#B2BSMX: What I Learned About the Future of B2B Marketing

There are two reasons why I go to a tech conference: 1) to know what is possible (via tech), and 2) to learn from others. B2BSMX might have been the underdog next to some of the more established events in the past, but after this year’s event its officially in my rotation.

When I am hunting for an ROI, I am typically looking for speed, efficiency, and relationships. There is no faster or more efficient way to meet and learn from the best of the best than at a conference like B2BSMX. I thought I’d take a few moments on my flight back from Boston to reflect and consolidate what I learned this week, and where I think that is taking the field of B2B Marketing.

The Age of Peer Review

It is a risky time to be learning/buying trending MarTech. Vendors aren’t keeping up with what their competition actually does, analysts aren’t defining the fundamentals the same way as practitioners are, and MarTech has entered the age of Account Based Marketing at the speed of light. As of 2019, it is actually possible for a business that never got its act together with basic lead generation to leapfrog the entire past 10 years of best practice in favor of the operationally superior framework that is Account Based Marketing. This is driving a dichotomy in common best practice and is introducing a ton of confusion.

This confusion is placing a massive responsibility on Marketers to do a better job educating other Marketers, and it is fundamentally why B2B Sales and Marketing Exchange is so critical to the field. It’s all in the name, Exchange. The exchange of best practice is the hallmark of communities like #Flipmyfunnel, and evangelists like Sangram Vajre have made it their mission to aggregate the best learning and amplify it to the field. Just check out his latest book, ABM is B2B.

The age of peer review is upon us in B2B Marketing, and I actively encourage you to join the conversation. Good vendors crave our problems, and the best are crushing their competition by taking the time to listen, innovate, and educate. We need to shift the onus of education away from the sellers and onto the buyers. The frustration of bad information is palpable, and digital communities are unlocking peer benchmarking like never before.

Simplification is Trending

I never thought I’d say this, but I am tired of buying MarTech, and I am not the only one. The RFP process, the implementation headaches, and the spotty hit rate of vendors delivering on roadmap promises is taxing. I ran into a number of very successful marketers and pioneers in the field who echoed the same feeling. High platform costs tied to long contracts and complicated implementations are dead. Marketers are demanding more from their tech vendors, and the best ones are stepping up.

I am the first person in line to adopt a new technology that solves a critical pain point, especially when the ROI is smacking me in the face. In the last 5 years I’ve had a controlling stake in more than $10MM of MarTech/Demand Gen budget, and I’ve enjoyed every moment of it. All of that experience has taught me this: the level of technology capability is less than or equal to the quality of the technology vendor’s ability to help you achieve platform utilization. It doesn’t matter how fancy the technology is, or how much it costs, if you aren’t using it. If you are evaluating new MarTech, do not undervalue the vendor’s ability to help you simplify.

What’s interesting is that technology platforms are onto this, and the rate of feature consolidation and support is speeding up. Powerhouse vendors are simplifying what was previously 3-5 technologies into a single platform, and the principles of ABM are streamlining tactical execution. MarTech stacks that were commonly 10-15 tools deep will be 3-5 tools deep within the next 3 years, and that is awesome.

Account Based Marketing (ABM) is Not a Trend

It is not uncommon to run into someone who says something to the effect of, “I’ve been doing ABM my entire career, how is this anything different,” and to that I would say, you are correct. Philosophically, the idea of targeting the right accounts, with the right message, and the right sales actions, is not exactly new. However, what is new is the technology that enables it. I don’t want to get sidetracked on tech, so let me just say this: it is now possible to say exactly what you want, to the exact right company, and the exact right role, at the exact right time, in a 1:1 way, and for a just couple of bucks a month. Imagine the possibilities.

Unlike ever before, the technology exists to integrate your entire business and its interaction with the customer lifecycle into a common data workflow – starting at the moment prospect “A” first digitally searches a topic relevant to your business, and ending at the point that prospect “B” enters your funnel off of the back of Prospect “A’s” positive purchase experience . That common data workflow has unlocked unprecedented access to information, and technology has caught up to leverage that information in powerfully accessible ways.

This access to information has changed the role of the Marketer, and only through an account-centric approach can a business truly take advantage of this step change. While this might not yet be mainstream, I’ve now heard countless stories of Account Based Marketing teams achieving greater than 95% win rates, and I’ve personally seen the same kind of results. Business that are adopting the ABM framework are crushing their competition, and technology behemoths are paving the way for fast-followers at an incredible rate.

It is critical to understand that ABM is not a tactic, it is not a strategy, it is not a framework, it is a transformation. Today it might seem like a trend, but 2 years from now if you’re not headed down the path of ABM it is almost guaranteed that you’ll be losing share to those in your industry that are.

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Daniel Englebretson is the Director of Integrated Marketing at Phononic, a global solid-state technology company disrupting thermal design. With a background in driving demand for lean Fortune 500 manufacturers, Daniel has launched demand generation functions across a variety enterprise and high-growth startup companies. This experience has shaped his perspective that time is the marketer’s most valuable resource, and you’ll often find Daniel sharing strategies to maximize return on effort. As a marketing technologist with awards in Marketing Automation, SEO, and ABM, Daniel enjoys applying MarTech to solve problems and drive results. He holds an MBA from Elon University, and has studied Marketing, Analytics, and Economics. In his free time, Daniel is a connoisseur of children’s museums and other weekend activities with his 3 and 5-year-old kids.