Everybody’s feeling it right now.
“This year we gotta get back to growth!”
And for many teams that means 50% to 200% growth.
2023 was tough, but most of us got a pass if we survived. Mediocre growth was acceptable.
But the bar is higher in 2024. Way higher.
Here’s the kicker though:
Most companies are thinking it will just sort of come back.
It’s as if they’re saying: Macro stuff will improve, we’re making some tweaks and the team will hustle hard.
Really?
That’s how you’ll double?
Some believe they got a trick up their sleeve:
- “No no, we’re adding some budget”
- “Don’t forget about the product enhancements”
- “We’re finally filling this key role – that’ll be a major unlock”
Or the marketing-specific stuff some will point to:
- “This new campaign will crush”
- “We’re updating the website”
- “Lots of content on the way”
Sometimes we’re just talking to ourselves. It can happen to the best of us. But we gotta get real.
By the way, the results for this quarter are already pretty much set.
For some, same with next quarter.
So… what will it really take to hit this year’s growth targets?
This is where most newsletters would conveniently shoehorn in whatever they sell.
We’re not completely innocent over here at Elevate Demand in this regard, but this is what we objectively believe are the main growth prerequisites for this kind of situation in B2B marketing:
A shared understanding across Leadership about the primary way the company will actually grow this year.
This is a key part of the new role of the marketing leader.
You are now responsible for leading the conversation at the Leadership level about how the company is going to grow at any given stage.
Growth is a team sport. With Leadership pulling in the same direction, Marketing is basically trying to play hero ball.
A strong narrative that puts words to what buyers might have already been sensing about a shift in their world.
Sure, you need product positioning and messaging about the value your company provides.
But if your growth target is 2X or 3X, there has to be a bigger story that moves more buyers more quickly.
Firing up campaigns and other marketing initiatives without the foundation of a narrative will only produce incremental or linear growth – at best.
A clear path to getting this narrative in front of buyers beyond a homepage headline or the sales deck.
This part gets missed all the time. The expensive consultants don’t solve it.
When we finally get the narrative right, how does it come to life? How do you make sure enough of your buyers actually absorb it?
You must have some other meaningful way to consistently get that narrative in front of buyers so they can have that aha moment.
Look, we can talk about all kinds of initiatives to drive growth.
We can listen to all the “go-to-market” talk out there. All the experts.
But without checking the three boxes above, there will be a lot of spinning without much winning.
That’s what happens.
But we don’t want to see hard-working marketers getting closer to the second half of the year and realizing they’re screwed.
We’re all gonna be so busy executing. That’s important.
It’s just that our quarterly, monthly and weekly execution will be much more of an uphill battle without the right foundation. And that will lead to some rough days.
For some, it will be a lot easier said than done to nail 1-3 above, and we get that.
But we all know what the punchline is here:
If we want different results, we’ll need different behavior.
Before we rush into more campaigns, more content, more ads and “more, more, more” in an attempt to catch up to these targets, let’s at least assess where we are relative to these prerequisites and find a way to dig in.
We’re here to help.
Your partners in growth at Elevate Demand