Observations
Why Marketing in B2B Does Not Work: Systemic Mistakes of the Chief Executive Officer
Although there is a marketing budget, there are no clear results. Reports are full of numbers, but these numbers are weakly connected to the main goal: profit growth. Leads are either “the wrong ones” or too expensive, and the B2B sales cycle itself does not allow you to see results immediately. As a result, the marketing department increasingly resembles a “black hole” in the company’s financial model — a cost item you want to cut first.
A familiar situation? But what if the problem isn’t with the marketers “doing something wrong”? What if the root causes lie higher, at the level of business strategy and the approaches you set personally?
In this article, we won’t look for someone to blame. Instead, we will analyze four systemic management mistakes that turn marketing into a loss-making experiment and demonstrate how correcting them can help build a predictable growth engine for your business.
Mistake No. 1: Treating Marketing as an Isolated Department Instead of Part of a Revenue Machine
In the traditional corporate structure, marketing and sales are often separated by an invisible wall. Marketing is responsible for “attraction,” or generating leads, while sales is responsible for “closing,” or turning those leads into contracts. In practice, however, this system constantly breaks down. This gap creates a vicious cycle: Marketing does not receive feedback “from the field” and works with abstract customer profiles. The sales department receives leads that they consider non-target and “cold,” so they process them without enthusiasm. As a result, the budget is wasted, and the teams become demotivated by mutual reproaches.
This is not just an organizational failure, but also a direct financial loss. The company loses money on ineffective advertising and misses out on profit, while its best employees expend energy on internal disputes instead of competing with rivals.
Solution: Break down the walls between departments and build a unified revenue machine. This system interconnects marketing, sales, and product as gears of one mechanism, all working toward a common goal: revenue. In such a system, everyone shares KPIs that focus on the speed and conversion of clients moving through the entire funnel rather than the number of leads. Feedback becomes mandatory. Data from sales about lead quality adjusts marketing campaigns in real time, and insights obtained by marketing form the basis for product development.
Your task is to implement shared goals and processes that force departments to bear joint responsibility for the final financial result, not simply to call on everyone to “be friends.”
Mistake No. 2: Demanding Quick Leads Instead of Creating a Long-Term Asset
“We invested X amount in marketing this month. Where are the leads?” This is the most frequent and dangerous question a leader can ask their team. It stems from the perception of marketing as a vending machine—you put in money and get a measurable result. However, in B2B with complex products and deal cycles spanning months or even years, this logic does not apply. A multimillion-dollar contract decision isn’t made after seeing a single banner.
When the entire strategy is subordinated to the pursuit of quick results, marketing is forced to focus only on “hot” clients who are ready to buy now. The entire budget goes to tools like contextual advertising, where you compete with dozens of competitors for the client’s attention. This leads to an ever-increasing customer acquisition cost (CAC) and puts the business in a dangerous position of dependence on paid traffic. If you turn off advertising, the flow of clients dries up.
With this approach, the company fails to create the most important asset: a long-term one. A strong brand and an expert reputation work like a gravitational field, attracting clients without the need for “cold” touchpoints.
Solution: Shift the focus from tactical spending to strategic investments. Your task is to implement a two-directional approach within the company. Performance marketing is necessary in the short term to capture existing demand and generate revenue. However, a significant portion of resources must also be allocated toward building a content machine, strengthening the brand, and managing reputation. This is a long-term strategy that creates an asset that is independent of the advertising budget.
Instead of asking, “Where are the leads from this article?” ask, “How does this material strengthen our brand and build trust with future clients?” This is a strategic shift from chasing leads to creating a system that will generate them independently.
Mistake #3: “I hired a marketing director and let them think.” Blind Delegation
Finding and hiring a strong marketing director is only half the battle. It would be a mistake to think that your job is done at this point. The manager breathes a sigh of relief, hands over all authority to the new employee, and plunges back into operational or financial tasks, thinking, “Now this is his area of responsibility. I’m waiting for results.”
However, even the most stellar specialist, without the main resource of your vision, will work blindly. They may copy competitors’ strategies or apply a successful strategy from their previous job. However, without a deep understanding of your company’s DNA, mission, and long-term goals, their actions will lack strategic depth.
As a result, the marketing department begins to speak to the market in a “foreign” language. Messages will not resonate with your ideal client. The company loses its uniqueness and becomes “just another supplier” in an overcrowded market. This is a direct path to price wars and loss of identity.
Solution: Remain the chief ideologist and “guardian” of the strategy. Your job is not to micromanage marketing campaigns, but rather to provide meaning to your marketing director. Arm them with answers to key questions: Why does our business exist? What problem do we solve better than anyone else? How do we envision the future of the market and our place in it?
Delegate tactics, but keep strategy for yourself. Meet regularly to share your vision and provide direction for the team. Only then will you provide your marketing with the foundation necessary to build strong, authentic communication with the market.
Mistake No. 4: Marketing That “Eats What Is Left Over”
How is the marketing budget formed in your company? Often, it is formed on a residual principle. First, we plan for payroll, rent, procurement, and development. Whatever remains can be allocated to promotion. In such a paradigm, marketing is not a basic business necessity, but an option—the “cherry on top.” This budget is usually the first to be cut when financial difficulties arise.
This approach kills any strategy. Effective B2B marketing requires time and consistency. It’s impossible to build a brand, create content, and engage clients in a long sales cycle if funding is unpredictable. This creates a “broken rhythm” of work: one month we are active; the next two, silent. Such inconsistency undermines trust and nullifies all previous efforts. Furthermore, strong specialists will not join a company where marketing is a support function with an unpredictable budget.
Solution: Treat marketing as an investment in future growth, not a cost. Stop allocating the budget “from what is left over.” Instead, define the budget as a percentage of the target revenue. This approach links marketing investments directly to business ambitions, turning marketing from a cost center into a growth engine.
Defend these investments the same way you would defend investments in developing a new product. Marketing is the fuel for your growth machine, and its supply must be stable.
The problem is not people, but the system
Isolated marketing, the pursuit of quick leads, blind delegation, and residual budgeting are not the result of mistakes made by a specific marketer. Rather, they are symptoms of a broken system, the origins of which lie in strategic management.
The good news is that, as a leader, you have all the authority needed to fix this system. You can transform marketing from an uncertain and costly endeavor into a predictable and manageable driver of your business’s growth.
