Do you have Marketing-market fit?
Using the wrong type of marketing to the wrong market at the wrong time can do more damage than good. Here is how to avoid it.
Firstly, the LAST thing marketing needs is another fancy definition but stay with me… I feel compelled to unpack this one.
It’s becoming an uncomfortably common issue and frankly a blocker to growth for so many B2B SaaS companies.
It recently triggered me when a Founder asked “I heard XYZ company scaled their growth using Product-led Growth (PLG) - let’s just do that and scale!?”.
The reality was - their product, their buyer type, their use case and their market would make PLG messy & difficult since it didn’t have - Marketing-market-fit…
So what does Marketing-Market Fit (MMF) mean?
let’s first understand where the issue stems from.
One of the biggest issues in marketing starts with the definition of it.
Both the general meaning and how it’s applied in each company.
I’ve read 100’s of job descriptions and worked with +150 teams and they all seem to have their own definition of marketing.
The problem is, without a clear definition of what marketing is:
It’s impossible to execute on it.
Which means its incredibly hard to resource the right skills.
Which means it’s impossible to optimise and see results.
Which means there is a lot of wasted time & money throwing sh!t at walls and hoping something sticks.
What makes this issue so concerning is that marketing is essentially endless.
It extends to every part of the business.
In other words:
Marketing is how your organisation engages with the market.
So, short of building the product and internal admin,
‘doing marketing’ can mean ‘doing everything’…
When it comes to marketing:
This is what a marketer sees:
Go to market, product messaging, product positioning, buyer journey, unique value, table stakes value, brand awareness, social media, organic content, SEO, content marketing, email marketing, newsletters, customer segmentation, lead generation, inbound marketing, outbound marketing, referrals, webinars, case studies, website design, customer acquisition, brand loyalty, conversion rate optimization (CRO), affiliate marketing, email automation, onboarding flows, new release campaigns, new market research, customer experience, user-generated content, community building, influencer marketing, thought leadership, customer advocacy, brand storytelling, demand generation, account-based marketing (ABM), marketing analytics, A/B testing, competitive analysis, brand equity, paid media, cost per acquisition (CPA), lifetime customer value, omnichannel marketing, personalization, interactive content, video marketing, event marketing, marketing funnel, lead nurturing, public relations (PR), media buying, brand differentiation, sales enablement, retargeting, behavioural targeting, partnerships, lead scoring, brand consistency, and more.
Whereas non-marketers see:
Do marketing. Get leads. Don’t spend too much…
You can see the difference between these two POVs is where the problem lies.
In a perfect world, with infinite budgets and multiple specialists - it would be marvellous to do all the above:
Endless LinkedIn posts from experts that resonate and win buyer attention.
An army of influencers recommending quality buyers your way.
A flood of user generated content that drive trusted eyeballs to your product.
Ads backed by expert research that trigger all the right people to sign up.
A newsletter that nurtures and generates dozens of quality leads each week.
More quality market engagement - the better!
However, anyone who has ever heard of a ‘budget’ or ‘time’ knows doing all forms of marketing is reserved only for the giants like Apple, Atlassian, Netflix, Tesla, etc.
This is where Marketing-Market-Fit (MMF) comes into play.
Similar to Product-market-fit, Marketing-market-fit is about:
Focusing on what you CAN control
to align your value, messaging and channels to your buyer journey
for the greatest chance of buyer engagement & action
with the least amount of effort and costs.
In other words - Marketing optimisation.
In the (literal) millions of marketing options to invest in, 99.99% of companies must be selective to ones that most align to their buyers’ behaviour, with the least amount of friction and most amount of value possible.
For example:
Say you have a product that is helping large complex companies adopt ai faster.
Your target buyers may be CIOs in large multinational companies.
Which sounds like you may have a complex value proposition that needs to be explained to a small audience who might be hard to reach.
Which means running (say) short paid Instagram ads may not be very effective for direct lead gen.
However, creating in-person events and/or webinars with familiar industry experts to share their advice and educate them on ai might be highly fitting and attractive option to these CIOs to engage with.
It might be just the right channel and message to communicate the complex value you offer to build trust and start conversations with your ideal buyers.
The ‘marketing’ needs to make sense to the market…
When determining your MMF, there are a few factors you need to consider:
What stage (or maturity) is your company at?
Are you an early stage startup or a large company scaling across industries? If you are early in your journey and haven’t yet nailed the right messaging or proven a repeatable sales process, it would be more appropriate to be more hands on and ‘manual’ with your market engagement (as painful as that may sound!). Rushing too quickly toward marketing like scaling brand advertising (like the large orgs do) without first understanding your market’s needs and buying process might lead to wasted time/money scaling all the wrong things.
E.G. Early stage companies - Before a brand is widely recognised and their messaging is validated as clear and compelling, it pays to slow down and find what works manually and 1:1 with your buyers before ramping up marketing spend/efforts (E.g. Most startups).
E.G. Late stage companies - Promoting a familiar brand’s awareness using proven messaging on a proven buyer journey can be far more effective to manage at scale rather than 1:1 sales efforts (E.g. Amazon or Microsoft’s LinkedIn awareness ads).
How complex is your market’s buying process?
If you are selling to large multinational companies or governments, chances are they won’t necessarily accept signing up for a trial via a TikTok video (unlike say Monday.com could do for SMBs). Buying processes can range from quick trials paid by credit card, all the way up to lengthy procurement processes, multiple-stakeholder engagements and IT requirement checking. Some buyer processes might require more direct high-quality human intervention to build trust, instead of shortened product-focused transactions.
E.G. Simple Buying Process - Simple linear buying processes for companies with flatter approval structures who move fast (e.g. buying a Calendly subscription via credit-card gateway for freelancers, or small agencies).
E.G. Complex Buying Process - A buying process that requires allocated budgets, multiple stakeholder approval, that can span across multiple departments for months (e.g. a tendering process for a large mining company).
How complex is your product and product’s value?
If you have a highly complex product with multiple users that is highly configurable to receive value from - getting your market to realise the value can be tricky. A single website landing page or 60 second explainer video might be enough for a simpler product, but might be lacking for more complex ones. Engagement workshops or detailed case studies might be needed. In which case, trusted introductions to the right buyer at the right time might be a critical!
E.G. Simple product - A single use case for a single users that can easily communicate it’s value and have low risk of adopting it (e.g. Micro-SaaS like Hemmingway app, Eightify, Dripify, etc.)
E.g. Complex product - Multiple use cases for multiple users across multiple departments which may require extensive configuration and training before value activation or adoption can be realised. (E.g. A HR system for the State Government).
Understanding the primary MMF strategies
SLG - Sales-led Growth
What is it?
Sales-led growth is a traditional business strategy that relies heavily on the efforts of a sales team to drive customer acquisition, retention, and revenue growth. SLG is a more manual human intervention process that is best suited for buyers who need more qualitative engagement.
Examples:
Direct sales outbound - via email or LinkedIn to connect and start conversations with target buyers.
In person events - to attracts buyers, build relationships with target audience to nurture or start conversations to explore the product.
Partnerships Networks - Referrals from trusted partners who are already engaged with your ideal buyers in exchange for commission or other incentives.
Usually best suited to:
Early stage companies who require qualitative engagement for deeper market 1:1 research and better trust/relationship/brand building (i.e. their brand is not developed enough yet to sufficiently influence the market).
Complex products who require enough time and engagement to scope the prospects problems and craft a value pitch more aligned to their needs (i.e. for solutions that need to book to effective communicate value).
Complex buying processes that require the vendor (you) to deeply understand the customers needs and product fit before they can determine the suitability of your product.
Best for smaller, high value markets that warrant deeper engagement.
Usually for when high levels of trust is needed - more on that here.
PLG - Product-led Growth
What is it?
Product-led growth (PLG) is a business methodology in which user acquisition, expansion, conversion, and retention are driven primarily by the product itself (Productled.org). PLG is where the product’s user experience is used to show value and activate users with little to no human intervention.
Examples:
Free Trials or Freemium versions to attract, build trust and share awareness.
Canva: uses it’s freemium version to drive value and adoption with gated premium features requiring a paid subscription. Ability to invite others to see your designs, which indirectly ‘markets’ the product to them.
HubSpot: Uses it’s freemium product to allow free newsletter functionality, but will advertise at the bottom to all recipients to prompt attention and interest to more users (see below screenshot from the HubSpot freemium newsletter):
Usually best suited to:
Simpler use cases that can easily and quickly communicate your value to your target audience people without human intervention/explanation.
Products where the users interaction with the wider market (i.e. non-users). I.e. Growth loops = moments in the product’s usage that interact with non-users that give awareness and value to the wider market.
Buyers (perhaps early in the process) who do not wish to speak with sales and instead prefer to use/experience the product first (More on Product-led sales later).
There is also the concept of “Product-led Sales” (PLS) that combines using PLG for initial interactions, then SLG for later more complex interactions (that will cover in a later edition).
MLG - Marketing-led Growth
What is it?
Marketing-led growth (MLG) is where marketing is the primary engine for attracting leads and nurturing them through the funnel until they are ready for sales engagement or product engagement. The focus is on building brand authority, educating the market, and creating demand/interest at scale.
Examples:
Content Marketing: Creating valuable, relevant educational content - like blog posts, whitepapers, eBooks, and case studies - to educate and engage the target audience.
Paid ad: Using channels such as Google Ads, social media ads, and display ads to increase visibility among targeted buyers and drive traffic to the website, ultimately capturing bottom of funnel leads.
Email nurturing campaigns: Personalized email drip campaigns that nurture leads by delivering valuable insights, product updates, and offers over time, keeping prospects engaged and moving them down the funnel.
Usually best suited to:
Companies with a broad target audience that can benefit from brand visibility and awareness efforts to reach a large number of potential customers.
Industries with competitive landscapes where brand authority and trust can significantly impact buyer preferences. For B2B markets, early intervention and quality nurturing using content is essentially as it can be up to 12 months and many touch points before buyer action emerges.
Products or services that don’t necessarily require immediate, one-on-one sales engagement but can benefit from mass engagement and nurturing until the buyer is ready to make a decision.
Such as community building - more on that here.
Mid-stage companies or businesses scaling their go-to-market efforts and seeking to build top-of-funnel activity to support both sales-led or product-led initiatives.
Ideally in some way, shape or form, companies need to lean on MLG to build and develop a strong brand - as it will be the only sustainable way to grow at scale long-term.
Here is a VERY generalised visual of considering your MMF using the above points:
Keep in mind - these are just some of the more established strategies amongst the B2B SaaS market today.
Each company can have a mix of all of these (and more).
The point is - not all marketing is created equal.
You shouldn’t just ‘do marketing’ for the sake of it.
Leaning heavily into (say) posting on LinkedIn might work great for some - but a terribly ineffective for others.
Marketing should be a strategy that deeply aligns with your buyer journey.
Where your content, channel and message is provided at the right time in the right way to achieve the right result and move you buyers closer to a purchase.
When a company says they need to “do more marketing”, it’s insanely important to first stop, and establish “what does this mean?”.
Saying “we need to do more marketing” is like saying “we need to do more exercise”…
This could mean different things to different people - EG:
A professional bodybuilder needing 3hr extreme workouts twice a day to build large muscle mass. or,
An 90 year old person doing 3 walks a week to improve blood circulation.
It’s both technically ‘exercise’ - but confusing the 2 could end badly for everyone…
Like exercise, different types of marketing are needed for different types of companies and products at different stages for the most optimal outcome.
No matter where you are at, it cannot be stressed enough that you first need to map our your buyer journey and understand where and how you can best influence them at each stage according to:
What stage (or maturity) is your company at?
How complex is your market’s buying process?
How complex is your product and product’s value?
Or else you’ll risk wasting time and money “doing marketing” randomly until you burn out both you and your team.
Ultimately delaying (or even preventing) any potential growth.
If you’re struggling with your marketing-market-fit, reach out and I’ll be happy to provide my suggestions - (click here for a quick 20min chat)
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