3 B2B Growth Resolutions to Make Right Now
There’s nothing quite like the advent of the new year to fill us with fresh hope for achieving better results, whether that’s working out more, eating less, learning something new, or dropping a bad habit. Of course, resolutions are not solely for personal gain, they are equally valuable in the B2B world, where they spur us on to set lofty goals and strive toward becoming the winners, leaders and rainmakers we always wanted to be.
Lean In, We’ve Got a Secret to Share
Although most Americans make annual resolutions, only nine percent keep them. The good news is, this is your year to join the nine percent! Know why? Because you are going to give yourself permission to fail—and try again. Research found that the nine percent who enjoy the thrill of fulfilling their resolutions are the people who are resolved to try again after each setback. In fact, the same research found that successful “resolutionists” experience an average of 14 setbacks before finally achieving their goal(s). So next time you find yourself disappointed by your efforts, remember Thomas Edison’s literal lightbulb moment, when he shared, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Let’s Resolve to Make Real Changes
If you have resolved to enhance the results your marketing team produces, then you will want to make space for these three B2B growth resolutions that are proven to deliver the best ROI.
- Resolve to Cut the Fat in Your Martech Stack
There is no shame in admitting that your martech stack is not the lean mean marketing machine you had envisioned. All of us have fallen victim to shiny object syndrome and spent way more than we planned for a tool with way more bells and whistles than we needed. Your first step in moving towards a martech stack that operates with streamlined efficiency is to take inventory of all your connected tools. It’s a good idea to list everything on a spreadsheet so that you can use columns to compare traits. A few traits you will want to consider include:
- Tool Name
- Purpose
- Most Used Features
- Unused Features
- Missing Features
- Investment
- Current Cost
- People Trained to Use It
- Percentage of Time Used
Given the complexity of most modern martech stacks, it can be tricky to suss out which tools are essential to what you are trying to accomplish and which ones are misaligned with your marketing strategy. If that’s your current situation, seeking an expert opinion via a professional martech assessment is always a good idea. Outsourcing your martech review is also a great way to objectively assess the current state of your tech stack, rank its overall and individual functionality, identify gaps and overlaps, and get expert recommendations on where you can enhance performance, save money and increase efficiencies.
2. Resolve to Beef Up Your Data’s Muscle
Every marketer knows that high quality data is the foundation upon which stands all current and future campaign successes, customer happiness, and revenue generation. With all that’s at stake, you would think that every company would have high quality data sewn up, and yet according to McKinsey research, 72 percent of B2B leaders say that managing data is one of their top challenges. In order to achieve and maintain superior data quality, you will need to implement rules for data managementthat provide for its handlingthroughout your department and enterprise. Your data plan should:
Allocate Data Responsibility: Note who is in control of different data tools, warehouses and silos in your department and others that share data, i.e., sales, customer services, etc. Make sure everyone who holds data is included in meetings that concern its management and future.
Establish Protocols for Data Collection, Storage, and Maintenance: Establish rules for how data is to be collected, kept and shared across martech systems, as well as with other departments. This task is time and labor intensive, but essential to the success of every marketing and sales endeavor you will ever take on.
Set Data Quality Standards: Set standards and establish measurements for data accuracy, currency, conformity, completeness and validity. Most of these standards can be automated with marketing technology.
Clean Data Regularly: Get rid of any data that is incorrect, wrongly formatted, or incomplete. Regular data cleansing, supported by data quality audits, helps keep your data accurate and current. There are typically five steps in the process, which include:
a. Scan data currently in use and flag all potential issues
b. Review and fix data mistakes based on established standards
c. Highlight anomalies within datasets for review, taking action as needed
d. Use third-party data to fill in missing data fields and enrich data
e. Repeat “a” through “d” in real-time every time you use your data
Enrich Data: Although we just mentioned it in our data cleansing list, we can’t reiterate enough that supplementing first-party data with high-quality third-party data is always a smart move with several advantages, as it is essential to your ability to:
- Better understand current customers and cater to their preferences
- See patterns and commonalities in Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs)
- View and pursue new markets, different approaches and opportunities
- Segment lists in more productive, efficient and profitable ways
- Personalize content according to each customer’s unique desires and needs
3. Resolve to Make Time for Focusing on Strategy
Marketers are expected to do so much these days, and with an ever-tightening budget. Factor in the long hours and inability to rest and enjoy a success, without worrying about the next one, and It’s no wonder the industry has the second highest turnover rate—a whopping 30 percent. The only industry with a worse turnover is tourism, which is seasonal, so apparently marketing has become America’s toughest job.
It’s About Time
If you worry that your team members are on the verge of burnout, you can combat this issue and restore real innovation to your company by gifting your people with the luxury of time. Yes, you read that right. How will you do this? Automate absolutely everything you can. Whereas AI is currently experiencing some backlash for copying content, you can skip this legal landmine by using AI to do what it does best—boring mundane processes that humans hate.
Make a list of how many manual processes are sandbagging your team’s productivity and then automate it all. Once you free people from having to do repetitive mind-numbing tasks, they will thank you by using the creativity you hired them for to think of more compelling campaigns, develop more powerful strategies and build a more winning customer mousetrap.
Let’s Make 2024 Your Best Year Yet
At Sureshot, we have a team of experts and a portfolio of data, messaging and CX solutions that are proven to help you realize a greater ROI on your marketing strategy and initiatives. To find out how we can help you go from setting growth and revenue goals to achieving them, start by taking our FREE Martech Assessment.