The key to a successful business is effective marketing. While this is commonly known, many B2B companies still pay very little attention to marketing. In this article, I discuss step-by-step instructions on launching B2B marketing and why it is crucial.
Andriy Chumachenko, the co-founder of the Netpeak Agency, runs his own Telegram channel Sad But True. Recently, he shared a checklist for launching B2B marketing, and you might find that you can learn a lot of interesting things from it.
Let me share a very common situation that I have seen in about 80% of Ukrainian companies during my consulting work: the workflows on providing services are set up, the company has (or had) clients, and all internal processes are working, but the business owners have not thought about marketing.
Now, you may find yourself in the same situation. Whether you use word of mouth to find clients, have several large or long-term orders that allow you to keep your margin above 50%, or are reliant on one online marketplace or application (e.g., Upwork, Clutch, LinkedIn) — it doesn't matter. It is time to consider setting up B2B marketing.
So, what should B2B companies do to launch marketing processes and get new customers as effectively as possible without waiting for an extremely long time? Here is my opinion.
1. Financial goals for the next year
The first step is to determine how much you want the company to grow in a year. I usually recommend building a plan based on three parameters:
Market growth (this is your lower limit based on how much the market is going to grow in a year — this is how much you are supposed to grow if you do nothing new)
Realistic expectations (for example, +10% of the market)
Ambitious goals (for example, +25% of the market)
2. Marketing goals
Once you have financial goals and some statistics, you can determine the required number of “synthetic” indicators to be achieved with the help of marketing tools.
I usually calculate this using the reverse funnel:
Depending on the net profit target and the margin threshold, you can estimate the turnover.
By knowing the customers' average check and LT, you can estimate the required number of new customers for the year.
Based on the conversion rate from the first contact with the sales pitch to the sale, you can calculate the required number of enquiries.
By having an idea of the seasonality, you can roughly break down the targeted number of enquiries into months.
3. Hiring a marketer
By this stage, you will have identified your marketing goals. So, you can start looking for a marketer and base your KPIs on an incentive system. Yes, hiring a marketer is not the first step; figuring out your goals comes first.
Of course, when you hire a marketer, you should at least have a rough idea of what they will do — work with your contractors and understand SEO, what level of English they need to know, the basics of Google Data Studio, and so on.
Many people are likely to skip the step of hiring a marketer. I understand that some people don't have the resources (money and time) for it, but this mistake will come back to haunt you in the future. Just keep in mind that all the following tasks are best performed by a skilled marketer, not the business founder.
4. SWOT analysis
Briefly but thoughtfully describe the parameters of your business in four categories: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. There are many online manuals on how to do this best.
5. Positioning
Based on the SWOT analysis, describe briefly, based on your point of view, what your company is, how it differs from competitors, how your work affects your client's business, and perhaps even the world around you.
6. Ideal customer profile (ICP)
An ideal customer profile describes the perfect client (company) for your business (not to be confused with the buyer persona). One ICP is not enough; you should have several or even dozens of such profiles.
Describe the ICPs based on two points:
Clients (successful cases, video testimonials, presence in the portfolio) with whom you have already managed to work.
Clients you would like to work with in the future.
The more business parameters (geolocation, number of employees, niche, turnover, stage of development, etc.) each ICP has, the better.
7. Website
Any way you slice it, your website should be clear, user-friendly, and potentially lead-generating. If you don't have one (or if you have a one-page landing page), it's time to create a technical task for creating or redesigning a proper website.
Based on your ICP, positioning, and competitor analysis, you need to form the structure of the site: a set of necessary pages and their content. Then, with the help of an SEO specialist (or ChatGPT), you need to compile a semantic core for each page. Prepare content, create a design and layout, and release the site.
8. Marketing plan
This step comes after the website because website creation can take a long time. I recommend starting on the website before the plan is released (and completing the site when the plan is already implemented).
A marketer’s task is to use historical data on how the business has worked before and the business's current financial goals to form a set of hypotheses that will allow you to scale and launch new sources of applications and traffic channels to fulfill the goal.
The manager's task is to evaluate these hypotheses, the logic of their implementation, the amount of work, and the priorities in the marketing plan, and, of course, to approve the budget for this marketing plan.
9. Budget
Here is a simple rule: the marketing budget should be such that, theoretically, when you fulfill the annual plan, you will have a positive margin after taking into account both the budget and all other planned expenses of the company (with the exception of investments).
If the debit and credit don't match, you need to optimize your marketing plan — reduce your goals a bit, cut down the list of hypotheses (remove those you are least confident in), optimize incentive systems, etc.
10. Reports
At this stage, managers often make one of two common mistakes:
Give up on marketing and check reports once a month.
Vice versa, go into micro-managing mode and take control of every marketing action.
The correct approach is, as always, somewhere in the middle. A manager with full business knowledge should always be available to the marketer (even if it's just through messenger), and it should be made known to the marketer that they can ask the manager any questions.
At the same time, the marketer should have the freedom to implement the plan and be given sufficient time to test hypotheses and show their results. When preparing a marketing plan, you need to ensure that your marketer knows how to work with tables, formulas, data, and tasks. Then, when the plan is in its implementation phase, you should take on the role of a mentor.
Conclusions
To launch marketing processes and get new customers in B2B, the business owner should:
Build a plan for the year ahead based on market growth, realistic expectations, and ambitious goals.
Determine the required number of indicators to be achieved with the help of marketing tools. You can calculate these using the reverse funnel.
Hire a marketer.
Establish business parameters in four categories: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Describe in detail what the company does, how it differs from competitors, and what benefits the company will bring to its clients.
Create an ideal customer profile for your business.
Create a straightforward, user-friendly, and potentially lead-generating website.
While the website is being created, form a set of hypotheses that allow you to scale and launch new sources of applications and traffic channels.
Create a marketing budget such that when you fulfill the annual plan, you have a positive margin after taking into account both the budget and all other planned expenses of the company.
Consistently communicate with the marketer while the marketing plan is being prepared and implemented.
