Part 5: Why B2B CMOs Fail So Quickly

Introducing 3x B2B CMO Jamie Gier as she delves into the why and how of reversing the rapid turnover trend for B2B CMOs. We cover topics such as “Stopping the friction, getting early wins, today’s brand is tomorrow’s demand, why your customer’s voice should be out ahead of yours, and how to create your highest performing campaigns.”

Jamie Gier, a three-time B2B CMO, discusses the challenges faced by B2B CMOs and why they often fail quickly. She emphasizes the difficulty of creating a brand and generating high-quality content in a B2B environment with elongated sales cycles and multiple decision-makers.

“Today’s brand is tomorrow’s demand, and CMOs must balance immediate results with a strategic focus on brand building and content creation. Content plays a key role in building trust and influencing purchasing decisions.” – Jamie Gier

Jamie Gier, 3x CMO – Follow Jamie on LinkedIn

Jamie also explains the need for a content strategy to remove friction points in the sales process and provide valuable educational content. Jamie stresses the significance of customer voices in content creation and the role of relationships in building trust. She concludes by emphasizing the importance of setting expectations, getting early wins, and building a long-term marketing engine.

Listen to the full podcast or watch it on YouTube.

Click through to read the eBook, or access parts TWO, THREE or FOUR of the series

Introduction to Jamie Gier

Steve MacDonald: Welcome everyone to the C-Suite Marketing Perspectives podcast. I’m Steve MacDonald, your host. And today, we have a three-time B2B CMO, Jamie Gier.

Jamie is currently the CMO at DexCare. Jamie, you’re also a participant in a large CMO community online. I think you’ve got lots of insights to share with us today, but maybe start by just giving us a little more about who you are, your background, and what you’re doing at DexCare right now.

Jamie Gier: Well, first, thank you so much for having me on your podcast today, Steve. I’m really excited to be here. As you mentioned, I have been CMO three times for B2B companies, mostly in the health tech industry, but I did veer off and went into EdTech for a bit and MarTech. I also had the chance to market to people like you and me. So that was a lot of fun.

I’ve been doing this for about 25-plus years now. And I kind of grew up through the ranks before digital was even a thing. Content was important, but the means by which you could get content out was very different than it is today. But I’ve always been a full-funnel marketer from brand strategy, product marketing, demand gen, digital marketing, and customer marketing. So, governance over all of those different areas.

Steve MacDonald: Well, there’s a lot that a CMO has to do these days, right? But we will prioritize the major emphasis and focus a bit. And the subject matter here is why B2B CMOs fail so quickly. And unfortunately, we do.

We fail at literally twice the rate of CEOs, the shortest tenure in the whole C-suite. So with that, you and I have been talking for a little while leading up to this, and you mentioned that one of the biggest reasons you think this happens is because of the degree of difficulty in creating the brand, creating the reputation, filling the gaps in terms of all of the content that’s needed in order to accomplish that.

The B2B CMO’s Difficult Landscape

Steve MacDonald: Just in your words, with your tenure, where you’re at here, and what you’ve been able to accomplish, why do you think that that’s the case? Why do you think creating that brand and content regularly is so difficult?

Jamie Gier: Well, it’s difficult because in many B2B types of industries, you have very elongated sales processes, and it’s not just a buyer, you have multiple people.

Now, I happen to be in an industry, healthcare tech, where the sale cycle can be anywhere between 12 to 18 months. You have a buying committee made up of 8 to 10 different individuals who are all going to have a different opinion. They have different jobs to do. And so you’re trying to bring them along on this whole journey and influence them to see the value of what you’re providing.

That takes time, but it also takes a lot of different types of content to educate these buyers to convince them that you’re a good solution for a problem they may or may not have identified for their organization. And then convince them that you’re the partner to solve that. And that is a very long process to be able to do now.

And that’s also in a landscape where hundreds of other technology vendors are going after the exact same audience. And in large part, they might have a very similar message. And so there’s market confusion, message confusion, and you’re simply trying to navigate through that. And so, your content strategy is much more complicated.

And it has to work harder to build the brand and create the demand you want for your products. So, this is what uniquely differentiates us from B2C marketers. Now, we may have some similar challenges, but much of the purchasing in a B2C environment is transactional in nature, and in these B2B environments, because the sales cycle is so long, you have to work harder at bringing people along.

Steve MacDonald: And that sales cycle is so important, right? Because in an ABM world, there are 20, 30 touchpoints, maybe even more. I’m talking to CMOs who are saying we’re having 70, 80 different touches from the first touch point to a closed deal. That’s intense.

A couple of weeks ago, I interviewed a CMO, and I said, Patrick, 10 times now, you’ve told me we need to be able to empower the sales team to continue that conversation without just selling, selling, selling, right? So we have to give them something that’s adding value. Now, when you say that we had to give something that’s adding value in a world, this is where there’s content proliferation, right?

Setting Long-Term Expectations for CMOs

Steve MacDonald: Everybody has a content team. Everybody’s focused on content these days and trying to create high-value content. So the bar is very, very high. And I think that ties back to your point on why the B2B CMOs fail so much. The bar to create ongoing high-quality content that is worthy of our buyers spending their time consuming, right? That’s difficult. That’s not an easy task to do. And it requires patience.

Jamie Gier: Yes, it takes time. It takes time in a long cycle to build a brand, get the brand to become known, educate buyers, especially in your category of product, and get them to want to pick up the phone and call you. So, why do B2B CMOs fail so often? In our world, it takes time to do all those things. And so from that standpoint, it’s not just about the quarter, you have 12 months that you’re trying to do this, and that requires a lot of patience.

If you don’t set the expectations that this is the long view, that it takes time to do all of those things, you will fail in the eyes of the people who had the wrong expectations about what marketing can do. We could always live in the quarter and develop campaigns specific to the quarter, but the hard work is the patience to build the brand to get people to know who you are and to bring them along. And that’s not a quarter-by-quarter play.

Steve MacDonald: When you’re talking about setting those expectations, you’re talking about with your CEO, your CRO, right?

It’s very sales-centric, lots of time, points of view, right? I mean, CROs they’ve got quotas hanging over their head. CEOs need to be showing performance. As CMOs, we need to be revenue-minded as well. But some things will take time to build, is your point. But on the flip side of that, if we can develop that war chest of content as we go along, we know there will be this mountain of content we can use.

The Tactical Balance of Long and Short-Term Wins

Steve MacDonald: And I want to discuss your perspective on that mountain. You talk about getting the friction points down first. The things in the sales process that we know are the highest priority places where deals are having friction in that ABM process. Tell us a little bit about that.

As you’re building the brand, you’re being very tactical and surgical in how you’re starting to create that content.

Jamie Gier: That’s correct. And I think because most people are not patient and you want to, especially CMOs, new CMOs to a company. I’ve been with DexCare for about eight months. You want to get some points on the board.

And so we’re doing things in parallel. First, we are looking at the friction points in the sales process today. And how can content play a role in removing the friction points? And a lot of the time, it’s simply around educational content. It’s also case studies. And so we’re going after immediate wins as we’re building the content strategy for full-funnel, starting at the very top based on people who have little awareness of who you are.

But that’s your future pipeline. So you have to start thinking about that today, but we’re doing it in parallel. We’ve worked with our sales team to understand where buyers are getting stuck. Where are they not understanding what we do, and how can we make it more prescriptive in our value?

So, we’re going after that content initially as we build the plan for the future content that engages all accounts. All personas are at different stages of the pipeline, even those not yet an opportunity. And so we’re doing things in tandem. I think that that’s the right way to go because you do want to show that you can have value in the quarter while you’re building a bigger engine to automate some of these things, but also to start building the pipeline, not just tackle the pipeline that’s in play today.

Steve MacDonald: We’ve already dived deep into this area of content and its importance to the sales process, the friction points, and the overall brand. At the same time, buyers don’t want to be sold to, they want to be advised, right? So it’s really important what we’re talking about here. I’m going to take a step back for just a second. I will ask you a question regarding your 25 years in the business, three-time B2B CMO, working with sales teams, CROs, and CEOs constantly.

Educational and Visible Content is a 10 out of 10

Steve MacDonald: If I was just going to have you put the importance of content on a scale of 1 to 10, Right where one’s not important at all, 10 it’s vital to the overall growth and success of the business. On a scale of 1 to 10, where would you put content?

Jamie Gier: I would put it definitely at 10 because the sales cycle is so long, and you have so many people, different personas, different buyer types that you’re trying to engage with, convert, all of those things. And content is really key.

Now, it doesn’t have to be long-form content. There’s going to be different content types. It could be your paid media assets that you’re creating. It could be that ebook. It could be a case study. But the way in which people consume information, you have to adapt to that and the types of information.

The other piece is that you don’t use content to sell, you use content to educate because that’s the content that people engage with most. You’re helping them think through how to solve a problem? How do I do my job better? And so it’s not about selling your product. It’s about selling the value of something that you can provide and a way of doing something.

And that takes time, but that’s really, really important. That’s not to say, Steve, that it’s just about content. I know in my industry, it’s about relationships and building trust. Content is one way to build trust, but you are the trusted advisor.

But the relationship aspect is really important too, which is why we put equal weight, even on our personal relationships with our customers, being visible where they are, including events and trade shows. That is a big channel for us, simply showing up where they are and being at the table with them as they talk about problems and solutions. So there’s a content play, but there’s also a non-content play. But to your original question, definitely a 10. Definitely a 10.

Steve MacDonald: Yeah. I’ve had so many, I’ve asked that question a lot because I ask it on every podcast episode, and I’m getting 10, 11, 12, 15, and 25 on a scale of one to 10.

Jamie Gier: Oh, I’m sure you did. We spend a lot of time standing up the channels in the engine that allow us to reach our buyers. It’s very expensive to do that. So we can have a great strategy for our multichannel approach to engagement and buyer conversion, but you have to feed those channels.

And if you don’t feed it with the right things, which is largely content, you’re not going to get any performance out of those channels, which is why I put it out of 10. But like Melissa, I’d put it out of 15. If you gave me that range, I may have done that and been the contrarian there.

But in any case, it’s important, especially because you’ve got to stay and remain visible, and you have to bring people along, and you’re educating buyers. And again, in my industry in particular, we have to educate in a new category but also sift through all the different types of information they’re receiving from different vendors.

And that’s not always easy to do when you’re trying to show what you do within the context of the marketplace and the category and the problems they’re looking to solve.

Coordinating Content for All Points of the Pipeline

Steve MacDonald: And characterize for us, because you talked earlier before we started recording here about the numbers of ICPs that you have, the number of vertical markets you have, and this creates this matrix, right?

Tell me a little bit about that matrix and how big that matrix is. It might be therapy for everybody listening here who’s grappling with this enormous task of not just creating content but creating really high-value content. And you’re right, content that isn’t just saying the same thing that everybody else is saying, right?

You need to have a unique voice and a unique point of view that is still a high-quality advisor consultant class. That’s difficult to do. And the last part before you answer here is most companies don’t have. All the subject matter expertise within to be an industry voice and advisor, right? We tend to be subject matter experts on what we do with our technologies, right?

We’re really good at talking about our products and services. So now you’re talking about an enormous amount of content at a very high level with an industry perspective and a point of view on it. How does one get that accomplished?

Jamie Gier: A lot of coordination. It’s difficult, and we don’t have it all figured out either. We’re still building our content strategy. We’re still trying to figure out how to quickly have points of view and get them into a form we can easily deliver to our buyers and customers. It’s a long game, really.

And so, let me describe my industry again because that will shed some light on the complexities around it. So we’re only in one vertical. We’re in health care. We sell to large hospitals and health systems. So there are 900 of them in the country. That doesn’t mean there are no independent physician practices and community hospitals within those markets. But for all intents and purposes, when you think of a large health system and a large hospital, there are about 900 of them.

But you are selling to different departments within those health systems with different C-suites, leaders, and teams underneath them, and they’re all involved in the decision-making process, but for different reasons. They are trying to do different things in their departments that, at the end of the day, provide better care. More effectively, more efficiently, but the messaging to each of those departments is nuanced, and it’s very important that you message to the jobs they have to do because, again, they’re getting hit up by hundreds of vendors.

The same buyers, each buyer probably gets 300 emails a day. So you’re trying to navigate through all of that noise. The educational aspect of our content is really important, and it’s not just our voice; our highest-performing content. It is our customer content. It’s the voices of our customers speaking to the change they’re driving within their organizations, how they’re going about it, and the technology, processes, or people they’ve brought into their organizations to help solve and get better outcomes.

That’s our highest-performing content because we are a peer-to-peer selling industry. Our greatest sales team is our customer base because it’s peer-to-peer, it’s referral-based. And so a lot of our content, our educational content, is simply capturing the voices of our customers and putting it out there into the universe. Whether on LinkedIn or through some of our paid, that is our highest-performing content.

Most marketers are going to say that anyway, but it is certainly true for ours, and we have the numbers behind it because content is so important to us, Steve. I know sometimes marketers are faced with, do I bring those capabilities in-house? Do I outsource it? I’m actually doing both.

So, I’m bringing in, hiring, and establishing a creative team, enough around creativity and its importance that I want to have that close to our brand. The closest you can get a creative team to your brand is by hiring people who embrace it and know how to build it. But there’s enough content that we have to create that we want to work outside with agencies as well that can make it more turnkey, but also so we can get out to market faster with content. But also, it’s nice to have many different viewpoints on the best strategy for content creation and the stories we want to tell.

I’m doing both because there’s enough value placed on it and enough work to be done there that we need to have that engine 100 percent humming.

Steve MacDonald: And something that you said just about a minute ago, I mean, it’s all important, but what you said a minute ago was this idea of the highest performing content is that from your customers because they are the peers, right? And so we all want to know in our jobs, what are our peers doing, right? What are they doing that’s helping them succeed? How are they addressing the risk factors, the friction, right? The things that will help them in their jobs and careers.

And what that does at the same time is if you’re using your content to aggregate that voice of the community in a way that validates your company’s unique POV point of view on the marketplace to your point earlier, where you can’t just be saying the same things all the time, right? So you’re saying something unique, right? And if this peer community is helping validate that, because you, as the company, are the sellers, right?

So, no matter what, we can’t change who we are. So thank you. If we can have that community validating what we’re saying, it lends to our authenticity, trust factor, brand, expertise, all of those things, right? What you’re talking about is brilliant because it’s actually bringing together the voice behind your voice.

The voice of the community behind your voice in what you’re saying. That is one of the most important things. And I know you accentuated case studies is a big part of that. But there are a number of different ways that you can bring in that voice and help break through that clutter.

Aligning the CMO, CEO, and CRO

Steve MacDonald: Tell me a little bit about how you’re developing all of this content, how are you articulating this to your CEO to your CRO in terms of your content strategy and building over the long term? All the things that we’ve been talking about here.

What’s the most, since the theme of this particular episode, is how do we not lose our jobs? But how are you articulating this to the CRO, CEO of the company, so that they’re on the same game plan as you are and are patient and are willing to let you do the job the way that you think is the right way to do it?

Jamie Gier: Yeah, there are a couple of things, but before I get to that, let me just close out on something that you said previously. The customer voice should actually be out ahead of yours, not following, which is what we’re trying to do. So that’s where our customers become the referral.

The second is it’s simply a case of show, don’t tell. And our customers are best positioned to actually show a solution as opposed to us telling a solution. And so that’s the most impactful. That’s why they’re your greatest voice and the greatest way to amplify your message. But they should be out ahead because they do the hard work.

We’re supporting them with what we offer, but they’re having to implement massive change within their own organizations. And so they’re the best ones to speak on it. We’re there to help support and make sure that they have a stage and a microphone.

Returning to this question, how do you bring along your CEO and CRO? First off, as I mentioned earlier, it is working with your CRO on where are the friction points today. Let’s just get some points on the board. So, if they have a problem that is preventing the existing pipeline that will impact our numbers this year, how do we work together to start building content that will make a difference this year?

The other piece of that is they know that we’re building a future pipeline. So, as I’ve told my CEO and CRO several times, even though we’re just in September, and I actually said this back in July, I’m already thinking of the 2024 pipeline. And so that takes time because we’re doing the heavy lifting on the brand building. That’s what takes time.

But the SDRs and our regional sales directors are going to be much more efficient if we’re helping to open up the door simply by making sure that our brand is recognizable by the time they do their prospecting and outreach. And so when that time comes, it will be easier for them, which will reduce cycle time.

It will reduce the number of times they have to actually reach out because our brand will already be familiar to the buyer. So it’s going to make it easier for them to get in if we’ve done our jobs. And so, the way that I sell it simply is what could we do today to remove some friction to keep deals in the pipeline moving?

And here’s what we’re doing to build a pipeline for next year because today’s brand is tomorrow’s demand. And when I explain it, it’s not lost on them. We’ve all been in this industry. It’s not lost on anyone, the length of time, how many people are involved, and having the right message. The message to the chief financial officer will be very different than the message to the chief digital officer.

And we have to have a way to communicate and build that message across different formats and channels. They understand that. And so, it’s dual, but I can’t do the long view without getting points in the short term. And so it’s that parallel path. And any marketer should be looking at it from that perspective because that’s where you will start building trust with your CRO.

That’s where you will start building trust with your CEO as you build for the long term. You’ve got to get those early wins and know what those early wins are going to be. But it has to be an agreement with your CRO.

Steve MacDonald: So I’m off to the side, by the way, writing down. You’ve got some really good one-liners here.

Like today’s brand is tomorrow’s demand. I love that. I love that thinking, right? Because you do have to have those early wins, or you’re never going to make it to the long term. But you must have a very simple way to think about the brand. It’s just not some lofty thing, right? Studies have shown that it’s as important what companies think about you as it is what you do as a company, right?

The Importance of Brand Recognition

Steve MacDonald: Because nobody puts you on the shortlist if they don’t know you, right? And that’s what you’re talking about at the end there, right? There’s 97 percent of the market, and most companies don’t know who you are. They don’t know enough even to articulate who you are, right? So, if you are a recognized expert in the industry, that’s what’s going to get them to listen to you before they even know what you do. And that’s the point of that study.

So, tying in today’s brand is tomorrow’s demand. That’s what that means to me in a lot of respects.

Jamie Gier: Absolutely. That’s what it means. And look, we could model our own behavior as buyers of different types of products.

I’m more inclined to open up an email or pay attention to an ad of a brand that I know in some capacity. And so that is just our behavior as consumers. And in B2B, it’s especially true. Our emails will be opened. Our content will be read. Yes, the message has to be important, but if they’re more familiar with your brand, you’re going to be one of the 250 emails they’ll open, and it’s building that trust.

And if my content is really good that’s getting delivered, they will want more. So then it has this downstream impact as well because they know what to expect from us. And that takes a lot of strategy, pre-planning, and thinking about the sequencing and what you will deliver. But it’s always around education because it’s a value exchange with your buyers or whoever your audience is. And so the more you can build that into your content strategy, the more effective your campaigns and performance are.

There was a conference that happened last week. Some might guess what it is, but they had this amazing session where they were talking about brand marketing and because it is that thing that’s really hard to defend because it may not be as tangible. But as an industry, we’ve now latched onto this whole performance marketing. Well, now they’re saying, well, it’s got to be performance branding.

And I love that because it has the same meaning: these things have to work to ultimately build a pipeline and generate revenue for your organization. And so I liked the idea of a performance brand because it legitimizes the importance of a brand doing those exact things.

Early Wins and Long-Term Success

Steve MacDonald: So Jamie, we have already covered a lot of territory here. If there was one takeaway that you wanted the audience to have from our conversation here, one thing that you wanted them to remember above all else, what would that be?

Jamie Gier: Well, because your podcast is focused on CMOs who fail and why, and why they fail, I’ll land on this one. You have to get the early wins as you build the engine for the future. You have to do both because what you’re essentially doing is setting expectations, and you’re building trust with those that you serve in the organization.

That’s important because the chief marketing officer role is probably one of the most misunderstood if those expectations are not set in advance because there are different meanings for what CMOs do. And so if you can set those expectations but also get the early wins.

Because that’s going to build the trust that’s going to build the relationships with all of your stakeholders as you’re going off and building the long-term engine that marketing should be focused on. Because, again, today’s brand is tomorrow’s demand, and you’ve got to have both in play, and it’s a lot of work, but those early wins are key.

Steve MacDonald: Yep. That’s going to get you to the point where you can actually have the time to do what you know you need to do overall. Jamie, if people had follow-up questions here, would putting a link to you on LinkedIn on the podcast would be the best way to have it?

Jamie Gier: That would be the best place on LinkedIn. I’m very active in that community. That’s where a lot of my fellow CMOs and marketing execs are. So, yes. Best place to reach me.

Steve MacDonald: Fantastic. Well, thank you for coming on and giving us all kinds of not only one-liners to help us remember what we need to do but just an overall plan of attack in terms of how we do the right things.

That’s the bottom line. How do you keep your job if you do the things that are going to be right for the company and the customer first and foremost? And then everything else takes care of itself. All right. Well, thank you. And we hope to have you back on in the future.

Jamie Gier: Thank you so much, Steve. I enjoyed being here.

Next Steps

Jamie highlights the importance of leveraging customer voices to validate the company’s unique perspective and build trust and authenticity through content. To efficiently produce high-quality content, elevate your ROI and revenue impact, don’t miss the opportunity to CLICK HERE and schedule a 20-minute strategy session with Steve MacDonald, founder of ConstentStrategies.io.

ELEVATING CONTENT MARKETING STANDARDS RAISES A CRUCIAL QUESTION:
Why shouldn’t the very act of creating thought leadership content also spark new conversations with in-pipeline deals, top prospects, and high-priority customers for revenue expansion? Or serve as the cornerstone for learning and applying voice-of-customer strategies? That’s the power of ABM Podcasting—engaging B2B buyers and customers in meaningful conversations that uncover essential go-to-market insights, support long sales cycles, reinforce your market perspective, build peer-level trust, and dismantle objections that kill deals.

Steven MacDonald

Steven MacDonald is the founder of Content Strategies, CEO of a MarTech SaaS Company, fractional CMO consulting with leading B2B companies and former Director of Strategy and Client Service at top ten digital marketing agencies.

Follow Steve on LinkedIn.

Steven MacDonald

Follow Steve on LinkedIn.