How B2B Companies Can Use Speed to Supercharge Demand Generation | Funky Marketing - Sam Kuehnle

In this episode of the Funky Marketing Podcast, Nemanja Zivkovic talks with Sam Kuehnle, VP of Marketing at Loxo, about how B2B companies can strategically use speed to dominate demand generation and stand out in competitive markets.

Whether you're in a startup or a larger B2B organization, this conversation will provide you with actionable insights to refine your marketing strategies, align marketing with sales, and improve your demand generation efforts.

Sam dives into how Loxo revolutionized its approach by focusing on speed and efficiency, all while tackling the challenges of balancing demand creation with demand capture. They also explore how modern B2B companies can utilize empathy and personalization in their strategies to drive customer success.

Key Actionable Steps for B2B Companies:
1. Move Fast, Iterate Faster: Test campaigns, gather insights, and optimize quickly to outmaneuver larger, slower competitors.
2. Demand Creation vs. Demand Capture: Prioritize demand creation in emerging markets to build brand awareness, and shift to demand capture tactics when leads are further down the funnel.
3. Emphasize Data-Driven Marketing: Use clear metrics that align with sales goals. Avoid vanity metrics like MQLs and focus on pipeline and revenue impact.
4. Align Marketing & Sales: Create unified goals between your marketing and sales teams, ensuring that both departments are working toward the same revenue objectives.
5. Personalize at Scale: While true empathy can't be automated, leverage scalable personalization tactics such as one-to-one outreach in key stages of the buyer's journey.
6. Focus on Customer Success Early: As you scale, shift attention to customer success to retain clients, reduce churn, and grow accounts, especially in long sales-cycle B2B environments.
7. Prepare for Multichannel Attribution: Simplify attribution tracking with tech-minimalist tools and make sure you measure pipeline progress to ensure long-term growth.

Key Takeaways:
- The advantages of speed in B2B demand generation and how fast iterations help you stay ahead.
- The balance between demand creation and demand capture, and how each strategy plays a role in scaling B2B businesses.
- How empathy and personalization can humanize your B2B marketing and increase customer retention.
- Why aligning marketing goals with sales objectives is essential for pipeline success in B2B companies.
- Real-world examples of failures and how to learn from them to build better B2B marketing strategies.

Connect with Sam:

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Timestamps:
00:00 - Introduction to Sam Keenly and his background in marketing and sports psychology
03:10 - The superpower every B2B company needs: Speed
07:02 - Marketing goals vs. last-minute wins
10:26 - Data-driven decisions in paid search for B2B demand generation
12:25 - Common misconceptions about B2B demand generation
15:34 - Loxo’s demand creation strategy: A B2B case study
19:53 - The role of customer success teams as B2B companies scale
22:31 - Why B2B companies should focus on revenue and pipeline, not just metrics
25:27 - Aligning marketing and sales for B2B success
31:53 - Learning from marketing experiments that fail in B2B
38:07 - Real-life stories: How the "dark funnel" impacts B2B companies
41:37 - Why empathy can't be scaled and how to keep your B2B outreach personal.

Hashtags:
#B2BMarketing #DemandGeneration #CustomerSuccess #SalesAlignment #MarketingStrategy #FunkyMarketingPodcast #EmpathyInMarketing #Personalization #B2BSuccess #BusinessGrowth