Marketing and innovation are the cornerstones of B2B tech success. Don’t prioritize one over the other. Conduct customer research, integrate marketing early, craft a clear value proposition, and build long-term brand affinity. As Peter Drucker once said, marketing is a basic function of your entire business, so don’t treat it like a department, a tactic, or even a mere piece of revenue.
We pour our hearts into our products. They’re our labour of love. Just like parents adore their children, we believe in our products wholeheartedly.
How many times have we heard, our product is so good it will sell itself?
But that’s like expecting a plant to grow without water or sunlight, or worse, expecting a child to raise itself. It’s unrealistic and irresponsible. It also sounds like Hollywood.
Hang on a sec... didn’t Peter Drucker say that? No. Not exactly. We’ll address this misinterpretation later.
Speaking of Drucker, he challenged such notions back in the 1950s.
In 2008, I read Drucker’s book, The Practice of Management. Thinking I was behind the times (it was written in 1954), I was surprised by the number of business leaders who were unaware of Drucker’s immense contributions to modern management. Even those who knew of him hadn’t necessarily read his work, let alone understood his view on marketing.
You can learn more about Peter Drucker at The Drucker Institute.
Drucker exposes a critical truth often overlooked in B2B tech: marketing and innovation aren’t rivals, but rather forces that propel business success together.
Many B2B tech companies treat marketing as a cost, not an investment, blaming it for wasted resources.
They’re not wrong if their marketing lacks strategy, is only focused on pipeline, and appeases leadership by overpromising and underdelivering on generating leads.
That kind of marketing is NOT what Drucker was talking about.
That kind of marketing is what Dilbert was poking fun at (sadly still a common worldview).
Ironically, with all the new and better martech, digital tools, and analytics to track spending and results (far better than in Drucker’s time), we’re still having this conversation 70 years on.
I would wager Marketing is far more broken today. And that has nothing to do with the tools themselves. It has everything to do with mindset.
Business and Innovation paths are not straight lines. Expecting Marketing to be makes no sense.
Example: “Just create demand. Just get leads.”
To champion the change for this shift in thinking, Marketing needs to take responsibility.
Of all the things that need fixing in B2B tech marketing, I fundamentally believe that the most important first step is in changing the belief that marketing success is judged in terms of how much pipeline or revenue it contributes.
Liam Moroney, Storybook Marketing
The marketing mindset must change because ignoring marketing’s ability to impact long-term business growth is a mistake.
Marketing is what sets your company and product apart from the competition. It’s the voice that connects your business and its offerings with your target audience, builds trust, and ultimately drives customer loyalty.
Drucker reinforces this concept by stating, “Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.”
I highlighted business because that’s the piece everyone misses. It’s not just pipeline, or revenue, or pretty ads.
It’s how your best-fit customers experience your business in its entirety: the brand, the products and services, the people, the support, etc.
Brand marketing as an investment in long-term customer acquisition and retention.
The key here is “long-term” because markets react to marketing on their own time, not ours. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Innovation can be a seductive siren song for B2B tech companies. It’s easy to push marketing to the sidelines when we’re caught up in chasing our shiny new object.
Without doing our homework (customer and market research), we can, just as easily, end up developing the latest and greatest technology without knowing whether the market even needs it.
This blind faith leads to dismissing marketing early and then scrambling to get the word out, a decision with potentially disastrous consequences.
We often misquote Peter Drucker, assuming a great product will sell itself. This thinking is dangerously wrong.
A fantastic product in a vacuum is just another engineering marvel no one knows about.
Countless B2B tech products fell victim to the “build it and they will come” mentality. Google+, Amazon Fire Phone, FaceBook Home, and even the Metaverse (cringe) are cautionary tales.
And although it’s a B2C example, who can forget Bic For Her? (the video is hysterical)
The consequences of limiting and neglecting marketing go deeper than missed sales.
Drucker never said, “Make the product so good it’ll sell itself.” But he did stress understanding the customer:
The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.
Peter Drucker
That’s the quote that is often misquoted. Without marketing context, it misleads us into thinking all we have to do is build our Field of Dreams (did I mention Hollywood?).
In full context, however, it perfectly captures how and why marketing connects innovative solutions with our best-fit customers.
Prioritizing customer research, differentiated value, and long-term brand marketing ensures our innovative solutions don’t vanish into thin air.
Brand marketing becomes the bridge, connecting real-world problems with innovative solutions and the people behind them at every touch point of the business.
Think of Marketing as your customer’s champion, advocating for their needs. Innovation is your solution’s voice, the response to those needs.
The good news is there are numerous B2B tech companies that excel at balancing innovation and marketing. Take Apple’s Think Different campaign, or Salesforce’s No Software campaign. Both are masters at combining these two forces and building lasting brand recognition.
But let’s look at two B2B tech examples:
HubSpot, a leader in B2B marketing, sales, and customer service SaaS solutions, perfectly blends innovation and marketing.
Siemens Insights Hub (formerly MindSphere), an IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) platform, proves that innovation and marketing can flourish in the industrial tech space.
These are just a few examples; there are countless others.
The key? Understanding customer needs, developing solutions that address them, and creating brand marketing that consistently beats the drum to reach the target audience.
Peter Drucker’s wisdom on marketing and innovation remains relevant. B2B tech companies can achieve the perfect balance between these two crucial functions.
Moving forward, remember that marketing isn’t a cost centre or a pipeline checkbox; it’s a long-term investment no different than innovation. By allocating resources towards brand marketing strategies that complement your entire business operations, everything gets better.
Marketing impacts the entire effectiveness and efficiency of the sales and marketing and customer success effort. More brand awareness in the market means everything gets better. Better perceptions of your product means everything gets better.
Liam Moroney, Storybook Marketing
Don’t be lured by innovation alone. Limiting and neglecting marketing is a recipe for disaster.
Similar to Apple and Salesforce, B2B tech companies like Hubspot and Siemens excel because they understand customer needs and craft compelling marketing messages, on top of their innovative products. Remember that Apple was virtually bankrupt when it launched Think Different in 1996 and Salesforce took on Siebel in an all-out David vs Goliath battle in 1999.
Focus on building the brand through customer research and integrated marketing across the entire organization, not just a piece of the pipeline. This ensures you create a lasting and memorable impression for your innovative solutions. Brand marketing bridges the gap between groundbreaking technology and real-world customer problems.
And listen to experts like Peter Drucker: marketing and innovation are the cornerstones of business success. A balanced approach is key to achieving long-term growth.
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