Positioning, Messaging, and Branding for B2B tech companies. Keep it simple. Keep it real.
Many B2B tech companies focus too much on short-term revenue and neglect what builds lasting success. Growth happens when we balance short-term sales activation with long-term brand-building. Deeply understanding the market and shifting from reactive sales to proactive strategies helps us know when to invest in brand, how much to spend, and how to transition away from a lead-obsessed mindset.
Running a B2B company comes with constant pressure to hit revenue targets. We often end up chasing leads, cutting costs, and pushing sales and marketing harder with sales-led and product-led tactics.
This desperate pursuit of “more for less” is really just a cycle that burns cash and limits potential. The brands that grow do things differently. They focus on three key things:
“B2B marketing has become one-dimensional, fixated on revenue. We’ve lost sight of what truly drives growth—market insight, brand building, and genuine demand.”
Emma Clayton, FCIM
And because time lag impacts sales, today’s revenue comes from marketing done months ago. Cut brand investment now, and you’ll struggle later. Building up and maintaining a strong brand also builds up a strong pipeline.
What happens when you focus only on short-term wins?
1. Growth Takes Time—You’re Running a Marathon
Many B2B companies track leads, pipeline, and SQLs but ignore brand reputation, trust, and loyalty.
Traditional lead generation is getting less effective. Buyers act as groups and research for months before talking to sales. Scaling sales activation alongside brand awareness ensures your pipeline doesn’t dry up. (2024 Buyer Experience Report, 6sense)
2. Stop Reacting, Start Leading
Most business outcomes depend on external factors. If you only react to quarterly revenue dips, you’ll always be playing catch-up.
“Two-thirds to three-fourths of business outcomes are driven by external market forces.”
Mark Stouse
Investing in brand lets you control the conversation instead of constantly chasing it.
3. Brand Investment Makes Growth Cheaper
When revenue slows, companies often make cuts in the name of “efficiency” and then double down on lead gen. That’s a mistake.
Without brand marketing, sales activation gets harder and more expensive over time because memory and credibility fade. The cost to regain momentum is exponentially greater.
Gong is a good example of what it takes:
Not sure when to shift focus? Look for these red flags:
If any of these apply, it’s time to audit and update your GTM strategy.
Based on the Binet and Field study, 46% Brand and 54% Activation is the optimal mix for B2B companies, as sales activation plays a larger role than in B2C due to longer, complex sales cycles.
Investing early keeps you from fighting for scraps later.
Switching overnight isn’t realistic. Here’s how to rebalance without hurting revenue:
This approach keeps revenue steady while making sure future growth doesn’t stall. Sustainable revenue strategies for B2B companies take patience, but they pay off.
Short-term marketing isn’t bad—it’s just not enough. If you focus only on next quarter’s number, you’re setting yourself up for trouble down the road.
The best companies think long-term. They invest in:
If you want lasting growth, stop betting on quick wins. Invest in brand and activation together—because if you wait until you need brand, it’s already too late.
Build for the future, not just this quarter.
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AI-powered chatbots and search assistants are reshaping how people find information online, reducing reliance on traditional SEO. Instead of ranking pages based on keywords, AI now delivers direct answers, making structured data and credibility more important than ever. Businesses must adapt by optimizing for AI discovery, using chatbots, and prioritizing clear, trustworthy content.
SEO has been around since the ‘90s. The idea was simple: use the right keywords, rank high on Google, and get free traffic.
But times have changed… fast.
AI-powered chatbots and language models (LLMs) are changing how we search. Instead of clicking through search results, we now get answers instantly.
SEO is evolving and businesses need to rethink how they show up online.
People no longer browse through multiple pages to find what they need. They ask AI and get an answer right away.
More than ever, websites will need to prioritize interaction over static content.
Google has long controlled how businesses get found online. AI search assistants are changing that.
The rise of AI-driven search means fewer organic visitors, but does it affect lead quality?
Businesses must shift from relying solely on high-ranking pages to owning structured, AI-friendly content.
If AI is answering users’ questions directly, how can businesses ensure their content is cited?
Failing to adapt to AI-driven search could mean disappearing from key buyer journeys.
Some risks include:
AI-driven search isn’t just a marketing concern—sales teams must adjust too.
Traditional SEO Content
AI-Optimized Content
To future-proof your digital strategy, consider this roadmap:
Immediate Actions (0-6 months):
Long-Term Strategy (1-3 years):
Websites aren’t disappearing per se, but they are quickly evolving. AI-driven experiences are becoming the norm. Businesses that adapt will thrive, while those that don’t will struggle to stay visible.
In the next 2-3 years, expect to see:
Sources for this article:
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Last week, Mark Stouse and I continued our Sales Effectiveness discussion and tackled one of the most overlooked aspects of sales effectiveness: people. While technology, process, and efficiency often take center stage in sales discussions, it’s people who drive success—or derail it.
People—not process or technology—are the wild card in sales effectiveness. While process provides structure and technology accelerates execution, it’s our own behavior that makes or breaks success.
AI increases transparency because it forces alignment. In many companies, quarterly reviews expose disconnects between sales and marketing, where each side presents conflicting narratives. AI and analytics provide a single source of truth, cutting through the politics and making alignment non-negotiable.
AI and analytics are already eliminating the gray areas that once allowed for ambiguity and gut-driven decision-making.
The increase in accountability and transparency means business leaders and procurement teams now have deeper insights into a vendor’s performance, trustworthiness, and reliability.
As AI gets better, it will continue exposing inefficiencies and inconsistencies and putting leadership under more scrutiny than ever.
The role of leadership is evolving. The days of managing based on perception rather than reality are coming to an end. Some leaders may need to ask themselves if they’re still qualified to lead.
Mark shared a powerful story of empathy from his former boss, HP CEO, Mark Hurd:
“About 20 years ago, during an interview, a reporter asked Hurd, who was tough as nails, if it was hard to lay off 15,000 employees before the holidays. I’m paraphrasing but Hurd’s response was striking: ‘No, it’s not. In fact. If it were 50,000, it wouldn’t be hard. That decision was based on the best evidence of what needed to happen. But when you start thinking about all the impacts on all these individual families, at that point, it becomes really hard. I’m not exactly a teary guy, but tears kind of came to my eyes. I think that if that doesn’t happen, you’ve lost your humanity.’ Then very quietly and without any fanfare, Hurd allocated all of his roughly $15M HP stock options to improve the severance packages of the most needful people being laid off, some getting as much as $4,000 on top of their severance.”
Great leaders make the hard decisions, but they don’t lose their humanity in the process.
In the next 12-18 months, AI will make the truth undeniable. Organizations that once operated in ambiguity will soon face clear, data-backed accountability.
“Gravity is real. You can jump off a building and say you don’t believe in it, but it won’t change the outcome.”
Mark Stouse, CEO, ProofAnalytics.ai
Watch the full discussion on LinkedIn.
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Chasing efficiency without first ensuring effectiveness is a mistake. Marketing multiplies sales, making it 8x more effective and 5x more efficient. Cutting marketing too soon kills momentum, and short-term thinking leads to long-term failure. Causal AI proves marketing’s impact, helping teams invest smarter. If you want predictable, scalable sales success, focus on effectiveness first, then efficiency.
Last week, Mark Stouse and I dug into a growing issue in B2B sales: why efficiency alone doesn’t achieve sales effectiveness. This is a recap of that conversation.
In a nutshell, you can’t measure efficiency without knowing if what you’re doing actually works.
It’s easy to use “efficiency” as a way to justify cost-cutting. But slashing budgets, laying off employees, and stripping things down without understanding what’s really driving results is not efficiency. That’s just guessing.
“When you hear different leaders talking about organizational efficiency and using AI to become more efficient, for the most part, that is their attempt to reframe a narrative that is really about cost-cutting and has absolutely nothing to do with efficiency.”
Mark Stouse, CEO, ProofAnalytics.ai
If you’re interested, you can watch the LinkedIn Live recording.
Mark and I talked about this before, but it’s worth repeating: marketing is a multiplier for sales.
When done right, marketing makes sales 8x more effective and 5x more efficient, especially in mid-sized, growing companies. Sales follows a linear “value-add” formula. Add more reps, close more deals.
But marketing isn’t linear. It generates demand and builds credibility over time. And when potential customers trust you, selling becomes a lot easier.
“Marketing by definition is leverage. It exists as a non-linear multiplier of the performance of other parts of the business, one of which happens to be sales. Sales without marketing is like fishing without bait. Sure, you might catch something, but it’ll take a lot longer and require a lot more effort.”
Cutting marketing and adding more salespeople won’t solve the problem if the foundation isn’t there. Without strong marketing, closing deals will always be an uphill battle.
There is a common misconception that efficiency equals effectiveness. But there is a difference between doing the right things versus doing things right.
Many companies, especially in tech, prioritize efficiency—often a code word for cost-cutting—without first establishing whether their sales process is actually effective.
Cutting budgets and headcount without knowing what’s driving the outcomes doesn’t just make us leaner, it also makes us weaker. After all, 8 x 0 = 0.
“If you don’t know your effectiveness, there is no way for you to know your efficiency or your cost-effectiveness.”
One of the biggest challenges in tech is short-term thinking. Many startups are built to burn fast and exit fast. VCs pump in money with the goal of flipping a company in 3–4 years, so founders prioritize fast revenue over long-term strategy.
“Some startups fail because they shouldn't have existed in the first place. The market wasn’t ready, and no amount of execution could change that. When a VC tells you to put the pedal to the metal, and if you need more cash to ‘just ask,’ there’s no room for efficiency—just growth at all costs.”
This “growth at all costs” mindset is why 92% of startups have failed since 2007. When the market shifts, companies that ignored building up their brand reputation struggle to survive.
Mark used a great analogy: launching a rocket.
Most of a rocket’s fuel is burned just to get into orbit. Once it’s there, it can stay there with small adjustments. But if you cut the engines too soon, you fall back to earth—and getting back up is 10X harder and more expensive.
“There’s only one shot at a first impression. If the market sees you go up and then come back down, they’ll be skeptical when you try to launch again. Cutting marketing too soon is like taking your foot off the gas in a race and expecting to maintain speed.”
Airbnb learned this the hard way. They built an incredible brand, then cut marketing to save money. When they tried to restart, they had to spend far more just to regain momentum.
Even if you scale back, staying consistent beats turning marketing on and off.
Marketing budgets are always on the chopping block. If you can’t prove impact, expect cuts.
With causal AI tools, like Proof Analytics, companies can measure which activities drive revenue today and tomorrow, making adjustments accordingly.
“If you can’t show how marketing is creating real business impact, expect your budget to shrink. Causal AI is the way forward. Consistency beats the amount of money spent. Radical consistency in marketing wins every time.”
When GTM teams work together, using data to inform decisions, they’re able to prove exactly what drives sales.
To achieve sales effectiveness, we need to know where to invest and why. And the more effective we are, the more efficient we become.
AI and analytics make this easier than ever. Companies that use data-driven decisions to align sales and marketing will win. Those that cut marketing too soon, ignore brand investment, or focus too much on “efficiency” will continue to struggle.
Don’t just do things right. Do the right things.
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B2B marketing, sales, and purchasing cycles vary widely depending on deal size, product complexity, and market dynamics. While sales teams aim to close deals within months, marketing efforts often span years to build credibility and earn trust. Purchasing cycles add another layer of complexity, influenced by internal approvals, budget constraints, and perceived risk. To succeed, B2B leaders must align strategies with these realities.
As a B2B tech founder or marketing leader, you’ve likely asked, “Why isn’t marketing delivering leads fast enough? We’ve invested in demand generation, content, and ads—so what’s taking so long?”
The reality:
If you don’t plan for these timelines, you’ll constantly feel like marketing is failing.
Instead of trying to get water from a rock, set realistic expectations and get aligned with buying behavior.
1. Sales Cycle: The Shortest (3-6 months)
Sales teams focus on converting in-market buyers now. Smaller deals may close within 40 days, while complex solutions can take 6 months or more. But when there aren’t enough ready buyers, the pressure to meet quarterly goals often creates friction with marketing.
TIP: Unearth insights from CRM, causal analytics, and marketing automation tools to identify high-intent leads and potential future buyers. Look beyond contact history by analyzing engagement patterns, attribution data, and brand recall.
2. Marketing Cycle: The Longest (12-48 months)
Marketing’s job isn’t just generating leads. You have to keep building credibility and earning trust with the 95% of buyers who aren’t in-market. Research shows marketing’s impact compounds over time, with only 37% of revenue influenced in the first quarter of a campaign and 50% after six months (Dreamdata).
TIP: Use marketing automation platforms to track buyer journeys, identify opportunities for personalization, and deploy retargeting campaigns that reinforce trust. Integrate data from CRM, email marketing, and social media platforms to maintain long-term brand building.
3. Purchasing Cycle: The Slowest (12-24 months)
Buyers move at their own pace. They take as little or as long as they want. Remember, only 5% of your market is in the process of considering a new solution or replacing the one they already have. And if they don’t remember you when the time comes, you won’t make their Day 1 list.
Purchasing cycles often stall due to internal factors like stakeholder alignment, budget approvals, compliance checks, and risk aversion. Larger organizations with complex solutions face even longer delays. And don’t forget: the safest decision is no decision.
TIP: Causal analytics like ProofAnalytics.ai can map bottlenecks in the purchasing process. For example, you can pinpoint where most deals stall (e.g., legal review, procurement) and provide pre-built templates, tools, and “what-if” scenarios to streamline steps and forecast potential outcomes.
Typical B2B tech purchases are influenced by many factors, including:
Here’s how these three timelines compare:
Explanation:
Here’s how time lag affects ROI:
Explanation:
The time lag means you’re investing in future growth. Expecting short-term campaigns to deliver immediate or long-term results is a fool’s errand.
Long-term results cannot be achieved by piling short-term results on short-term results.
Peter F. Drucker
The complexity of the solution directly impacts timelines for sales, marketing, and purchasing.
Simple B2B Tech (SMBs, Plug-and-Play SaaS)
Mid-Tier B2B Tech (CRM, Security, Custom SaaS)
Enterprise B2B Tech (Hardware, ERP, IT Services)
Explanation:
TIP: Simplify whenever possible. SMB buyers expect faster results, while enterprise buyers require detailed due diligence and customization.
So, what do you do as a founder or marketing leader?
It’s easy to get trapped in short-term tactics because we think they’re either working or not based on the immediate results we get back. But markets don’t shift on a dime and future buyers only remember us if we keep showing up.
For the 5% who are actively looking for a solution, yes, we should target them with lead generation and demand generation initiatives; absolutely.
Sustainable success, however, lies in playing the long game.
Data Sources
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Marketing in B2B tech isn’t a linear process like sales. While sales focuses on immediate outcomes, marketing builds long-term value by creating credibility, building mental availability, and earning trust. This non-linear approach requires patience and consistent effort over time to yield results. Augmenting short-term lead generation with long-term brand-building helps you to stay top of mind and reduce risk.
In B2B tech, Marketing often gets treated like an extension of sales—a linear process where input equals output. Generate leads, qualify them, and close deals. Simple, right? Unfortunately, that’s not how marketing works because buyers care about different things at different times and, therefore, make different choices.
Unlike sales, marketing is a non-linear multiplier where various factors, like market conditions and perceived risk, play a massive role in purchasing decisions. Brands that maintain consistency and frequency, even during downturns, typically stay top of mind and come out ahead of brands that constantly react, switch gears, and change their tune.
This is common in B2B, especially tech. Organizations double down on sales activation tactics like lead and demand generation and then measure against sales results. And because time lag makes it feel like things are taking too long, many marketing programs are nixed and chalked up as failures.
And so the vicious cycle continues. We stop THIS and start THAT. Rinse and repeat.
All this just adds to more needless frustration and pressure for B2B tech founders and marketers alike. When marketing efforts don’t produce immediate ROI, they’re often seen as failures. The truth is, marketing’s power lies in its ability to multiply how brands build credibility and earn trust. It doesn’t show up instantly on a balance sheet but it’s essential for sustaining growth.
The sales process is relatively straightforward. Almost every CRM follows a clear, measurable path from prospects to leads to opportunities to closed deals. Add more salespeople, expect more sales, right? This linear logic feels intuitive and controllable, making it the dominant framework in many organizations.
But applying the same approach to marketing doesn’t work. Marketing doesn’t push leads through a funnel or pipeline. Good marketing builds up appeal when the timing is off (95% of the time) and demand when the timing is right (5% of the time). It’s a lot like farming: planting and tending to seeds, not merely harvesting crops.
Instead of following a predictable input-output model, marketing builds mental availability—the likelihood that your brand comes to mind when a buyer has a need. This process doesn’t happen overnight, nor does it follow a straight line. That’s because buyers care about a diverse range of emotions and inputs. It’s non-linear by nature, requiring consistent and frequent effort over time to achieve results.
Think of marketing like investing in a savings account. Each campaign, blog post, or ad deposit builds on the last, compounding over time. But if you’re expecting an immediate payout—like using an ATM—you’ll be disappointed. Marketing’s impact is cumulative, not transactional.
“Marketing is the generous act of helping someone solve a problem. Their problem. It’s a chance to serve. The magic of ads is a trap that keeps us from building a useful story.”
Seth Godin
The stories Seth is talking about don’t convert instantly. They build familiarity and earn trust, leading to conversions later. This is an important point because when we’re ready to buy, we always think of the best brands—the best for us.
Adding to this, buyers define “the best” based on what aligns with their unique worldview. For some, it may be something like convenience; for others, status. Marketing’s non-linear nature gives us a chance to build mental availability to meet these diverse preferences when the time comes. And that equates to invaluable air cover for your sales team down the road.
One of the biggest impacts on measuring marketing that often gets overlooked is Time Lag. For example, the marketing effort we created in Q1 won’t be realized until Q3 or Q4, or possibly later. And if we sell expensive, complex enterprise solutions, it can take years.
This lag is especially pronounced where long sales cycles and high-stakes decisions mean buying teams need time to evaluate options and reduce perceived risk. Over 50% of B2B decisions result in no decision because that is typically the safest option. Buyers are often paralyzed by fear of making the wrong choice, especially when their reputation or job security is on the line.
Consistent brand-building reduces this perceived risk, positioning your solution as the “safe bet” when the buyer is ready to act.
For example, a consistent brand-building campaign might not generate immediate leads, but it creates the conditions for future success.
A good example is SAP’s “Best Run” campaigns. The initial campaign, “The Best-Run Businesses Run SAP” ran for over 10 years. Variations like the one below ran for another 10 years. SAP is a B2B Marketing case study in consistency and frequency.
When buyers recognize and trust your brand when they are not ready to buy (95% of the time), they’re more likely to engage when they’re ready to make a decision (5% of the time). Without that foundation, you’re constantly climbing a steep hill, competing on features and price alone.
This time lag also explains why correlation doesn’t imply causation in marketing. Just because a specific campaign didn’t directly lead to a sale doesn’t mean it wasn’t instrumental in building the awareness and earning the trust that made the sale possible.
Measuring marketing’s non-linear nature requires a shift in thinking.
IBM’s legacy—No One Ever Got Fired for Buying IBM—is another great example of how a strong brand reputation can provide sales teams with invaluable aircover.
Decades of consistent brand building made IBM the “safe bet” for decades, reducing perceived risk and earning trust. Startups and smaller companies can’t replicate this overnight, but consistent messaging and a focus on building credibility will achieve similar results over time. Where most startups and scaleups fail is a lack of commitment and patience. Without consistency and frequency, a brand’s reputation will always be behind the eight ball.
“But we need leads now!” Yes, of course. Short-term sales tactics and long-term brand-building can coexist. SAP and IBM implemented both. You can also run performance campaigns to generate quick leads while laying the groundwork for future growth through consistent brand-building efforts.
As Jim Collins wrote in Built To Last, don’t get trapped in the “Tyranny of the OR.” The “Genius of the AND” lies in using short-term and long-term strategies together.
Marketing’s non-linear nature is its strength, not its weakness. Performance marketing can be attributed to sales outcomes in the short term. But brand building helps us earn trust and build credibility over the long term.
We need to rethink how we measure ROI because linear and non-linear outcomes are not the same. When both are done right, both support each other and provide priceless air cover for future deals.
Imagine being able to say “No one ever got fired for buying [your solution].” That hill is way easier to climb than always having to start every sales pitch from scratch to prove your value.
Dive Deeper: If you want to see how I helped a B2B tech company do much of what is covered in this article, check out the BELLIN Treasury case study. It’s a good example of how maintaining consistency and frequency can grow a business exponentially.
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