Most growing businesses think about marketing leadership when they need it. Few think about what happens after they’ve got it. Succession planning in marketing is rarely discussed in SMEs and scale-ups. Leadership teams focus on immediate priorities: pipeline, brand, product launches, growth targets. But as marketing functions mature, a quieter risk emerges - what happens when key people leave, roles change, or the business outgrows its current structure? The Hidden Dependenc

Most B2B businesses say they have case studies . Far fewer have case studies that genuinely influence buying decisions. Often, case studies become polite success stories. A logo, a quote, a short summary, a few vague outcomes. They look fine on a website. They fill a page. But they rarely change the course of a sales conversation. That’s a missed opportunity. In complex B2B buying, case studies are one of the few assets that can shorten sales cycles, build trust quickly, and

Poor marketing decisions rarely announce themselves loudly. They don’t usually arrive as dramatic failures or obvious mistakes. More often, they show up in ways like: a campaign that underperforms, a tool that never quite gets adopted, an agency relationship that drifts, a website that feels dated but never quite gets fixed. Individually, these things feel manageable. Collectively, they become expensive. In growing B2B businesses, the real cost of poor marketing decisions is

Marketing technology promises efficiency, automation and insight. And in many cases, it delivers. But in growing B2B businesses, martech stacks often evolve in a very different way. A CRM gets added to organise contacts. An email tool follows. Then analytics. Then automation. Then a social scheduling tool. Then a reporting dashboard. Before long, your business has a collection of disconnected platforms , overlapping functionality, inconsistent data, and no clear view of what’

Most B2B businesses measure marketing. The problem is they often measure the wrong things. Marketing dashboards fill up with charts. Monthly reports get circulated. Numbers are discussed in leadership meetings. Yet when the inevitable question arises - “ Is marketing actually driving growth? ” - the answer still feels unclear. In many organisations, metrics have grown organically. A CRM report here. A campaign dashboard there. An agency’s preferred KPIs layered on top. Over

Ask most leadership teams what’s holding back growth, and you’ll hear familiar answers: pipeline volume, pricing pressure, longer sales cycles, tougher competition. Ask sales teams, and they’ll mention lead quality. Ask marketing teams, and they’ll mention lack of follow-up. Somewhere between the two sits one of the most persistent, and underestimated, growth blockers in B2B: misalignment between sales and marketing . It’s rarely dramatic. More often, it shows up as small fri

If you’ve ever stared at a marketing dashboard and thought, “Ok… but what does this actually mean?”, you’re not alone. Most businesses drown in data - clicks, impressions, followers, sessions - yet still struggle to answer the simplest questions: Is our marketing working? Are we getting value from our spend? What should we do next? That’s because too many dashboards measure activity, and not impact. They tell you what’s happening, but not why it matters. You need to build das

Every growing business hits the same wall eventually. You’ve got campaigns running. Your team is active. Your agency is producing work. But results? They’ve flatlined. Leads aren’t converting. The message feels off. And every new idea feels like more noise, not more traction. At that point, most businesses either: Hire a new agency. Redo the website. Launch another campaign. But what they really need isn’t more activity - it’s a marketing reset . What a Marketing Reset Actual

If there’s one question I've heard more than any other in my 20+ years working in marketing, it’s this: “How do we really know our marketing is working?” Most businesses can tell you their sales pipeline, revenue targets, win rates, quarterly forecasts… But ask about their marketing KPIs and you’ll often get something like: “Website traffic is up” or “We’re doing more on LinkedIn” or “Our agency says the campaign performed well.” These statements don’t answer the real questi

Demand generation sounds simple: attract leads, nurture them, and drive sales. But in practice, most B2B teams end up running hard without much forward motion. According to LinkedIn’s B2B Benchmark Report, 68% of marketers admit their pipeline is unpredictable, and more than half say marketing and sales are misaligned. If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Here are five common demand generation mistakes - and what to do instead. Mistake 1 - Focusing on Volume Over Qualit

Professional services firms live and breathe expertise. That’s their edge. It’s what wins clients, underpins credibility, and allows premium fees. But there’s a paradox - that same depth of expertise can make firms rigid, risk-averse, and slow to adapt. If your marketing feels stale, safe, or too predictable, expertise may be part of the problem. The Expertise Trap - Comfort Disguised as Strength Over time, expertise becomes internalised. You know your markets, products, clie

In B2B, it’s tempting to treat marketing as a series of projects: launch a campaign, push some content, run an event, then stop and regroup. But the brands that really win aren’t the ones with the flashiest one-off campaigns. They’re the ones that show up consistently, week after week, month after month. That’s where ongoing marketing support makes the difference. The Danger of Stop-Start Marketing I see it all the time. A business invests heavily in a new website or a big ca

Every business has a brand. The question is - does yours stand out, or blend into the noise? In crowded B2B markets, strong positioning is the difference between being a commodity and being the obvious choice. Yet too often, companies invest in campaigns, websites, or content without first clarifying their brand and position in the market . That’s like fishing without knowing what’s in the water. You might get lucky, but chances are you’ll waste a lot of time and bait! Why Br

Every January, business leaders dust off the whiteboards, fire up the spreadsheets, and declare: “ This is the year we’ll get marketing sorted .” Targets are set, budgets allocated, and big plans drawn up. But by spring, the grand marketing plan is often collecting dust. Campaigns feel disconnected, teams are stretched too thin, and results don’t match expectations. The uncomfortable truth? Most B2B marketing plans fail because they’re just lists of activities with no strateg

It’s a familiar story in growing B2B businesses... The CEO wants more leads. Sales want better-qualified opportunities. Marketing is juggling campaigns, social media, email, events, reporting, and more. Your marketing team is busy, really busy, but somehow, the impact doesn’t match the effort. If that sounds familiar, the issue isn’t the people. It’s the structure and lack of sales and marketing alignment . The Problem With “Accidental Marketing Teams” Many marketing teams do

I’ve worked with start-ups, scale-ups, and global brands. I’ve seen fads come and go. I’ve sat through launches, pivots, and “big idea” meetings that could have been emails. And here’s the thing… the tactics change; the fundamentals don’t. Every year there’s a new channel, tool, or algorithm to master. But the real wins, the ones that actually move things forwards, come from getting the basics right. Here are a few truths I’ve learned (and keep re-learning): Most teams don’t

Everywhere you look, companies are racing to implement artificial intelligence. Customer service chatbots, predictive analytics, automated recommendations, AI-driven hiring tools - the list grows by the day. For many organisations, adopting AI feels like a mark of innovation, efficiency, and competitiveness. But here’s the critical question. How many companies are asking their customers if this is what they actually want? The AI gold rush has created a wave of experimentation

B2B marketing has a love affair with tools. New platform? New integration? New shiny thing? Marketers rush to add it to their stack. But piling on more software doesn’t always mean better results! In fact, most brands end up with a duct-taped tech stack. It’s a mess of CRMs, automation platforms, analytics dashboards, AI tools, and plug-ins, all loosely stitched together. Chaos. And the data backs it up.... 54% of CMOs cite integration as a top challenge ( LXA ). 65.7% of mar

Customers will continue to demand more from companies when it comes to the digital customer experience, and it's important for businesses to stay ahead of the curve - this means a strong understanding of the latest trends to ensure you can propel your organisation forwards...