The B2B Marketing Valley of Death
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The document discusses the critical timing of B2B marketing strategies, emphasizing that waiting until product launch may lead to missed opportunities for generating results. It highlights the 'valley of death' phenomenon, where startups risk failure if they don't secure funding early and stresses the importance of early testing of marketing messages. The author suggests using lean business planning and early marketing data to improve the odds of a successful product launch and encourages data-driven requests for investment.
The B2B Marketing Valley of Death
- 1. The B2B Marketing Valley of Death By Christopher Ryan CEO, Fusion Marketing Partners “If you wait until the product launch or commercialization phase to crank up your marketing engine, you may be too late to generate positive results”
- 2. In a recent Kaufman.org article, titled The Rise of Angel Investing, Jonathan Ortmans touched on the timing of angel investments “Most entrepreneurs initially finance their firms using their own savings but an investment by an angel investor who puts his or her own money directly into a startup, if done at the right time, makes a critical difference to the success of the firm.”
- 3. If the startup doesn’t receive the needed funding at or before the valley phase, it might not be around for long.
- 4. So how does this “valley of death” timing issue apply to B2B marketing and sales?
- 5. Simply this: If you wait until the product launch or commercialization phase to crank up your marketing engine, you may be too late to generate positive results.
- 6. This doesn’t just apply to startup companies; it is also important for each product launch at existing companies.
- 7. Putting the word out today doesn’t necessarily lead to revenue today (or even tomorrow). There is a lag time to move prospects from “aware” to “interested,” and from “engaged” to “customer.”
- 8. In some industries (e.g. enterprise software), this sales cycle can be six months or more – so the sales leads you close today first came to your attention quite some time ago.
- 9. The scary part about being in the valley of death is the fear that no matter what you do, a successful outcome is not assured.
- 10. This is why it is hard to raise money and it is why we B2B marketers hold our breaths, hoping and praying that the next campaign will be the home run that leads to product launch victory.
- 11. So how do we improve the odds of victory? One strategy is to apply lean business planning and minimum viable product (MVP) principles to ensure that the investment in the product is reasonable in relation to the Upside potential.
- 12. Another important step is to test the viability of the marketing message and lead generation potential very early in the process. Risk of not testing marketing message conception design development testing release x1 x10 x100 x1000
- 13. You can do this with online methods such as pay-per-click and SEO during the R&D part of the process (In fact, you may collect some data in your early marketing tests that help get your product development on a better path.)
- 14. The good news is that the valley of death can be a lot more comfortable if you have a good sense of how the product will sell based on your early testing.
- 15. As the book says, Hope is Not a Strategy when you ask investors (or your CFO) for money based on data, not just great intentions, you are much more likely to get that funding and achieve a successful launch.
- 16. Learn More Visit our website for more insight about B2B marketing and sales and a look at my new eBook The Essential Guide to Building Your Lead-to- Revenue (L2R) Machine
- 17. About What We Do Fusion Marketing Partners (FMP) provides outsourced B2B Marketing consulting services to help businesses generate more sales revenue from every dollar invested in people and programs. The result is a framework for generating awareness, qualified leads and revenue that is repeatable and predictable. How We Do This Every business, including its market, offering, organization and capabilities is unique. We work within your organization, from the CEO to the stakeholders, as appropriate to create and optimize B2B marketing and sales processes. FMP operates as an outsourced extension of your business operation. We supplement your existing staff to build team performance or as your entire marketing organization, deliver a blended set of skills. Fusion Marketing Partners – 3730 Sinton Road, Colorado Springs, CO 80907 719-357-6280 [email protected]