"Influence buyers you can't identify to feel emotions you can't measure" - comments on a post by Jon Miller

I read a fantastic post by Jon Miller, co-founder of Marketo. It offered the clearest, most compelling articulation of the modern B2B marketing challenge I’ve seen to date.

He wrote: “Your mission: influence buyers you can't identify to feel emotions you can't measure about problems they don't know they have.”

What a statement. If only I’d written it!

Marketers and CMOs know this very well. We’ve seen it coming for a long time, predicting its impact on B2B buying cycles and sounding the alarm for years. With the greatest respect to the rest of the C-suite, I’m not sure the typical CEO, CRO, or CFO is fully bought into this idea yet. And that lack of buy-in leads to misunderstanding, misalignment, and underperformance.

So what should CEOs, CROs, and CFOs make of all this?

CEOs

Your company’s big-picture identity and purpose are critical. Let Marketing invest time, effort and budget into perfecting them. Resist the urge to tweak them every six months. When your brand story feels tired, it’s often because you’re too close to it. In reality, it may only just be gaining traction out in the wider world. Constant change undermines it. Further, invest in credible industry experts to carry your message. Back in the day, these were Evangelists, often reporting into a small but important Office of the CTO. That title may have fallen out of fashion, but the function is needed now more than ever, whether embedded in a discrete CTO office or reporting directly to the CMO.

CROs

Marketing cannot predictably feed your sales team. No amount of pressure will change that. Some “leads” will surface as buyers silently and anonymously research your product and eventually reveal themselves—often after the buying decision is mostly made. Treat those leads with white gloves. They’re red hot. You should hold marketing accountable for generating more of these by getting your message into the places where buyers quietly do their research. But that won’t feed the entire team. A return to face-to-face, relationship-building, old-fashioned hunting is key. MarTech can guide where to hunt—and marketing should own that too—but it’s just guidance. Hunters are the designated hitters in the new GTM engine. Just as they were in the Old Old GTM engine.

CFOs

Can I respectfully suggest you stop asking which campaign or channel delivered the best ROI. No one can know that. Seriously—no one. Instead, focus on big-picture indicators: CAC, ACV, sales velocity, win rates, retention. If those metrics are trending in the right direction, your GTM Engine is working. That’s the only certainty you have. Getting comfortable with discomfort is key. When it’s time to optimize spend (and it always is), your CMO will likely recommend dialing down legacy digital channels, dialing up brand and thought leadership through independent, credible third-party platforms, and investing in anything that gets salespeople quality face-time with your target audience. Trust your CMO when they say this and resist the temptation to turn the conversation towards predicting RoI on future activities.

If any of this strikes a chord, visit www.theohildyard.com or email me at info@theohildyard.com to get in touch.