Allen Bonde, CMO at TreviPay chats about the blurring lines between marketing and sales handoffs and how B2B teams can further optimize their end to end product and omnichannel journeys in this short Q&A:

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Welcome to this MarTech Series chat, Allen, tell us about your marketing journey over the years and the biggest marketing learnings you’ve come away with…

So, I actually started as a data scientist back in the Telecom space, applying machine learning to predict consumer behavior, and churn. Then got into market research and consulting at firms like Yankee Group and McKinsey studying early online advertising. After that I had a series of CMO roles at both start-ups and larger SaaS and consulting firms. What I learned is that good design and creative still matters in B2B, and great storytelling sets you apart. And that you need to use your data to understand how to target each member of buying groups, what stories resonate with them, and where different assets and formats work best on the buying journey. That could vary a bit depending on which industry you are targeting!

How do you see marketing within B2B SaaS stand today? What are some of the things about marketing in this segment that make the journey more unique?

Well in most cases you are talking more complex buying journeys, with multiple actors including techies, often partners, and almost always a need to both inform and connect buyers with your community and their peers to build credibility.

Also, where marketing ends and sales starts is totally blurring. Fully engaging complex buying groups really requires more integrated sales and marketing “selling groups.” And we also need to move beyond measuring MQLs to metrics that better align with sales goals.

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For marketers of fintech products, what do you feel matter most and how would you say marketing cycles in this segment should be crafted?

Having consulted to both financial services and fintech firms in the past, I’d say that a more consultative approach is often helpful. The sales cycles can be longer and expressing how your solution not only drives growth and better experiences, but also lowers risk and boosts efficiency is super important. Aligning with themes like order-to-cash can be super helpful since it provides a framework for crafting messaging and aligning with partner solutions.

There is also a lot of reference selling in this space even though getting public client references in this segment can be a challenge! For this reason, I like higher-touch campaigns like small events, and making sure you are active in the key segment-related associations, especially in EMEA.

Take us through some of your marketing strategies / must-dos and the martech you’ve relied on to shape them?

I think you need to be both content-centric, and data-driven in B2B marketing. You need to support every media format. And also need to be experiment-minded and embrace a test and learn approach. It’s why I organize my teams into agile squads. And try to fit much of what we do into 2-week sprints.

I am a big fan of OKRs to ensure alignment with the overall business strategy. I also rely on some core martech tools, for CRM (often Salesforce), marketing automation (usually Marketo, but I also am a long-time HubSpot fan), and then a bunch of campaign and productivity tools, from Asana to Zapier.

What top of mind predictions do you have for B2B marketing in 2023?

It’s about omnichannel and loyalty more than ever this year. Stories need to be portable across media, and emphasize how your product creates a better experience, which is foundational for boosting client satisfaction and loyalty. I see more marketers attending and sponsoring in-person events as well and taking a more thoughtful approach to their digital and social marketing, especially as Twitter is sorting out their strategy. Overall, I predict more focus on analog and cross-channel programs, and maybe less on pure digital campaigns.

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