B2B CMOs Need a New Marketing Operating Model
If you do not feel a sense of urgency around changing your marketing operating model, it’s probably time to start feeling the burn.
First, let’s state the obvious: The B2B marketing landscape has changed, and it will continue to change—that’s a given. The marketing resource paradox of “doing more with less” will always be a hurdle, too. But the ecosystem is more challenging than ever before, thanks to a perfect storm of contributing factors.
What's Changing?
Among the strongest are economic uncertainty, rapid technological changes, fluctuating labor market dynamics, and a shift in how buyers gather and share information.
Recent marketing software trends—including AI, machine learning, blockchain, and IoT—are completely reshaping industries. B2B companies must invest in these technologies to stay competitive, enhance operational efficiency, and offer innovative products and services. All this means your marketing team might require new skills that may not exist yet in your business.
Marketing investment levels, meanwhile, are constantly fluctuating given recent socioeconomic conditions. Buyers find it easier to gather and exchange information, creating a highly competitive marketing software sales process. Slashed marketing budgets are also leaving many companies with bloated teams with no resources to execute their visions.
These factors have all collided to form a strange world, creating new touch-points in addition to the tried-and-true ones. And it’s clear stopgap solutions aren’t going to cut it.
So, let’s just say it: We have to throw out our old ways of dealing with this evolving B2B landscape. Something has to change in your organization. And, spoiler alert, it’s your marketing operating model.
It's actually easier and far more simple than you might think to implement this overhaul. When you view this change-up as an opportunity to reinvent your marketing program, you open yourself up to a whole new world of possibilities.
3 Paths to Transforming Your Marketing Operating Model
Here are three ways to getting creative about changing your marketing operating model.
1. Cultivate A New Ecosystem
Once you see the imbalances in your organization, you can’t unsee them. But you can do something about them. Stop looking for programs and technologies to cut, and start looking at your marketing ecosystem.
It’s a balance of not just competencies—people, knowledge, systems, tools, and capabilities—but also processes. Changing your marketing model by incorporating marketing-as-a-service (MaaS) solutions can create a healthier marketing ecosystem. These solutions take the burden of routine tasks off your team, hand them off to specialized experts, and create more space for your marketing team to do what they do best.
2. Rethink Marketing Roles
We’ve established that the traditional marketing business is over. That means you need to look across your organization at how work can be done differently.
There will always be essential functions that are more execution-focused—like email marketers and marketing automation specialists—but we know they require a specific set of skills and see high churn because there’s often little room for growth.
So, what if you could still retain the specialized expertise of these functions, but at nearly half the cost? This is where outsourcing comes in.
Integrating a MaaS operating model into your strategy means bringing in experts trained and certified in these areas, without the need for hiring, training, and oversight. This can augment your team, empowering the people you have by freeing them up from repeatable tasks you can standardize. Your in-house team gets to zero in on what makes you stand out, while certified, already-trained professionals identify and integrate siloed martech tools, standardize processes, perform ongoing maintenance, and offer scalability—all while reducing your labor costs by about 50%.
3. Finally, Lead Change Through Innovation
Another prime place to look for an overhaul is your marketing culture. Fostering an atmosphere that encourages innovation isn’t just good for morale; it sets up your organization to be nimble and flexible—key for an industry that shows no signs of slowing its rapid evolution.
If there’s no time for your marketing team to learn, play around, and run pilots, you’ll never keep up with the changes. Use marketing automation software to offload more routine delivery and execution activities. This enables your team of marketers to be more inventive; they can experiment and see to fruition big-picture ideas that validate marketing as a growth driver for the business.
And then there’s the issue of a workforce like never before. Cohorts from four generational groups (Baby Boomers, Gen. Z, Gen. X, and Millennials) have created cultural challenges for B2B marketing leaders, who now need to creatively cater to a very diverse range of needs.
Hiring dynamics, too, have shifted, influenced by remote work trends, talent shortages, and changing workforce expectations. Being a visionary in how you attract and retain top talent, foster an inclusive workplace, and upskill employees is critical for your company’s long-term success.
Marketing leaders must provide continuous learning opportunities and invest in professional development programs that cater to all generations. However, they must also allow employees the time to engage in these opportunities for lifelong learning and growth. Outsourcing can unburden the marketing team and allow for the professional development these varied in-house workers crave and deserve.
Time to Shake Up Your Marketing Operating Model
It’s clearer than ever that a shakeup to the traditional B2B marketing model is the way forward.
But an overhaul isn’t out of reach—in fact, a transformation is closer than you may think. By taking a holistic look at your marketing ecosystem, rethinking organizational roles, and fostering a culture of innovation, you set yourself up for reinvention and a sustainable future in an ever-changing landscape.
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