- Ask CMO
- Posts
- 🛠️ Building B2B communities that actually drive growth (yes, it's possible)
🛠️ Building B2B communities that actually drive growth (yes, it's possible)
Plus: The HubSpot SEO crisis is about more than an algorithm change
Hey there!
The AskCMO team spent the week digging up the best B2B marketing tools and trends so you don’t have to.
And the best part? You can catch up on all of it in the next 3 minutes.
In today’s Tools & Trends roundup:
Going beyond basic community-building tactics, Dan Cmejla shares the strategy that helped drive 76% of Apollo.io's acquisition through community programs while reaching unicorn status.
🗝️ The key takeaways:
Don't start with building your own community. First, fix your social media presence, build customer relationships, and become active in existing communities where your customers already hang out.
Create a "wall of love" to track and amplify organic customer praise.
Focus on authentic relationships over metrics. While executives might want to see direct pipeline numbers, the real value comes from building genuine relationships that turn customers into long-term brand advocates.
Ever wonder what actually convinces CMOs to buy software these days? Peep Laja surveyed 100 B2B SaaS marketing leaders to uncover their real buying journey, and the results might surprise you.
🗝️ The key takeaways:
Your website is still king. Every single buyer (100%!) visits it before making a decision. They're typically only looking at three vendors, so your messaging better stand out.
Reviews are everything. 73% of buyers are checking third-party reviews. If they can't find any reviews about your product, that's a major red flag.
Despite all the AI buzz, human connections are vital. 23% of buyers meet vendors at trade shows, and 27% follow company executives on social media.
Remember when having a great product was enough? This article explains why that's no longer true. AI is causing successful products to suddenly become obsolete.
🗝️ The key takeaways:
Established products are losing market fit overnight. Stack Overflow's traffic plummeted when GitHub Copilot launched, and Chegg lost 90% of its value when ChatGPT arrived.
Companies need to completely rethink how they work. The old ways of gathering customer feedback through months-long research cycles just won't cut it anymore.
If you've noticed your organic traffic taking a hit lately, you're not alone - even HubSpot is seeing a decline. But before you rush to pump out more content or blame the latest algorithm update, there's something bigger going on that you need to understand.
🗝️ The key takeaways:
We're facing a behavioral shift, not just a technical one. People are fundamentally changing how they search for and consume information thanks to AI.
Stop fighting the inevitable. Instead of trying to reverse the trend, adapt to it by focusing on content that showcases your unique value.
If your sales pipeline feels more like a leaky bucket, your ICP might need some serious TLC. This post provides a three-step process to help you quickly zero in on the customers who are actually worth your time.
🗝️ The key takeaways:
Do a quick audit of your stalled and lost deals. They're hiding valuable clues about who you shouldn't be targeting in the first place.
Build your "anti-ICP". Instead of just defining your ideal customer, flip the script and get crystal clear on who's a bad fit.
Put AI to work. Use it to analyze customer data, spot patterns in interviews, and keep your ICP sharp as your business grows.
Thinking of scaling your sales team? Warmly shared their entire playbook of how they went from founder-led sales to a 15-person sales machine, complete with all the messy details and failed experiments.
🗝️ The key takeaways:
They nailed the omnichannel approach by automating everything. But they kept the human touch by having real people manage responses.
Cold calling isn't dead, but there's a twist. Warmly's team uses parallel cold calling while simultaneously "warm calling" website visitors, making their SDR team super efficient.
RevOps turned out to be their secret weapon. With 50+ GTM tools to manage, having a dedicated RevOps person gave Account Executives back 50% of their time.
That’s it for this week.
Speak soon,
The Ask CMO team
P.S. Do you (or someonIe you know) want to be interviewed for AskCMO? We’re looking for 2025 guests now. If you’re a CMO or senior-level marketer in B2B, please fill out this form and we’ll be in touch.
P.P.S. Did someone send this to you? What a legend. There’s more where this came from, subscribe here.