

The ultimate marketing strategy – Demand generation framework

1 – Ideal customer profile mapping.

2 – Crack the buyer’s intent

3 – Generate and distribute value to the buyer

4 – Sales and marketing alignment

5 – Utilizing advanced technologies

Navigate the modern marketing landscape with StepUp

Client profile

The major challenges

Connecting the digital marketing strategy to Elsight’s marketing goals

Improving departmental alignment

Limited marketing budget

Our solutions

Identifying Elsight’s Buyer Persona and Developing a Content Strategy

Leveraging Technology for structured and systemized growth

Training the marketing team for consistent performance

The impact

1 – 470% increase in marketing qualified leads (MQL)

2 – Significant increase in digital marketing budget

3 – Optimized resource allocation through HubSpot

Summary: StepUp helps effective demand generation campaigns using HubSpot tools

What is B2B market research?

Why most B2B companies skip it, and pay for it later

B2B market research methods that work for small teams

Customer interviews

Lost-deal conversations

Sales call reviews

Your own data

Competitor research

Short surveys

The B2B market research questions worth asking

About the problem

About the decision

About the result

How to run B2B market research in four weeks

Week 1: decide what you need to learn

Week 2: collect what you already have

Week 3: run the conversations

Week 4: find the patterns and write them down

Turning research into something your team will use