In this episode of B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth, Benedict is joined by Joel Harrison, Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of B2BMarketing.net, the leading community for B2B marketers, to explore the shift from lead generation to growth marketing, drawing insights from B2B Ignite, their flagship event. He challenges the ambiguity of "growth marketing" and introduces the concept of the "commercial marketer" as a more holistic approach to B2B marketing success. Tune in to hear Joel's...

In this episode of B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth, Benedict is joined by Kayleeann Maritz to define marketing's role in shaping commercial strategy. Kayleeann makes the compelling case for over investment in tier two accounts and provides multiple practical tips for how marketers can transform lead generation. Tune in to learn how a diversified approach built on robust segmentation and targeting is the bedrock of successful B2B marketing. Kayleeann is experienced global marketer with...

In this episode of B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth, Benedict is joined by Katrina Nichols to interrogate Linkedin as a platform. Katrina eviscerates much of the received wisdom about what works on Linkedin and advocates for a rebalance from influencers to evangelists. Tune in to hear a progressive perspective on how marketers can get value through novel, persona-led approaches to social platforms. Katrina is an experienced marketing, public relations, and brand director, across a varied...

In this episode of B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth, Benedict is joined by Efi Naskou to discuss how misconceptions about D&I are holding B2B brands back. Efi challenges the sentiment behind the finding that B2B leaders don't think D&I is an important part of brand's narrative, making the case for a more nuanced and progressive approach. Listen to find out how B2B marketers have both a responsibility and opportunity to drive the D&I agenda within their brand...

In this episode of B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth, Benedict is joined by Kate Cox to discuss how B2B sales models need to be reimagined as the purchase decision evolves. Kate provides a detailed analysis of the changing buying dynamics and convincingly makes the case for marketing to have jurisdiction over critical early sales activities. Listen to find out how B2B marketers can fine-tune their tech stack and take a progressive approach to business development. Kate is a proven CMO with...

In this episode of B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth, Benedict sits down with Haralds Gabrans Zukovs to discuss how complex B2B products require sophisticated strategies and solutions. B2B products and services are oftentimes much more complex than many of our B2C counterparts. And even within B2B, some offerings are particularly complicated. This distinction puts the pressure on B2B marketers to effectively reach their target audience. Their main goal becomes making it easy to understand...

In this episode of B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth, Benedict is joined by Will Sturgeon to discuss how marketing needs to adapt to make better use of specialists. In a B2B marketing team, it’s crucial to have a well-rounded group that can tackle a variety of challenges that may come. Each individual needs to bring a unique skill set in order to make this happen. Many may say that specialising too much may not prepare the next generation of marketing leaders. Many more might suggest that...

In this first episode of B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth in 2024, Benedict speaks to Chris Wade about how maturing B2B organisations need to adapt. As a company grows and establishes itself firmly in the market, it can be easy for it to fall into an all too comfortable pattern. Once business settles into a groove, it can become hard to make changes that ultimately are better for progress. Companies become risk averse and hesitant to adapt when ultimately, a business needs to do all that...

Benedict Buckland of alan. agency moderates PANEL: Marketing + Sales A Winning Combination? Thank you to everyone who attended the session! Benedict was joined by our lovely panel: - Tom Boston, Brand Awareness Manager at Salesloft - Julia Pikes, Senior Marketing Director, EMEA at Hubspot - Thomas Van der Staaij, Senior Marketing Manager at AWS - Freya Ward, Global Sales Director at Headley Media You can watch full video versions of the podcast on our YouTube channel. Ready to provoke the...

We brought the podcast to you LIVE from the B2B Marketing Expo at the ExCeL London! Thank you to everyone who attended the session! Benedict is joined by our distinguished panel: - Áine Bryn, Partner & CMO at Marsh McLennan UK - Craig Welch, SVP, Head of Research Marketing at Elsevier - Gonzalo Garcia Villanueva, Global CMO at NielsenIQ You can find our panelists, Áine, Craig, and Gonzalo on Linkedin. You can watch full video versions of the podcast on our YouTube channel. Ready to...

In this episode of B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth, Benedict sits down with Paul Afshar to discuss the practicalities of using AI in B2B marketing. AI has been at the forefront of everyone’s minds in the B2B marketing space. Even on this podcast, there has been much discussion about how AI has the potential to completely reinvent the industry. However, there’s only so much hypothesising one can do before taking action and start implementing. But does the theoretical discussion thus far...

In this episode of B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth, Benedict speaks to Matthew Harper about redefining the role of the CMO. Not only is the role of the CMO not understood by the rest of the business, the CMOs themselves sometimes hardly know how to be effective leaders for their company. This has led to the CMO having the shortest tenure of any role in the C-suite. But it doesn’t have to be like this. What it means to be an effective CMO has changed, and it’s within reach of CMOs to...

In this episode of B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth, Benedict speaks to Duarte Garrido about the importance of attribution in proving ROI. There’s no denying that the topic of attribution has been simmering at the top B2B marketers’ minds. There are conflicting views among marketers about what attribution should look like, but with the current state of B2B, it seems like the push to prove ROI is becoming increasingly important. So what kind of attribution model is going to work best for...

In this episode of B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth, Benedict sits down with Simeon Lando to discuss the unique challenges of emerging into new foreign markets. If your business is fortunate enough to expand internationally, there are a handful of new considerations for marketers to take on. It is not just as simple as dropping an existing proposition into a new market, and that (lack of) strategy, if implemented, often goes awry. Marketers need to adapt their messaging and approach when...

In this episode of B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth, Benedict talks to Madhukar Kumar about what a product-led growth strategy looks like in B2B. Marketers in most businesses, especially in the SaaS space, understand their need to collaborate with their product teams to have an effective strategy. However, what B2B marketers might be missing out on is a “product-led” growth strategy, and it might be because they just don’t know about how PLG could impact their business. So what exactly...

In this episode of B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth, Benedict speaks with Karen Sage how businesses can go further with establishing their brand. Businesses understand that it’s important to have an identity that their customers align with, but quite often, their priorities are about generating revenue as quickly as possible and disregard brand. Because of this, brand often becomes generic so as to appeal to as many people as possible. But it is proven over and over again how a unique...

In this episode of B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth, Benedict sits down with Winfried Schultz to discuss how to bring ABM into the future. ABM had its moment in B2B marketing not that long ago. Many marketers, including those on this podcast have discussed how ABM can be a transformative strategy. However, it seems the trendiness of ABM resulted in many marketers not understanding what makes it truly powerful and engaging in activities that value quantity and efficiency over quality and...

In this episode of B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth, Benedict sits down with Mark Cullen about the need for B2B marketers to be brave. The key to marketing with an impact is saying something authentic about your company and delivering it in an emotive way. Most marketers understand that it takes a level of emotional impact to make a significant impression on your audience. However, there seem to be many factors that inhibit marketers ability to create something that shines. So what’s...

In this episode of B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth, we look back at some of the provocative topics we have talked about in 2023 so far! Episode Clips Included: How Data Proves the Need for Creativity in B2B, with Adam Morgan, Executive Creative Director at AdobeEducating B2B Industries with Thought Leadership, with James Watson, CMO of The Glimpse GroupUnifying a B2B Marketing Department after M&A, with Andrew Davies, CMO of PaddleMarketing in a Divestment and Re-Brand, with Lucy...

In this episode of B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth, Benedict sits down with Jennifer Leggio to discuss how attribution for marketing and sales needs to change with the buyer journey. Nowadays, it’s extremely important for sales and marketing to work together to achieve the same goal of creating pipeline. However, it would seem many B2B businesses are functioning as if marketing and sales can be accurately measured with the same KPIs. Using the same metrics for marketing as sales will...

In this episode of B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth, Benedict sits down with Archana Dhankar to discuss all things influencer marketing in B2B.  There’s no denying the differences between B2B and B2C marketing. However, it’s all too easy to have a closed mindset as to what could work for your business. Influencer marketing has made waves in B2C as a viable and effective strategy, but B2B has yet to understand and embrace how influencer marketing could work for them. Influencer marketing...

In this episode of B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth, Benedict chats to Laura Klysz about truly leading thought leadership.  There are a lot of problems with how thought leadership is done in B2B. Not only is it underutilised as a tool for businesses, but fundamentally, it isn’t actually doing what it suggests. Very little thought leadership actually leads any thought in a given space. Certainly there are interesting insights to be shared, but what does it really mean to provoke new and...

In this episode of B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth, Benedict chats to Stuart Shingler about what performance really means in B2B. Despite performance marketing having been around for a while, there is still a lack of understanding about what it truly is, leading it to be conflated with and used interchangeably to digital marketing. But it’s much more nuanced than that. What will really help marketers is not to get bogged down by what it means. Rather, it’s important to build a culture of...

In this episode of B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth, Benedict sits down with Dan O’Hara to discuss the need for art and science to not only coexist, but work together in marketing. Nowadays, marketers have access to a wealth of data to make sense of marketing activities. However, even in B2B marketing, strictly going off the data doesn’t provide the whole picture, especially because of how hard it can be to actually track and attribute specific marketing activities. Yes, data has to...