B2B marketing- a route to career success

This autumn the majority of senior roles I’ve worked on have been in the B2B space. I’ve managed a B2B Commercial Marketing Director process and a senior short term B2B Brand Consultant project recently and I’ve found both processes to be fascinating to work on and really show the breadth that a career in B2B Marketing has to offer.

I think there has been a bit of a shift over the last few years. Whereas B2B marketing was often seen as the poor relation to B2C, without the jazz and big budgets of the consumer brands, the B2B marketer has always had to rely on targeted and professional marketing that stretches a limited budget.

Within this space, marketing was often seen as a sales support function or heavily focused on events and communications, but over recent years I’ve seen a real shift in the perception of how marketing can transform B2B businesses and where marketing has a real impact in the commercial success of an organisation,.  

Take for instance my recent searches; both have focused on really understanding the end user, the company brand and the long-term business strategy.  Be that a CFO, CTO or CEO- the targeted marketing strategy, go to market and communications plans have relied heavily not only on the customer of course, but also undertaking all key stakeholder needs. Knowing what each C suite executive needs and what their pain points are and then delivering that, be that through better customer data and insight, market competitive propositions and products or services, all achieved with small budgets and an emphasis on highly targeted campaigns. I have been blown away by the quality of senior commercial and also creative marketers I’ve met who really deliver on this tough agenda.  

If you want a career that can encompass real commercial marketing, with exposure to data and insights, product, propositions, go to market plans, lead generation and communications then B2B marketing can offer you a wealth of well-rounded skills. A tip- before you make the leap, ensure the business understands the value add role of marketing and allows it to play a centralised role in delivering the overall business strategy.

These roles –often within scaling, successful entrepreneurial businesses, who operate on a global stage- are exciting and dynamic environments in which to work and where the B2B marketer can have real long term impact and career success.

For more information on findng a great B2B marketer or developing your career in this exciting space, contact me at fconstance@alternatives.ie