Two quick side stories for you: 

#1 When’s the right time to send an email?

We were sending this thing on Friday’s but it turns out Friday gets lower opens than earlier in the week.

Do you believe in benchmarks like this?

I do sometimes. But also I take them with a grain of salt. I feel like data comes out that says the best time to send an email is 1 PM on Thursday; next thing you know everyone is blasting off emails at that time and no one has the bandwidth to read your email.

#2 I finally got sick

Man, so I’ve been doing this whole cold water thing for a few months now (no one has had a bigger year than the cold plunge btw, talk about a viral sensation). Anyway: I’ve been doing cold showers, and talking so much trash to my friends and my wife about how it has helped my immune system. The kids have been sick, but I haven’t gotten sick.

Until this week. Boom. They got me. The nose. The headache. The chills. The fever.

But I’m on the recovery, and I guess I’ll have to upgrade from Cold Showers to Cold Plunge and see if that’s where the immune protection happens.

Alright let’s talk about marketing this week.

Be The Expert For Your Ideal Customer

If I had to pick just ONE strategy for B2B marketing, it would be this. If I had to sum it all up into one line:

Become the expert for your dream customer.

Don't be (just) a vendor. Be their go-to resource. Be the expert.

Customers will follow.

When I was a young marketing manager with no experience, I remember religiously following HubSpot's content.

I didn't have a peer group. I didn't have much experience.

But they were writing useful, practical content tailored to help me do my job.

- Here's how to build a budget

- Here's a framework for evaluating marketing bets

Things like that.

That content (quite literally) made me smarter at my job.

Gong helped reps get smarter about sales.

Drift taught a new way of doing marketing (chat vs. lead forms).

This strategy can work for selling into sales, marketing, HR, finance, product, engineering, etc.

Be the guide on your ideal customer's journey.

I am sure you have examples like this from your experience - the companies you have followed and actually learned from (vs just seeing their webinar promos).

Donald Miller’s great book Story Brand talks about the character (your customer) meeting the guide (you, the company) and I love that concept.

How can you be the guide that gives your customer the plan to help them avoid failure and be successful?

That’s the best B2B marketing playbook I know.

But, hey what do I know.

- Dave

P.S. Reply back and let me know if this story resonates with what you’re doing at your company (or if you have any other examples of what has worked for you)

🎧 Episode #116: Do you really want to be CMO? Returning from parental leave, what's working in B2B marketing today (with Amanda Natividad)

My guest on the world famous (in my own mind) Exit Five podcast is the great Amanda Natividad.

We caught up after Amanda's return to work after having her second child, talk about trends we are seeing in B2B marketing today and what Amanda's seen work at SparkToro (including email strategy and LinkedIn). Plus we talk about the path to CMO - and why Amanda enjoys being a team of one.

Listen to the Episode Now on Spotify

Or find it everywhere you listen by searching "Exit Five" podcast.

📺 Upcoming Event: How To Measure Your Marketing Efforts (open to all)

Marketing has existed for centuries. Yet, it still isn't easy to understand the impact of that investment on business outcomes.

On top of that now B2B marketing teams are getting less data on click and cookie tracking making understanding marketing performance even harder.

That's why on February 21st we're hosting an Exit Five Live session with Pranav Piyush, CEO and Co-founder of Paramark. Join us to learn how the best in B2B are adapting to this new reality of modern marketing.

Reserve your spot for this session

Join us in Exit Five

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