đ¨ PRESSURE! PUSHING DOWN ON ME! PUSHING DOWN ON YOU!
Itâs getting intense for B2B marketers, according to a new report from B2B marketing solution provider Anteriad. The pressure to keep proving ROIs (Return on Investment⌠if youâre reading this you probably already know that. Iâm not assuming you donât but itâs better to be safe than sorry) is starting to get too much, especially when budgets donât seem to be at all in line with these growing expectations (weâll get into the budget reasoning in a bit).Â
Apparently, only 16% of the B2B marketers surveyed said they saw an increase in this yearâs marketing budget, with 19% saying their budget had actually been cut! To make matters worse, 41% said they feel more pressure this year; 27% said that it was beginning to get overwhelming; and 14% said it makes them want to pull their hair out.Â
Not good, is it?
đĽď¸ Too Much Reliance on AutomationâŚ
Automation can be a very, very good thing â donât get me wrong. It can make our lives easier and cut out a lot of the time-consuming (albeit easy and necessary)Â hard work that needs to be done in any business, whether youâre a B2B marketer, an IT guy, or a shop-owner. The problem with it however comes in the form of our human tendency to over-rely on these technologies, and our inability to remember that it doesnât work as well if the data we feed it isnât completely accurate.Â
Automation should be nothing more than a tool, something that we can use to help us so long as weâre utilising it in the best way possible. That means we need to put in the time and effort to wield it responsibly, and not blindly trust that itâll do what we need it to do which has become a growing trend in the B2B and SaaS marketing world.
In fact, 13% of marketers say that they donât feel very confident in their data â a small percentage to be sure, but still significant.
đ Recession Pending⌠Oh no
Look, ever since the pandemic (not to mention Brexit, Russia vs Ukraine, and a persistently polarised political climate in almost all Western countries) the economy has fallen into a somewhat murky patch. There seems to be constant talks about a recession and, whilst it hasnât hit us yet, it feels like itâs only round the corner. So for businesses, it means they have way less money to spend, especially in the marketing department.
And yet B2B marketers are feeling the brunt of it. Everyone is rushing to get more business, and the marketers are the ones they turn to to make it happen. Itâs an exponential amount of pressure to deal with and, quite frankly, itâs not a smart move.Â
Itâs actually quite dumb.Â
So, so dumb.
If youâre a B2B business reading this, listen up: marketers arenât fucking wizards. They canât produce great results with less resources and poorly programmed automation â so get your shit together. Get it all together, sit down, and think smartly. Donât overload your marketers and expect them to fix everything, because they will just leave you.Â
Capeesh?
Sam Hollis is a Writer for Fame, SaaS Marketer, as well as his own fictional short stories. He lives and works in Birmingham with his three cats and his dog (way too many pets, if you ask us)