Saas Marketer - B2B Marketers Are Feeling the PRESH

Hey,

How’s it going everyone? I thought I use today’s intro to tell the quick story of how Tom hired me (Sam) to be the writer for SaaS Marketer Weekly:

So there I was strolling down Birmingham New Street train station (I live around there, don’t try to find me because I will dox you - I’ll dox you so hard), taking in the ginormous architecture and looking into the huge, transparent roof as the rain crashed into it in a fervorous tantrum. I walked through crowds of people, swishing in and out, until suddenly I heard an angelic, mellifluous sound coming from the station’s big white, public piano. I looked across the building and saw, sat at the instrument, none other than Tom flipping Hunt. 

I couldn’t believe my eyes. How could such a strange looking man in custom-made, men’s leggings produce such a wonderful sequence of noises? It just didn’t make sense.

My awed state didn’t last very long, however. Turns out that it wasn’t even Tom playing - it was the guy sitting there before him. I then watched him smash each individual black and white key, playing something which I can only describe in one very simple, but effective, three letter word: bad. It was just plain bad.

Anyway, I went up to him to tell him to stop on behalf of everyone else in the vicinity, and when I did the strangest thing happened. He looked up at me, glaring with one slightly crazed eye (imagine Forest Whitaker) and said: ‘Congratulations, you’ve got yourself a job as a writer for SaaS Marketer Weekly.’

The sun gleamed through, suffusing the entirety of the building now. I didn’t know what to say, and I ended up blurting out, ‘What the fuck?’

B2B Marketers Are Feeling the Pressure Like Never Before

😨 PRESSURE! PUSHING DOWN ON ME! PUSHING DOWN ON YOU!

It’s getting intense for B2B marketers, according to a new report from B2B marketing solution provider Anteriad. The pressure to keep proving ROIs (Return on Investment… if you’re reading this you probably already know that. I’m not assuming you don’t but it’s better to be safe than sorry) is starting to get too much, especially when budgets don’t seem to be at all in line with these growing expectations (we’ll get into the budget reasoning in a bit). 

Apparently, only 16% of the B2B marketers surveyed said they saw an increase in this year’s marketing budget, with 19% saying their budget had actually been cut! To make matters worse, 41% said they feel more pressure this year; 27% said that it was beginning to get overwhelming; and 14% said it makes them want to pull their hair out. 

Not good, is it?

🖥️ Too Much Reliance on Automation… 

Automation can be a very, very good thing - don’t get me wrong. It can make our lives easier and cut out a lot of the time-consuming (albeit easy and necessary)  hard work that needs to be done in any business, whether you’re a B2B marketer, an IT guy, or a shop-owner. The problem with it however comes in the form of our human tendency to over-rely on these technologies, and our inability to remember that it doesn’t work as well if the data we feed it isn’t completely accurate. 

Automation should be nothing more than a tool, something that we can use to help us so long as we’re utilising it in the best way possible. That means we need to put in the time and effort to wield it responsibly, and not blindly trust that it’ll do what we need it to do which has become a growing trend in the B2B and SaaS marketing world.

In fact, 13% of marketers say that they don’t feel very confident in their data - a small percentage to be sure, but still significant.

📉 Recession Pending… Oh no

Look, ever since the pandemic (not to mention Brexit, Russia vs Ukraine, and a persistently polarised political climate in almost all Western countries) the economy has fallen into a somewhat murky patch. There seems to be constant talks about a recession and, whilst it hasn’t hit us yet, it feels like it’s only round the corner. So for businesses, it means they have way less money to spend, especially in the marketing department.

And yet B2B marketers are feeling the brunt of it. Everyone is rushing to get more business, and the marketers are the ones they turn to to make it happen. It’s an exponential amount of pressure to deal with and, quite frankly, it’s not a smart move. 

It’s actually quite dumb. 

So, so dumb.

If you’re a B2B business reading this, listen up: marketers aren’t fucking wizards. They can’t produce great results with less resources and poorly programmed automation - so get your shit together. Get it all together, sit down, and think smartly. Don’t overload your marketers and expect them to fix everything, because they will just leave you. 

Capeesh? 

​Read on the web >>

Copy of the Week:

This Copy of the Week comes from dbrand, the global leader in device customization! Their whole schtick is that they’re run by robots (they’re not, but it makes for some funny content), and they make sure each of their emails really plays into this. It’s a consistent bit which, at this point, has become a staple of their brand identity:

Thank you for reading! As always, let us know if you have any questions and we’ll be sure to answer it either directly or in the next email!

Keep growing,
SaaS Marketer Weekly

P.S. Believe it or not we’ve got our first ever bloody sponsor. I know, crazy, right? They’re called SaaStock and they’re offering you 20% off on tickets for their next event!

Ballsy of them to advertise on here… do they know what utter drivel I tend to write?