How to Achieve Outsized Outcomes with a Small B2B Marketing Team | Jordan Buning | EP 211

Christian Klepp, Jordan Buning

Jordan Buning  00:00

I think you know, the things that probably made this conversation happen in the first place are probably the first metrics you got to have. So it’s probably has something to do with revenue, and probably secondly, has to do with how quality they think the pipeline is filled with opportunities. Your initial metrics that would say this is working or not working. Really have to start there. And it may be two or three steps removed from some of the, you know, inside marketing measurements that that might be there, but at the end of the day, that’s what will kind of matter to them. And so what is, you know, the pipeline contribution looking like? What kind of opportunity creation rate is happening, revenue influence, those, those kinds of things, I think are components that that matter when we talk about revenue and pipeline is, are we actually contributing to the financial success of the organization.

Christian Klepp  00:57

With the rapid advancement of AI (Artificial Intelligence) machine learning, changing market dynamics, market uncertainty and more competition entering the ecosystem all the time. B2B Marketers are confronted with more challenges than ever before. Another one of those challenges includes tightened budgets and even tighter deadlines. With this in mind, how can B2B Marketing teams achieve more with less and still deliver exceptional outcomes. Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers on the mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp, today I’ll be talking to Jordan Buning, who will be answering this question. He’s the principal and Senior Account Executive at DDM Marketing and Communications who’s committed to doing great things with incredible people inside and outside the company. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B Marketers Mission is. Okay? Mr. Jordan Buning, welcome to the show, sir.

Jordan Buning  01:48

Thank you. Appreciate you having me.

Christian Klepp  01:50

Really looking for this conversation, Jordan. Not like man, I should have recorded the last couple of conversations that we had that, in itself, should have been the episode already, right? But I’m, I’m really looking forward to this conversation. You know, I had a great chat with your colleague, Joanne. And you know, we’re going to talk about a topic today that you and I both know it. It keeps coming up, and you ask 50 people out there, and they’ll give you 50 different answers to this question, right? So let’s, let’s just dive right in. I’m going to say you’re on a mission to help B2B companies deliver high impact marketing campaigns that drive measurable results. But I’d like to focus on this following topic for today’s conversation, and we’ve got plenty to unpack from this one, how small marketing teams can optimize campaigns to reduce waste and achieve outsized outcomes, probably I should highlight bold italic, underline that outsized outcomes, because that one’s going to be the interesting one. Let’s kick off the conversation with the following question, so I’m happy to repeat so why do you think many B2B organizations are spending less on their marketing efforts and shortening the timelines in which teams need to deliver results? And based on those constraints in your experience, where have you seen many marketing teams struggle?

Jordan Buning  03:15

But you’re right. There’s a there’s a lot there, and trying to consolidate all of my thoughts down is a unique challenge. But, you know, I think part of it is not that marketing is losing importance sometimes in various circumstances, be it budgetary otherwise, but it’s more about the pressure of reshaping how it gets evaluated. There is a lag, I think in terms of how a lot of individuals perceive the importance in the in the contribution that marketing makes to the organization’s goals and ultimately to its bottom line. So if it’s disconnected, it becomes a variable, and a variable that, while maybe nobody is really wishing for, it sometimes becomes minimized or expendable, and therefore it’s really kind of a big push. And there’s certainly a variety of things that may be driving that. It could be their own, economic uncertainties, their market has changed. Therefore they’re making their adjustments. They’re managing risk. When they’re doing some of those kinds of things they may not necessarily see again that relationship between what they’re attributing to the bottom line. They may have measurements that are not aligned to show performance and not that it isn’t but they don’t have the data that’s that’s doing that and or they may even have a lag. They may have a lot of information, but it’s historical data, and present realities may be slightly different, and they don’t really have a way to connect to it. And then you’ve got a lot of other circumstances, like shift towards more immediate revenue. They may be saying, well, let’s just push out, let’s, let’s push more on. The sales side of this. Let’s work with partners, and let’s have them facilitate the process, and we’re going to get out of the sales and marketing role. Maybe what they say is, we’re going to park acquisition and we’re going to really go after account expansion. So those, those are all things that could be driving all of this. Then you throw in things like AI, where they might say, you know, it looks like there’s a lot of great tools out there. Why don’t we use more of those? Let’s use that to fill the gap where we maybe don’t have the resources that we once had. So those all become drivers in the whole situation. And somewhere in between is reality. One other thing, maybe, you know, a lot of organizations, depending on where they are, probably got where they were without maybe marketing being one of the primary drivers. Maybe they had a great engineering solution. They’re a great production organization, and maybe even a great selling organization. But marketing hasn’t been something that has necessarily been invested in as great they got there in their minds through other things. And so there’s suddenly a shift in terms of how to reconcile the value that marketing is contributing to the whole thing. And so it’s both an opportunity and a challenge. Obviously, in the moment, it’s it’s difficult and it’s painful. But those are, those are some of the circumstances that are kind of going on then based on constraints, where do we think marketing teams struggle? I had to remind myself of the question, so I wrote it down. If I were to zoom zoom out, I think the core struggle is, is somewhat capability and capacity. But it’s really kind of more the issue of time horizon that they might be running into, depending on what the issues are that are getting brought up. There could be a bit of a strategy whiplash where, you know, they had a plan, and the best laid plan has gone to waste, and there’s suddenly kind of a push towards a very different effort. And so the investment now is getting either tabled or stalled and and suddenly they’re they’re wanting to switch horses and go to a different direction. And obviously, from a marketing standpoint, that fear is great. We’ve got lots of activity. We’re doing a bunch of other things. We feel good about that. The other side of it is there’s a cost to losing that momentum of where you were going before. And how do you how do you kind of reconcile that? And then, how do you avoid continuing to have strategy change after strategy change along the way? Those are the things that really could create constraints out of very small marketing teams, maybe a team of one, maybe an outsourced resource, those things all get really kind of challenging, over reliance on performance, metrics and tactics. So you know, specifically, getting into things that seem to have the most immediate ROI, let’s just go after the search campaign conversions. Let’s go after some other things that are low funnel without maybe reconciling the understanding that you’re you’re doing that sometimes at the expense of the things that that that initiate things into the funnel as well, and so, you know, maybe creating a bit of a short term bump, but at the expense of long term success as well. So that’s a challenge. Confusion with sales, sales and marketing forever being sometimes perceived as opposing parties. So you know, again, I think this, this idea of we just need better leads, we just need more quality, whatever, faster kind of a thing, as opposed to, let’s, let’s be very team minded and intentional in terms of working together. Measurement paralysis, that’s a that’s another one that can happen where everybody’s got data, and you’re overwhelmed with that data, and you get so focused looking into rear view mirror, you’re losing track of the direction you’re supposed to be going all along. And then you get into some things like short term wins versus long term growth, and a very inconsistent narrative in terms of what you’re trying to talk about. And so, you know, I think those are, those are all kind of contributing factors that some organizations really have to wrestle with is it’s great to be responsive and reactive to real circumstances, and everybody knows how to hold a plan loosely. But what are the trade offs in being able to shift from having a strategy and then and then suddenly realizing there needs to be an adjustment. They get very eager and excited about creating a lot of energy. That energy is great, but that energy may not be harnessed in such a way that it’s actually going anywhere. So you’re feeling good about the activity and the responsiveness, but you might be trading one problem. Problem for another if you don’t have that clarity together as a team. And so I think it’s this, this thing that often we all talk about of like, go slow to go fast, is really an opportunity that that is presenting itself in a situation like that, like, before we move off of the solve this problem in a particular way, let’s pause and make sure we all know what we’re trying to do here and being able to accomplish that.

Christian Klepp  10:25

Absolutely, absolutely. Thanks for sharing all of that that was a lot like within the past couple of minutes. I wanted to go back to something like you touched on it a little bit in the beginning, but it’s certainly been my experience, and I’m curious to see how it’s been over on your end. Do you think that a lot of these constraints, I mean, certainly a lot of it has to do with market dynamics, and, as you said, like the introduction of AI and machine learning? But do you also feel, I mean, we’re talking about B2B here, right? And a lot of these big companies, whether it’s in health care or manufacturing or chemicals or whatever. When you have a meeting, you know, you have these this meeting with senior management or the board of directors, marketing is not always the first thing that comes to mind. And I say that with a heavy heart being a marketer, but you know, you got to face the music, right? That’s the reality of it. Do you feel that a lot of times, especially with small marketing teams, the reason why they’re they’re having to navigate these challenges is because people within the organization, A don’t quite understand what marketing is, and B, they don’t quite understand why they should care.

Jordan Buning  11:41

Yes, I definitely would agree with you. And I think it’s, it’s sometimes an educational problem, and sometimes it’s a self imposed problem, right, you know? And I think, I think on the to your point, it can be perceived as it looks easy, or, you know, it’s easy to get educated or feel knowledgeable about it’s, it’s viewed, sometimes more, as a an art form and very subjective, as opposed to a science and driven based on actual performance activities and and good strategy. And then, I think the marketers ourselves, sometimes unintentionally, have done that to ourselves. We’ve we’ve gotten very excited about a lot of things, maybe trends that are happening. Maybe we are just tied to the thrill of a great creative hook or message or whatever, and we miss the connectivity to the business itself. And you know, with that in mind, you just become an outer ring in some of the core things that the organization is doing and and, you know, the other part of it is sometimes your role could get perceived just as as responsible for help getting leads, as opposed to, hey, marketing’s responsibility is to be a part of probably a lot of the ecosystem. Not only do we help acquire, we help keep. We help create an experience. We help create an experience for our employees and so on and so forth. So, you know, I think, I think there’s, there’s shared responsibility, sometimes, certainly, a world that’s evolving. I think it’s getting better. I think, I think marketing has developed a more present seat in the C suite and leadership conversations, which is, which is positive, plenty of runway to go yet. But then there’s, there’s marketing themselves making sure that, hey, these things that we do, are they aligned and connected to all of the things that are happening that the organization cares about, are their goals, our goals, as opposed to, hey, we’ll just increase likes and shares and so on. Those are all good numbers for marketing. Maybe they don’t equate to the business, and therefore we sometimes shut ourselves outside of that conversation, as opposed to, you know, maybe how they perceive us.

Christian Klepp  14:08

Absolutely, absolutely. I had another Golden Apple for you, but I’m gonna, like, save that one for later on in the conversation, moving on to the next question, just based on everything that you’ve said, and, you know, we are talking about how smaller teams can optimize campaigns, what are some of these key pitfalls you would say they need to avoid and to keep it constructive, we also need to talk about what they should be doing instead.

Jordan Buning  14:36

You know, one of the things as I thought about that question was, really, you know, we often look at as a capacity. Are we just running a few people ragged? And there could be some truth to that. But I think the greater risk would be just, are we going about it in all the wrong ways? Right? There is a sense of urgency. We go running out of the room. We want to help. So, but by by nature of our activity and or the group’s conversation that we’re having, we actually could unintentionally just be creating an added level of chaos to the chaos that’s there. And so some of those pitfalls could be chasing immediate pipeline and ignoring the long term gain, and so you know, it’s it’s a both end strategy that we’re trying to educate on and maintain is, hey, how do we make sure we answer the bell on some of the more immediate issues that are going on, but that we also don’t do it at the expense of the long term importance and success of this organization as well. Another one is constant strategic repositioning, if what we do is go after some of the more immediate things, and that could be looking like a sale or a sale price, or something else that’s commodifies the product and service that they offer, that might get them a bump in the moment, but is that the identity that the organization and its products really want to be known for, and so it it may do damage to its long term narrative, depending on how some of the messaging comes out at that time as well. I think there’s a risk of over complicating what you’re trying to do. And I think that’s something that’s stuck in my mind. I’m, I’m probably, by nature, an over simplifier, or a simplifier, I should say. And I think there’s a, there’s a risk of of throwing a lot of things on the menu, looking at them as, like, 1000 bets. And you know, at least one of these bets is going to turn into something so, you know, it’s it feels like good activity. People feel good that there’s a response that’s happening. But it may be such a scatter, and it may so minimize the level of effort on a variety of different things, you know that it just minimizes the challenge that’s going on. And I think indirectly, in doing that, you also may broaden the gap and divide between yourself and marketing and some of the other groups, including sales. So hey, we’re going to go do this thing, and we feel really good about it. Maybe it even does the thing that we think it should do. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t really satiate some of the other drivers and motivators that they have. And so suddenly you’ve really got this, this growing divide, as opposed to a closing divide in terms of what’s going on. And so, you know, I think those all become kind of risks in this whole thing. And then, you know, maybe, maybe the last thing being taking risks on things you haven’t done before. So suddenly it’s, well, let’s, let’s try this technology solution. Let’s, let’s, let AI do a thing for us, or whatever. And when it’s most critical, you’re moving away from the things that you can believe in and trust the most, and you’re throwing a few Hail Mary sound down the field, it could be a risk that is of too great for the organization, as opposed to, hey, what are some fundamental things that we can really hone in on? What is maybe more how we narrow our efforts into much more focused activities and energies, and what are our best executions. So, you know, I think, I think with the best of intentions, and I’m sure I’m as guilty as anybody at times in my past of, let’s create a lot of activity potentially. You know, that’s the pressure you’re feeling. The real answer may be, how do we stop enough to create clarity? Really reset our pathway to what we need to accomplish, and then what’s the most, smartest and most effective way to get there?

Christian Klepp  18:48

Absolutely, absolutely. I almost feel like sometimes us, marketers were guilty of like, okay, let’s just, let’s just try everything, or, or, some teams, and, you know, I’ve certainly worked with some of them in the past, they get pressure, and especially in B2B, they get pressure from higher ups saying, Well, you know, I saw something on Sunday, you know, like there was this video. So why don’t we do a why don’t we do a video, right? Why don’t we, why don’t we get on tiktok? And I had a briefing, and I shall not disclose the name of the client, but I we had a briefing many years ago where a client said, um, we want you to create a viral video for us, and to which I said, like, with all due respect that you don’t get to decice that..

Jordan Buning  19:34

Yeah, let’s, let’s make magic, right?

Christian Klepp  19:36

Let’s make magic. And I can say, I can say, with confidence, we, walked away from that and said, you know, we can’t help you. We walked away from that. And, you know, unscathed.

Jordan Buning  19:47

It’s the hardest thing to do sometimes, right? But it is wise at times to recognize that.

Christian Klepp  19:53

Well and I’m sure you’ll agree, you’ll agree with me when I say this. I mean, like, you know, we’ve, we’ve been in this business for a bit, but. Um, it’s sometimes necessary to tell the client that, okay, you’re, you’re asking us to do something for you, and I’m gonna, like, disagree with what you’re asking us to do, because we believe, to our core that that’s not in your best interest, right? And it’s and it’s and it’s difficult to have that conversation. I’m sure you’ve had many of them, right?

Jordan Buning  20:24

Sure, but you’re, but you’re right. It’s, you know, you’re paying for our candor, yeah. And I think you know, the risk would be, you know, arrogance. But I think for the most part, I think with with the relationship that you’re trying to build and forecasting that at times, that that can be a healthy thing too, and even if it’s a little challenging or impassioned, hopefully there’s a there’s a point where you can reconcile some of those things. But I agree with you, there’s there’s a time and a place.

Christian Klepp  20:54

There’s a time and a place. Absolutely, this next question is going to sound a little bit like table stakes to you, but man, I have worked with a lot of teams where that wasn’t very clear. The importance of having a deep understanding of who your target groups are, and I’m gonna say plural, because it’s never, it’s never just one group and B2B, and an understanding of their of their buyer’s journey. All right, talk to us about that.

Jordan Buning  21:20

Yeah, I think, I think there’s a variety of things that really popped up as I thought about that particular category and there to your point, it’s a complex group. And yet, I think this is also really a time where precision is important, when you start looking at urgent shifts and that kind of a thing. And so not to eliminate groups, necessarily, but hey, if we need to prioritize, how do we, how do we prioritize some of these things along the way? And one of the other things that was tied to this as well as I think sometimes when the client feels a sense of urgency, there can be pressure on the time it takes to to be clear about some of these things. And one of the things is challenged us to do is, hey, we’re not going to skip that step, but maybe we can come up with, uh, you know, not a strategy that takes weeks and months, but maybe we just need to develop a sprint session together, and that’s really forced us to be a little more streamlined ourselves. Don’t skip the step, but let’s make sure we have a smart way of creating some clarity around those things. And so that’s a little bit of a learning curve that we’ve we’ve worked our way through is, hey, sometimes you get, you know, the strategy is the project, and a lot of times the strategy is necessary component to get to the goals and the outcomes that they have. And so one of the things that I first jotted down was this idea of precision beats volume. And so it’s this, Hey, how do we create clarity in terms of where’s our best best focus, best energy? How do we target where the real pain is to get the best value? How do we prioritize high propensity accounts and opportunities and those kinds of things along the way. So that was kind of step one. Let’s make sure we’ve got some clear clarity around the focus of that. And then don’t confuse the buying committee as well. To your point, it’s like you could have leadership C suite. You’re going to have probably a finance person involved. You might have procurement. You might have the end user. Those are all very different drivers and motives in that whole thing. And so I think making sure we have clear lanes on some of that, so we don’t muddy this into such a chaotic thing, we forget that they have to want this product along the way. So I think there’s, there’s importance to that. And again, a lot of times that comes back to that early stage of a sprint. How do you then align messaging to decision stages? You know, I think we all wrestle with this, this whole thing. They’re gonna love it as soon as they hear it.

Christian Klepp  23:58

Oh yeah,

Jordan Buning  23:59

Right away. And, you know, I think, I think that’s important. Back to your, your buyer’s journey conversation again, to kind of say, hey, how do we, how do we move through a series of stages of experience, where first they they become aware of it, then they learn to engage with it and be well informed about what it can do. See reinforcement, see the data that supports it, and those things happen in timely phases. And so this right place, right time, right message component is critical to a lot of the sequencing that happens. And you know, we’re all guilty of periodically thinking this will be a one call, close type of interaction, when, in reality, the decision making is probably going the other direction over time. They’re risk averse. They’re not going to make wild decisions. They’re probably going to have multiple players of approval. They’re going to have other players in consideration often. In as well. And that’s just a reality that I think the world has to be more and more prepared for as we lose expertise and knowledge, as people retire and those kinds of things, people are going to go to the internet and these other places to begin the research process all over again. And so it will, it will take a very different approach to being able to do that. And then a few other things that I noted is, you know, again, just continuing to to build that sales and marketing alignment. What are the who is that primary audience? Does everybody agree? Do we all see the journey the same? Are we? Are we hitting that prospect with the right things at the right time, and then how do we make sure that we’re continuing to protect long term equity, and what we’re trying to do as well? So, you know, it’s it’ll continue to stay fairly important, and so even as the process may becomes faster in some of these situations, because the circumstances demand it. Skipping the steps is probably the way to get off off track. And so really kind of helping everybody stay focused, stay purposeful, be clear on the targets are still things that I think are Immutables in making changes.

Christian Klepp  26:17

Yeah, absolutely, you know, and I have this conversation with marketers a lot like, I always highly encourage them, like, you know, have you sat have you sat in on sales calls back in the day, when I was starting out, I had to go out into the field with the sales people, right as an observer, so I’m just like the fly on the wall there, right, but listening to the way that they would present the company’s products and solutions to the prospect, how they would handle the objections and the concerns and whatnot of the of the of said prospect, and if there was an issue there. Okay, so how can we, how can we address that? Because it’s not always necessarily the salesperson’s fault, per se, right? And it’s, it’s that whole concept of, like, the way that we’re going to make this work is if we do it together, right? And having that good relationship, or having that close relationship with the sales people, I think, is a vital component of that, right? Because otherwise, like, like you said, it’s going to be, it’s going to be like, everything is in silos, and marketing is gonna, like, develop all these, these messages in isolation, and it’s not gonna work.

Jordan Buning  27:26

Doesn’t say anything, you know, or whatever they might observe about the materials. But you’re right. I think if it’s more of a partnership and mutual education of the other I think there’s, there’s a lot more potential for for exponential outcomes as opposed to siloed solutions?

Christian Klepp  27:43

Yep, absolutely. All right, I’m going to ask you two sets of questions here, and there’s plenty to unpack, so just take a deep breath, right? Because, um, this next question is about how small teams can leverage constraints to drive that clarity, that alignment and focused execution. So what are the steps that they need to take? What are some of those critical components that they need to throw into the mix?

Jordan Buning  28:08

A few things that we’ve already talked about, but I think are worth repeating. You know, as far as key steps for small groups, I think ruthlessly defining who I think it can become much easier to start focusing on yourselves. And, you know, navel gazing, if you will. And so I think continuing to really think about, who is that ideal client? What do they need? What’s the problem we’re solving is really important. And that’s really the second one of clarify the core problem. You know, what urgent, high values thing are we really focused on, especially if the pressure is on right now, right who is it? What’s the context? How do we, how do we make sure that we’re really focused on them in terms of what we do, and then, what are the most important priorities that surround that? And again, I think really just making sure we narrow in, we don’t, we don’t dilute but, but we do focus. And so I think there is going to be even a necessary conversation that might say, hey, you know, we, we have an opportunity of, you know, this broad audience group, but who is our best and strongest environment, what are the best efforts that we can put forward towards helping them and supporting them? Then I said, Build one narrative platform. Not many campaigns. I think we’ve come out of a world at times where, hey, we do quarterly campaigns or whatever kind of a thing. And so, you know, we look, use it, use it like Kleenex, and kind of move to another one and another one. And I think in the era that we’re in, because of the diversity of tools, and therefore the types of interactions that people have, building more of a platform of, Hey, what is. This offering that we have, how does it align to the individual? What are the core individual messages that we have? It still gives you a lot of latitude for mixing some of those pillars and those messages together. I quite often will illustrate to clients that as we’re developing positioning and different pillars. I almost look at it like a soundboard in a recording studio where, hey, you’ve got all these knobs and buttons to push, and depending on the application and the moment of interaction and those kinds of things, we can turn up and turn down those core components and create a lot of different attributes and experiences around that whole thing, but there’s still the same core things. And so if anybody feels like, you know, as we narrow a little bit, that it’s going to get boring, I think it’s actually just the opposite. It creates a much richer experience, but it’s all much more coordinated as well. So I think that’s, I think that’s very much an opportunity, is make sure there’s a there’s a platform approach creates a lot more consistency, a lot more longevity, and therefore a lot more opportunity to stick over time with the audience that you’re trying to reach. And then, I think you know metrics, as we, as we continue to talk about metrics, make sure that we have a shared way to evaluate what we’re doing, and is it, is it working? And there’s, there’s a lot of different metrics that can go into that. And then I think it’s, you know, keep, keep the cycle tight. Once things are are in the marketplace, how do we continue to be able to circle back with regularity to say, What? What is this getting us? Is this doing the thing? And is it? Is it a thing we can reinvest in, or it is an adjustment that we can work our way through, but continuing to be able to do that in as close to real time as you can, so that that you’re working together, you know, you’d hate to kind of disappear for 90 days, show back up and then say, hey, look, it didn’t work, or vice versa. And I think it just allows, again, a much more team minded approach to being able to do this, or at least being able to share status and that kind of a thing, depending on what’s going on. Yeah.

Christian Klepp  32:15

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, especially as marketers, you never want to give people the impression that you’re that you’re running an art studio here, you know, you lock yourself up there for two weeks, and then I’m, you know, I’m working on my masterpiece. It’s not quite done yet, right? Yeah, it’s, it really needs, does need to be a two way street. Because, you know, you can attest to this. And I’ve, you know, I’ve gone through plenty of campaigns as well, where it almost becomes this, this weekly check in, sometimes, depending on the client, right? Sometimes it’s bi weekly, right? But okay, so this is how it’s going. This is, this is the progress so far. This is where we’re seeing some obstacles, and this is how we’re planning to address those, right? So, so it’s continuously evolving. It’s, it’s, I think you brought it up earlier. It’s an ecosystem. Yeah, yeah. Very much, very much. I agree, yeah. All right, so here comes the question of the hour. So with the reality of tight budgets and even tighter deadlines, marketing teams need to be more resourceful and agile. So this is one of those like, what would you do situations, right? So, Jordan, if you had a smaller marketing team and the senior management only gave you 90 days to deliver results, what would you do? So talk us through the process and what approach you would use, what initiatives you’d implement?

Jordan Buning  33:37

Well, somewhat similar to our own process, we have something we call the DDM way, and in the first phase of that starts with listening and understanding. And so I had written down a phase for this that would be diagnose and focus in a situation like this. Again, I think this goes slow to go fast, mindset where you can kind of identify the best path, analyze the pipeline and have those conversations and get aligned with sales. I think those are the core components that have to be there. Or I think you’re going to continue to be battling the execution side of things down the road. And so I think phase one is very foundational, of really diagnose focus. Phase two, I said, activate, you know, your focus revenue engine. So precision, precision over scale, I think, is really the thing that you’ve heard me say a number of times is, you know, who are we targeting? Is it almost account based, focused or something similar? You know, what strengthen our conversion assets? We’ve been talking a little bit about that in terms of, what are those best tools? Are they case studies? Are they white papers? Are they various other sheets that need to get created, then building that platform, you know, and again, it may get executed as a campaign still, but you know, your platform has has more of a longer life. To it, and then optimize the channels that you’re using and really making sure you’re doing all the right things that are there. And then, I think, once you’ve got it in the market, the last phase of this whole thing is double down and then optimize or amplify at that point. So we’re big believers in terms of setting up some some things that you can see regular metrics and performance on. And then we usually will talk with our clients as well about, hey, what are the things we need to talk about if we’re going to make a change? And what are the things you should be expecting us just to go ahead and make adjustments on the fly that are supportive. And usually, if there are shifts in terms of approach or message or something we need to talk if it’s hey, let’s, let’s move our mixture of maybe a media placement or something like that within the budget we already have. Those are things they might expect us to go after and really make sure, you know, we’re keeping this thing optimized. And sometimes I respectfully describe our resources on the on the media side, is it’s almost like day traders. The tools are there. We should be paying attention on a regular basis, looking at performance and then optimizing for them, when and where we can along the way. And that’s the beauty of some of the digital tools that are out there. There’s, there’s always risks in over adjusting or or over manipulating, but I think there’s very much an opportunity for us to stay very up on on how everything is performing.

Christian Klepp  36:31

Fantastic, fantastic. So, all right, so we’ve got we’ve got the clarity, we’ve got the alignment, we’ve got the understanding of the target audience, and there and the buyer’s journey. And now you’ve laid out your plan for the 90 days, and now the board is going to say, well, you know, that’s all well and good, Jordan, but we need to see the ROI, right? What are we? What are we spending money on here? And I’m sure you’ve had that conversation before, because I’ve certainly have. And then what? So what I’m getting at here is like, what kind of metrics should these marketing teams be paying attention to to prove that whatever it is they’re implementing is working?

Jordan Buning  37:14

Yeah, I think you know, the things that probably made this conversation happen in the first place are probably the first metrics you got to have. So it’s probably has something to do with revenue, and probably secondly, has to do with how quality they think the pipeline is filled with opportunities. And so I think you know, your initial metrics that would say this is working or not working, really have to start there. And and it may be two or three steps removed from some of the, you know, inside marketing measurements that that might be there, but at the end of the day, that’s what will kind of matter to them. And so what is, you know, the pipeline contribution looking like? What kind of opportunity creation rate is happening, revenue, influence, those, those kinds of things, I think are components that that matter when we talk about revenue and pipeline is, are we actually contributing to the financial success of the organization? Then you can start dropping down and get closer and closer into some of your more specialty focused areas and that kind of a thing. I think then you get into stage, convergence leads to opportunities. Opportunities to proposals. Proposals closed one. I think, you know, those, those are very traditional funnels, and those are great, great things to have. I think those, those ladder up to some of the other things that we previously talked about, sales cycle length, maybe another one, win rates. Those are all really great things between sales and marketing to be able to say these things are starting to actually work. And then you get into things like efficiency rates and those kinds of things. Now you’re getting into probably platform specific performances, cost per opportunities, cost per clicks, cost, you know, so on and so forth. You’re probably getting into more marketing specific measurements. You could get all the way over to the brand side and start talking about, you know, messaging and market signals that you’re creating as well. Those are probably inside in your world. And there may be some ahas that you can really push, push back up to say, hey, giving you some forecasting here. Here’s what’s happening. People are starting to respond in this way to these particular messages. This is something that should be on our watch list, because it could be an opportunity. It could be a threat, you know, and a way it goes there as well. So it’s, it’s, it’s important to probably keep those things connected. But I think we have a tendency, and I know it’s we’ve been as guilty as anybody somewhere in our past, where you start from the bottom and you work your way up, and so you dazzle them with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) information and search statistics and social media information, and you have some. Be probably drumming their fingers across the table, kind of going, we’re bleeding money, or whatever the story could be, this isn’t meeting the conversation that we need to have. And so I think we need to start and meet them, and then be able to work our way down. And I think then, then the marketing connectivity, also, one of the things you and I talked about at the beginning will start to come back to them like, Oh, these guys understand what we’re motivated to do, and they’re now starting to contribute to the solutions that we’re trying to accomplish here. We’re on to something now. We’re a team. We’re not We’re not adversaries, trying to trying to find out who’s responsible for success or lack of so.

Christian Klepp  40:42

Absolutely, absolutely, and yeah, like you said, it boils down to, like, revenue and pipeline contribution, right? Like, yeah, everything else after that is probably secondary.

Jordan Buning  40:56

Well and again, we love to kind of show people some really neat things, but it’s, it’s kind of like, you know, if you just told me about barometric pressure, as opposed to, is it going to be stormy or is it going to be sunny today? It’s like, you know, you you need something that you can do something with, and I think you have to look at that leadership group with that in mind from a marketing standpoint.

Christian Klepp  41:18

So that’s it. Okay, here comes the soapbox question. So a status quo in your area of expertise that you passionately disagree with, and why?

Jordan Buning  41:32

Yeah, there’s, there was a couple different thoughts that were coming through my mind. And I think you know this idea that marketing exists just to, just to facilitate leads for a couple of different reasons. I think, I think it’s a means to an end that I think is, is a little limiting. It confuses the activity with the impact a little bit more. I think, you know, that’s that’s an element of something that, again, I’ll use the magic word of ecosystem. It’s a contributing ingredient, as opposed to something that’s done in isolation. And so, you know, certainly kind of wrestle with that a little bit more. I think the more we talk about it just being a responsibility to generate leads, the more we don’t leave room for the things that we know are critical ingredients, like brand you know, like the experience of working with the organization and or using the product. Those kinds of things could could really derail if all we have is all we want to do is acquire. That’s your only job. And you know, I think there’s a lot of organizations that are starting to realize we do a lot of work in healthcare. So that’s an example close to my mind where, you know, you can do a lot of work acquiring, but if we don’t do a great job of great giving them a great experience, even down to billing, especially in healthcare world, there, there is, there is, just, as you know, greater likelihood we’re going to need twice as many leads and opportunities if we keep losing them on the back end. And so I think marketing plays a more and more significant role in a number of fronts in terms of creating those experiences so that the not just the buyer’s journey, but the customer experience are accounted for in those things. And so it’s, I think it’s, it’s a it’s a good thing. We need to be responsible for that role. Certainly, if we don’t grow, there’s, there’s consequences. So we want to contribute to generating leads and generating new business. But I think it we need to be, hey, is marketing accounted for in a lot of the different components of of our organization? I think that’s a that’s a much more holistic mindset that organizations are doing more and more, you know, to their credit, yeah. So certainly don’t need to pick on them or anything like that. I think, I think the world is evolving just as much as the marketing discipline itself is absolutely,

Christian Klepp  44:03

I mean, it’s, it’s very multifaceted, right? Like in, in every, in every aspect, right? So it’s, it’s, it’s, yeah, perhaps a certain part of it is lead jump, but there’s so much more than that.

Jordan Buning  44:16

Yeah, I agree. There’s so many things, definitely you could, could label in there. But I think that’s, that’s probably the one is, is to be a more active participant in in everything the organization is doing is should be expected as much as they should be included.

Christian Klepp  44:34

Absolutely, absolutely, and also just to build on what you build on what you said, especially ever since I started out my career in marketing, it’s to get people, and this is part of the reason why I started the show. It’s to get people to understand people in a non marketing role, to understand that marketing does have a strategic role, right? And just because perhaps they don’t understand. And that right now, that doesn’t mean it should be ignored.

Jordan Buning  45:04

Totally agree.

Christian Klepp  45:07

Jordan, this has been a great conversation. Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your expertise and experience with the listeners. Please, quick introduction to yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you.

Jordan Buning  45:16

Sure. I’m Jordan Buning from DDM Marketing and Communications. Officially, I’m considered the visionary of the organization, if you know EOS, but also involved very heavily on sales and strategy with a lot of our clients. You can reach DDM at teamddm.com or my email address is jordanb@teamddm.com.

Christian Klepp  45:39

Fantastic, fantastic. And we’ll be sure to drop all that information in the show notes when the episode comes up. Sounds great once again. Jordan, thanks so much for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon.

Jordan Buning  45:54

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Christian Klepp  45:54

All right. Thanks. Bye for now.