7 Things That Are Killing the Morale of Your B2B Marketing Department
Posted: Sun Jan 05, 2025 10:38 am
It's Tough Being in B2B Marketing
“With Marketing, we know how much we spend but we don’t know at all what it brings in!”
This remark, give or take one or two words, I have heard hundreds and hundreds of times in B2B. All components of the company are convinced of it.
Worse, there are few B2B companies in which employees really know what Marketing does. Especially the sales department.
The Marketing Department is, however, a central element of your business development.
However, Marketing must play a leading role in prospecting and business development in the era of the connected buyer.
Since the buyer conducts between 65% and 90% of their purchasing decisions alone, largely on the Internet , it is essential that Marketing implements online actions to attract their attention and convert them into qualified leads .
To do this effectively, your Marketing department must be motivated and proactive.
Here are 7 things that are weighing down the morale of your B2B Marketing department netherlands email list and that you need to solve for the good of your entire company.
1. Your Marketing Department Has No Goals
In a previous life, before creating the Inbound Marketing agency SLN Web , I was a marketing manager in a technology company.
When I joined, I immediately asked my General Manager what my objectives were. When he told me that it was "to develop turnover", I knew right away that it would be complicated.
If your Marketing department is feeling down, it's probably because it doesn't have clear goals that allow it to identify the relevant actions to take and the performance indicators to monitor to ensure it's on the right track.
Developing turnover or winning customers is not a marketing objective, it is an end in itself.
Your Marketing department must have quantified and time-bound objectives that are complementary to the objectives of the Sales department .
2. Your Marketing department is hated by the Sales department
I regularly meet B2B companies where the Marketing department and the Sales department can't stand each other.
At best, they don't talk to each other or collaborate together.
However, for the Marketing department to generate qualified leads and bring them to maturity before passing them on to sales, it is essential that both departments agree on a common definition of the ideal prospect .
This is the only way for the Marketing department to bring qualified leads to the Sales department.
Otherwise, the Marketing department passes on leads that are too poorly qualified or not qualified enough to the sales team, who cannot convert them .
And there, it's a fight between the two services.
The sales department questions the quality of the leads generated and the work done by the Marketing department when the latter doubts the skills of the sales department!
The Way to Buy in B2B Has Changed: Modernize your Sales Prospecting Strategy by Downloading our Free Guide!
3. Nobody knows what Marketing does in your company
This morning, I was talking with one of my students who is on a work-study program and who told me that her colleagues kept telling her that "you, in the Marketing department, only do coloring! "
It was with disappointment that I noted that nothing had changed in 15 years.
What could be more frustrating for an employee than seeing their work not properly recognized?
4. You blame your Marketing department for a lack of ROI
We come back to what we said in the intro: Marketing is expensive but we don't know what it brings in!
This preconceived idea is really hard to break and B2B marketers are constantly criticized for a lack of ROI.
Sometimes rightly so, often through your own fault.
How do you expect the Marketing department to generate and demonstrate ROI to you when it has no specific objective and therefore no indicators to follow?
Today, the Inbound Marketing methodology or tools like Marketing Automation allow you to generate ROI for sure.
You still need to have the right marketing strategy...
5. Your Marketing department doesn't have a specific budget
Not having a set budget is one of the biggest reasons why your marketing department is feeling down.
Recently, I was talking to the Marketing Manager of one of our clients. He explained to me that he didn't have a Marketing budget and that it was up to him to ask his CEO for an envelope when he had the idea to carry out an action.
Here, two situations: either he accepts, or he refuses.
There is nothing more frustrating for your B2B Marketing department. To be effective, Marketing requires a planned and timely strategy.
Without a budget, the Marketing department operates in fits and starts and the results are not automatically there.
6. Your Marketing department is not involved in the decision-making process
This is a very frustrating thing for the Marketing department because it clearly shows that Marketing is a secondary subject for your company.
Since it must play a leading role in your commercial prospecting strategy and therefore your development, it is crucial that the Marketing department participates in strategic thinking.
Very often, these meetings require the presence of members of management and sales. Together, they make decisions that will directly impact the daily life of the Marketing department. Why exclude them from the discussions?
Here I strongly recommend you to organize Smarketing Meetings regularly .
7. Your Marketing Department is Overwhelmed
Another point that can weigh down the morale and motivation of your Marketing department: overwork.
Internet, social networks and new technologies have revolutionized Marketing practices. Often, I see that the B2B Marketing department has been assigned Digital Marketing actions in addition to its more traditional daily life.
Yet the length of a working day has not doubled!
To enable your Marketing to gain in productivity, it is important to study all the solutions that can allow you to automate tasks with lower added value.
“With Marketing, we know how much we spend but we don’t know at all what it brings in!”
This remark, give or take one or two words, I have heard hundreds and hundreds of times in B2B. All components of the company are convinced of it.
Worse, there are few B2B companies in which employees really know what Marketing does. Especially the sales department.
The Marketing Department is, however, a central element of your business development.
However, Marketing must play a leading role in prospecting and business development in the era of the connected buyer.
Since the buyer conducts between 65% and 90% of their purchasing decisions alone, largely on the Internet , it is essential that Marketing implements online actions to attract their attention and convert them into qualified leads .
To do this effectively, your Marketing department must be motivated and proactive.
Here are 7 things that are weighing down the morale of your B2B Marketing department netherlands email list and that you need to solve for the good of your entire company.
1. Your Marketing Department Has No Goals
In a previous life, before creating the Inbound Marketing agency SLN Web , I was a marketing manager in a technology company.
When I joined, I immediately asked my General Manager what my objectives were. When he told me that it was "to develop turnover", I knew right away that it would be complicated.
If your Marketing department is feeling down, it's probably because it doesn't have clear goals that allow it to identify the relevant actions to take and the performance indicators to monitor to ensure it's on the right track.
Developing turnover or winning customers is not a marketing objective, it is an end in itself.
Your Marketing department must have quantified and time-bound objectives that are complementary to the objectives of the Sales department .
2. Your Marketing department is hated by the Sales department
I regularly meet B2B companies where the Marketing department and the Sales department can't stand each other.
At best, they don't talk to each other or collaborate together.
However, for the Marketing department to generate qualified leads and bring them to maturity before passing them on to sales, it is essential that both departments agree on a common definition of the ideal prospect .
This is the only way for the Marketing department to bring qualified leads to the Sales department.
Otherwise, the Marketing department passes on leads that are too poorly qualified or not qualified enough to the sales team, who cannot convert them .
And there, it's a fight between the two services.
The sales department questions the quality of the leads generated and the work done by the Marketing department when the latter doubts the skills of the sales department!
The Way to Buy in B2B Has Changed: Modernize your Sales Prospecting Strategy by Downloading our Free Guide!
3. Nobody knows what Marketing does in your company
This morning, I was talking with one of my students who is on a work-study program and who told me that her colleagues kept telling her that "you, in the Marketing department, only do coloring! "
It was with disappointment that I noted that nothing had changed in 15 years.
What could be more frustrating for an employee than seeing their work not properly recognized?
4. You blame your Marketing department for a lack of ROI
We come back to what we said in the intro: Marketing is expensive but we don't know what it brings in!
This preconceived idea is really hard to break and B2B marketers are constantly criticized for a lack of ROI.
Sometimes rightly so, often through your own fault.
How do you expect the Marketing department to generate and demonstrate ROI to you when it has no specific objective and therefore no indicators to follow?
Today, the Inbound Marketing methodology or tools like Marketing Automation allow you to generate ROI for sure.
You still need to have the right marketing strategy...
5. Your Marketing department doesn't have a specific budget
Not having a set budget is one of the biggest reasons why your marketing department is feeling down.
Recently, I was talking to the Marketing Manager of one of our clients. He explained to me that he didn't have a Marketing budget and that it was up to him to ask his CEO for an envelope when he had the idea to carry out an action.
Here, two situations: either he accepts, or he refuses.
There is nothing more frustrating for your B2B Marketing department. To be effective, Marketing requires a planned and timely strategy.
Without a budget, the Marketing department operates in fits and starts and the results are not automatically there.
6. Your Marketing department is not involved in the decision-making process
This is a very frustrating thing for the Marketing department because it clearly shows that Marketing is a secondary subject for your company.
Since it must play a leading role in your commercial prospecting strategy and therefore your development, it is crucial that the Marketing department participates in strategic thinking.
Very often, these meetings require the presence of members of management and sales. Together, they make decisions that will directly impact the daily life of the Marketing department. Why exclude them from the discussions?
Here I strongly recommend you to organize Smarketing Meetings regularly .
7. Your Marketing Department is Overwhelmed
Another point that can weigh down the morale and motivation of your Marketing department: overwork.
Internet, social networks and new technologies have revolutionized Marketing practices. Often, I see that the B2B Marketing department has been assigned Digital Marketing actions in addition to its more traditional daily life.
Yet the length of a working day has not doubled!
To enable your Marketing to gain in productivity, it is important to study all the solutions that can allow you to automate tasks with lower added value.