Most marketing strategies, especially in the B2B space, have historically been set-and-forget. Once a strategy is in place and the campaign is live, many marketers step back, waiting for results to trickle in—and then either stick with the strategy as is for far too long or walk away from it too quickly.
This all or nothing approach doesn’t work.
To guarantee results, marketers must be proactive, iterative, and relentlessly committed to optimization. Disciplined optimization is a concept that challenges the status quo and raises the bar—often uncomfortably so.
Iterative testing involves continually challenging and re-evaluating every campaign element to ensure optimal performance. And that begins with launching each new campaign against a small sample audience to gauge results before heavying up your investment. As Jim Collins puts it in Great by Choice, it’s the “fire bullets, then cannonballs” approach to market testing.
“Fire bullets, then cannonballs”
This strategy is about the conservation of resources and mitigating risk. No one draws this comparison better than Collins himself:
Picture yourself at sea, a hostile ship bearing down on you. You have a limited amount of gunpowder. You take all your gunpowder and use it to fire a big cannonball. The cannonball flies out over the ocean … and misses the target, off by 40 degrees. You turn to your stockpile and discover that you’re out of gunpowder. You die.
But suppose instead that when you see the ship bearing down, you take a little bit of gunpowder and fire a bullet. It misses by 40 degrees. You make another bullet and fire. It misses by 30 degrees. You make a third bullet and fire, missing by only 10 degrees. The next bullet hits – ping! – the hull of the oncoming ship. Now, you take all the remaining gunpowder and fire a big cannonball along the same line of sight, which sinks the enemy ship. You live.
In this analogy, “bullets” are low cost, low risk, and low distraction experiments used to test hypotheses and gather data. What constitutes low cost certainly varies based on the size of the company. Low risk means that there are minimal consequences if the bullet doesn’t hit anything. Low distraction means that there isn’t a significant ripple effect across the company in testing the strategy, though it might be high impact for a person or two.
Once you have evidence that your “bullet” is on target—that is, your campaign shows promise—you can then confidently invest in a “cannonball,” a larger, more focused, and costly effort designed to hit the target with greater impact.
By applying this approach, companies avoid the common pitfall of investing heavily in untested ideas, which can lead to wasted resources and missed opportunities. Instead, they make informed, strategic decisions that are more likely to result in measurable success. Optimize your marketing strategies before heavying up your investment. This methodical approach to scaling your marketing allows for fine-tuning and adjustments based on real-world feedback, ensuring that when the time comes to launch a full-scale campaign (the “cannonball”), it has a much higher chance of hitting the mark and delivering a strong MROI.
How to Optimize a Marketing Strategy
For middle-market B2B leaders, optimizing a marketing strategy is a critical process that requires a detailed and measured approach. Effective marketing optimization melds strategic vision with tactical precision. A succinct yet comprehensive approach to optimization focuses on the following high-level assessments:
- Audience segmentation: Regularly evaluate and segment your audience to tailor your marketing more precisely.
- Channel analysis: Concentrate efforts on channels that yield robust engagement and MROI.
- Content/creative review: Ensure your content strategy (both copy and the supporting visuals) evolves with your audience’s needs—as demonstrated by their engagement—employing a diverse mix of formats (e.g., written, audio, video, infographics, slide shows, case studies).
- Performance metrics: Define and track key metrics that reflect both immediate and long-term success. Seek out both leading and lagging indicators of your performance.
- Technology stack: Utilize cutting-edge tools for sharper analytics and streamlined customer engagement. Given the pace at which technological innovations occur in the marketing space, you should regularly re-evaluate your marketing technology (or martech) platforms.
- Competitive benchmarking: Keep a finger on the pulse of the competition and adapt to maintain your edge.
The CEO’s Role
While the marketing team is on the frontline of optimization, the CEO plays an equally crucial role:
- Vision setting: Establish a clear vision of what optimized marketing looks like for your organization. This clarity will guide efforts across the board.
- Resource allocation: Ensure that teams have the necessary tools, technology, and manpower. This might involve reallocating budgets or hiring specialists.
- Cultural shift: Drive the cultural change toward accepting and embracing continuous improvement. Celebrate successes, no matter how small, and encourage a mindset of persistent curiosity.
- Collaboration: Foster interdepartmental collaboration. An optimized marketing strategy often requires input from sales, customer support, and even product development teams.
Anticipating and Overcoming Challenges
Embarking on a journey of disciplined optimization isn’t without its hurdles:
- Resistance to change: Long-standing team members might be hesitant to adopt new methods. Address this by emphasizing the long-term benefits and offering adequate training and support.
- Over-optimization: In the quest for perfection, there’s a risk of becoming too granular and losing sight of the bigger picture. Regularly zoom out to ensure the overall strategy aligns with broader business objectives.
- Analysis paralysis: With an influx of data, making decisions can become overwhelming. It’s crucial to differentiate between essential metrics and noise.
The Path Forward
Make passive marketing a thing of the past. It’s time to champion the relentless pursuit of excellence through disciplined optimization. By understanding its nuances, advocating its principles, and leading the charge in its implementation, leaders can ensure that their marketing efforts aren’t just successful, but consistently exceptional.
By Lori Turner-Wilson, RedRover CEO/Founder, Internationally Best-Selling Author of The B2B Marketing RevolutionTM: A Battle Plan for Guaranteed Outcomes
Taking Action
Disciplined optimization is one of hundreds of best practices found in The B2B Marketing RevolutionTM: A Battle Plan for Guaranteed Outcomes — the playbook that middle-market B2B CEOs and marketing leaders lean on to scale. Backed by a groundbreaking research study, this book offers time-tested best practices, indispensable KPIs for benchmarking, insights on where your dollars are best spent, and, above all, the proven 12 BattlesTM Framework for generating guaranteed marketing outcomes. The B2B Marketing RevolutionTM is a battle-hardened approach to becoming an outcomes-first leader who’s ready to shake up the status quo, invest in high-payoff market research and optimization, and — yes — even torch what’s not serving your endgame. Download more than 50 templates, scripts and tools from the book on the Battle Reader Hub.
If you’d like to talk about how to build a marketing engine that delivers predictable results — whether you want to build it yourself or tag in our team to lead the way — we’d be delighted to help you get started.
