Why B2B Startups Desperately Need Growth Marketing

B2B SaaS and deep tech startups are in vogue. With the ongoing boom in AI, the technological possibilities in front of the founders are vast. Based on our observations at Solid Water Marketing Agency, the venture capital industry is maintaining high levels of interest in these companies and prefers them to the next promising B2C health or e-comm.

The tendency both on the founders side and on the investor side is to focus on getting the tech right and massively overlooking marketing as a critical component of success.

Anecdotal evidence from our practice suggests that founders building super sophisticated technology are not prioritising marketing, forget growth marketing

We think there is a psychological factor playing tricks here - whereas in the B2C world we as consumers have a clear visual of the end-consumer (we can easily imagine a person using Uber Eats because we are all that person), when it comes to marketing and selling B2B products, services and solutions, the picture gets much more blurry. So B2C founders seem to be much more marketing-focused than B2B - even if they are not always savvy in modern marketing technologies at least there is a strong recognition that marketing is a must.

Often B2B founders tend to see marketing as irrelevant to them - “I am not a consumer business, I don’t really need marketing” is an example of flawed thinking.

The more brilliant and sophisticated your technology is, the less chance you have that people in the outside world will understand it, no matter how much you believe that they need it to make their decision-making more efficient or automate their workflow. As much as SaaS technology has become advanced, the technology at the disposal of marketers is not yet sophisticated enough to spare the process of marketing and selling of human orchestration and management.

So the main call to action of this newsletter is to the B2B founders to come to terms with the mundane truth that marketing strategy is absolutely necessary and cannot be overlooked and get to grips with the fact that you need a framework in place to get you on the rail tracks and set you on the journey towards your bright future of paying the investor dividends.

Moreover, we need to delve deeper into what marketing for a B2B company means in practice.

Contrary to the common knowledge that marketing = ads and brand = company logo, the process of preparing your genius product for the market, acquiring customers and getting them on paid subscription is actually much more complex and entails the following steps.

⚙️Develop a brand marketecture (marketing + architecture)
which helps companies clearly articulate their value proposition,
segment their potential customer base, develop a messaging
framework that will address all the pain points of the customers
within each segment.

🔄 Understand the decision-making process related to
technology adoption and procurement within organisations which
fit your customer profiles and make sure your product fits into that
process from the perspective of pricing model, security features.
legacy technology those organisations already have. appetite for
innovation).

🙋‍♂️ Map customer journey for each customer profile - from
awareness to acquisition to retention - to ensure you have clarity
around the potential points of friction within each of the CJM
scenarios.

📡Scope out marketing collateral for each stage of the
customer journey (ads, sales enablement materials including
brochures, explainer videos, infographics etc).

✍️ Build a log of hypotheses to test at each stage of the
customer journey.

🚀Design growth sprints to test these hypotheses and derive
actionable insights.

We strongly advise against skipping any one of these steps to avoid budget waste, lost hopes and disappointment.

Maria Tsarkova, Co-founder of Solid Water and Head of Growth at Ooredoo Fintech, shares a common trap she sees:

Ksenia Edsall, MBA and advisor at EverybodyCounts Ltd, reflects on how marketing became pivotal during their growth journey

The need to articulate the unique benefits of Everybody Counts – such as its AI-powered personalisation, the integration of the Singapore math methodology, and its commitment to accessibility to a diverse range of stakeholders, from government officials to school administrators, has highlighted the crucial role of effective marketing. Furthermore, the pursuit of investment, including the prestigious Innovate UK grant, has underscored the importance of a compelling market narrative and a clear go-to-market strategy.

Witnessing the direct correlation between targeted marketing efforts and the generation of leads, securing contracts, and attracting investment has led Andy to recognise marketing and sales not just as supporting functions, but as essential components intrinsically linked to the realisation of Everybody Counts' mission and its long-term success.

This evolving understanding has resulted in a greater emphasis on building a strong marketing and sales team, developing targeted strategies, and actively engaging with these functions as key drivers of growth and impact’

A crucial point she also reflects on is the correlation between strong marketing & brand with investor confidence: ‘An ineffective marketing strategy would have undermined investor confidence and the company's ability to secure crucial funding. The £1.5M in funding already secured, including the prestigious £500k grant from Innovate UK, is partly attributable to a compelling narrative and strong market validation communicated through effective marketing. Investors are drawn to companies with a clear understanding of their target market and a robust plan for growth. A weak or poorly articulated marketing strategy would have signaled a lack of market awareness and a lower potential for return, making it significantly harder to attract the necessary investment to fuel Everybody Counts' ambitious goals.’

What do VCs think about this?

Some, more progressive ones, have built in-house marketing teams to support their portfolio companies. However, the majority, especially at seed and Series A rounds, still maintain the inherent belief that the focus should be on technology.

Daria Partas, CEO & Co-founder of Solid Water, recalls a conversation that left a lasting impression:

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