Common misconceptions in B2B marketing & sales after 90+ hours of sales and consulting calls this quarter (and 700+ messages):

1. More traffic = more revenue
2. Everyone needs your product/service
3. Everything needs to be automated
4. Always follow trends
5. Sales and marketing are separate entities

Paradigms fail more often than not. Here’s what we’ve discovered works in practice.

1. Quality traffic is what matters.

Bottom-of-the-funnel content will convert 100X better than TOFU. Focusing on transactional and conversion content and making it click will yield better results.

However – with 95% of all buyers off-market, nurturing them for months – and often years – still demands top of the funnel content.

Make sure it’s tactical and to the point. It’s easy to generate viral topics like “top 20 hashtags for Facebook” or “15 ways to make money online”. These are a turn-off for professional audiences.

2. Your product isn’t for everyone.

The PMF paradigm for startups applies to every business in 2024.

– Existing services fail to deliver.
– Smaller teams fail to contain results.
– Automated and AI tools get closer to 80% of what an enterprise solution does.

Pivoting both in offer definition and price readjustment will yield stronger results.

3. Automate where it’s needed.

Don’t sleep on the wheel this year.

Thousands of B2Bs report anywhere from 3X to 1000X productivity bump by automating processes with Zapier/Make and integrating AI piped in the right mediums.

Copy, images, and sales emails at scale can be produced in thousands daily vs. just a few.

Efficiency and productive workflows make their way.

4. Adapt to your audience.

161.4 million people watched live video content in 2023.

What was the last time you scheduled a live video?

I know – I’ve done it under 10 times in the past 12 months myself. And that’s what counts.

The pandemic was the fastest shift in consumer behavior we’ve ever seen. Hybrid is out right now. Seasonality plays a crucial role in content formats, posting length, duration, topics.

Playbooks evolve – so should you.

5. Sales and marketing work in tandem.

The titanic battle between sales and marketing has been around for many decades.

HubSpot tried to bridge the gap with “smarketing” 10 years ago. ABM is on the rise now, solving the same integral problem of focus and goal setting.

As teams shrink down and AI takes jobs, humans can’t pull the rug in different directions.

Stop relying on a one-size-fits-all approach. 2024 has busted too many myths by now.