Your 2026 B2B Marketing Strategy Framework

Courtney Kehl: Great! Well, let’s kick it off. Um, excited to be talking with Michelle Clark, our absolute right-hand, um, guru when it comes to all things demand gen and strategy and.

Michelle Clark: Okay.

Courtney Kehl: And just marketing in general for B2B tech companies. Um, and then, of course, you got me. I’m the founder of Expert Marketing Advisors, uh, more so behind the scenes, but definitely focused on valuations.

Courtney Kehl: and some M&A approaches this year, mergers and acquisitions. Um, great. Michelle, do you want to say hi?

Michelle Clark: Hello, everybody, so happy to be here. Excited to talk about 2026, uh, B2B marketing strategy with you all.

Courtney Kehl: Yeah, absolutely. I think this is really timely. Um, if folks don’t already have a strategy in place.

Courtney Kehl: Um, or if they do, and they just want to make sure they really fine-tune it, this is, uh, certainly the time to be doing it.

Courtney Kehl: Um, so with that, the 2026 B2B marketing reality. What does this landscape even look like?

Courtney Kehl: what are some of the changes that have come about? What are we seeing more of or less of, and so on and so forth. Maybe you can walk us through that, Michelle.

Michelle Clark: Yeah, I mean, the first bullet point about buying committees just being larger is certainly true. I think I saw a stat the other day that was something around there are now 13 people involved in a company when it comes to B2B sales, um, and sort of making that decision, so that’s certainly a larger number than I think we’ve seen historically.

Michelle Clark: Um, slower and more skeptical, sure, everybody’s kind of waiting, assessing, a lot of new technology, um, kind of makes everybody slow down a little bit and really consider. And then again, when you have 13 people in the room to make a decision, it’s naturally going to slow things down.

Michelle Clark: Um, you know, with AI being everywhere, yes, um, we’re seeing a lot of throw AI at it, just weave it into the copy on our website, you know, um, say, yes, we do AI. Um, but the strategy is still missing, and a lot of people are forgetting to sort of back up from the tactical and really think about how to apply it.

Courtney Kehl: Yeah, absolutely.

Courtney Kehl: Right, right. It’s one thing to kind of have this high-level understanding of AI and how that actually is built into the company’s offering and such, but it’s another thing to really, like, leverage it and take it to the actual extent that it’s being built for.

Michelle Clark: Yeah.

Courtney Kehl: Great, and then the channels versus impact, um, because I’ve seen this go in different waves over the last 20-plus years of marketing.

Courtney Kehl: Um, and it does seem like we’re kind of, like, all kind of peeling back a bit and, like, going with the more simple.

Courtney Kehl: Um, and straightforward, as opposed to some of the shiny objects.

Michelle Clark: Yeah, we’ve had a few conversations with folks who are like, maybe we should do Instagram, maybe we should do TikTok, maybe we should do Reddit, maybe we should do all of it. Um, and it’s like, slow down, take a breath, like, let’s not revisit spray and pray, that used to be very popular. We’ve all seen that it doesn’t work.

Michelle Clark: Um, and just remember the tried and true, you know, find the water… the right watering holes. Where is your audience actually hanging out? Um, because…

Courtney Kehl: Yeah.

Michelle Clark: you know, just being everywhere is not always going to be as impactful. It’s the pretty classic quality over quantity.

Courtney Kehl: Yeah, yeah, and the shiny object syndrome, I mean, that’s one I’m, like, notorious for. I love to, like, what’s this? You know, and it’s like, no, keep that focus. Um, as well, the last point here on tactics, um.

Courtney Kehl: I am a very tactical person. I like things to be very, like, rigid, and, like, you know, this is our approach, and blah blah blah. But, uh, certainly taking, to your point, Michelle, bringing that up, and, like, why are we doing this? What is that going to look like in the long haul? And so on and so forth. So maybe a little bit more clarity as you’re… as you’re…

Courtney Kehl: Uh, kind of pointed out here.

Michelle Clark: Yeah, and I mean, look, we’ve… we’re all fans of sort of testing things out. I think you don’t really know until you test something, but you also want to test one thing at a time. Um, and actually, you know, put a lot of thought into whether that test is actually going to be worth it, too.

Courtney Kehl: Right, right, great. Um, okay, sorry, my cat has decided to join the webinar.

Michelle Clark: What are their thoughts on B2B marketing?

Courtney Kehl: Of course. I’m trying to, like, hold her back, and I think she just hears us talking, and she’s like, oh, what’s happening?

Courtney Kehl: Anyways, um, B2B marketing strategies that we do see people are getting wrong, uh, maybe we can kind of tick off a few of those.

Michelle Clark: Yeah, the channel-first planning, um, and I think we have a nice graphic on this a little bit later, um, in a few slides, um, but really, it should be goal-first, um, and then what channels will help you sort of reach those goals, or you think we’ll reach those goals, rather than just saying, let’s go with this channel, why? Oh, I just thought it was a good idea, and hopefully it’ll help us reach our goals. It’s just a little backwards.

Courtney Kehl: We definitely see those trends.

Courtney Kehl: Yeah, that’s a real important one, and we have, um… we’re working with one company right now where we are splitting out the different channels, and it’s with the intent of kind of figuring out which ones actually are performing, and which ones need more attention, or perhaps shift our focus to something else.

Michelle Clark: Uh, but definitely that goal.

Courtney Kehl: Um, so it’s not a… it’s don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater kind of thing. Um, it’s just that the larger goal is obviously the revenue component, um, and the, you know, the collective.

Courtney Kehl: And then breaking it from there, if that makes sense, hopefully.

Michelle Clark: Yeah, I mean, I think then once you figure out the channels, you sort of have to go back to the goals for that individual channel, and it can be kind of a back and forth.

Courtney Kehl: Yes.

Michelle Clark: Um, but always, it’s, okay, what’s our bigger goal? And then you narrow down from there.

Courtney Kehl: Right, exactly, exactly. Um, and then what about these metrics? A lot of folks will refer to them as vanity metrics.

Michelle Clark: Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah, we see a lot of that, and certain… certain metrics matter. Certain metrics are… even if they are vanity, it’s interesting, you know, to see what they are and to understand them. But definitely, if you’re looking at each channel, it’s what metrics actually matter, and we have past webinars on this that I think are really valuable. And then also making sure to, as you’re looking.

Courtney Kehl: Um…

Michelle Clark: funnel, and you’re looking at where you need to fill gaps, also understanding where those metrics would map to your revenue. And so, just not only, you know, narrowing down on the metrics that matter, but then understanding how it impacts your business, too.

Courtney Kehl: Yeah.

Courtney Kehl: Yeah. And those… those big metrics that really do… where… do kind of carry the focus of moving things through pipeline.

Courtney Kehl: Um, it’s important to understand what those ones are, and then you can really just start, um, sort of pushing or pulling those levers, or adjusting them. It’s the extra metrics. We… and we can… I mean, data is king, right? We can drill into all sorts of areas, um, but again, it kind of… it kind of supports that shiny object syndrome.

Courtney Kehl: Um, it tears the focus away from really the big, um, the big milestones and the big metrics that are most important and ultimately for sales.

Michelle Clark: Yeah, and just to be really concrete, some examples, um, follower count versus engagement rate, right, open rate versus click rate, not that any of these are not important, but you have to also understand the bigger picture and how they fit together. So if you’re only looking at email open rates, but you’re not looking at who opened the email and then maybe who opened the email and clicked it, that could actually be really valuable rather than just what the.

Courtney Kehl: Right.

Michelle Clark: open rate is of an email. That’s just one example. And then you can get, you know, you can do that for each individual channel.

Courtney Kehl: Bye.

Courtney Kehl: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then, once you kind of really iron out which metrics are the ones that matter, which we’re happy to help y’all with as well, um, keeping that focus, staying the course with that, and holding yourself accountable at the end of each month, end of each quarter.

Courtney Kehl: what does that look like? You know, are we able to kind of iron out some of these bottlenecks? Or do we see sort of a lower conversion in one area versus a higher conversion in another?

Courtney Kehl: Um, the follow-through there. Um, great. And then, of course, sales and marketing, right? We all work for sales.

Michelle Clark: Yeah, this is just the age-old may have the two departments, you know, be working together and collaborating, so make sure that those motions are definitely connected.

Courtney Kehl: uh…

Courtney Kehl: Yeah. And there’s a lot of overlap. I think it’s even more so now, where, you know, our buyers are making decisions before ever talking to sales.

Courtney Kehl: Um, you know, they’re like 80, 90% of the way through the buying cycle, um, before they even.

Courtney Kehl: reach out with a contact us or something of that sort. Um, so really working hand-in-hand, marketing and sales together, is going to kind of keep that cohesive, and it’s a very fluid.

Courtney Kehl: sort of motion. Yeah. And then what about AI adoption? What are we seeing there?

Michelle Clark: Yeah, I mean, I like that it’s in quotes here, because it’s like, yeah, I use AI, and it’s just, you know, having ChatGPT write your copy, or whatever it is, um, but really understanding, like, this bullet point says, the larger operational change. So, you know, what meetings do you have that are pretty regular on the calendar, where the entire team is meeting about how your company specifically has, you know.

Courtney Kehl: Hmm.

Michelle Clark: AI adoption in their company. Um, not just, you know, okay, use AI, bye, but really, you know, having training sessions, or working sessions, or constantly, you know, updating each other on the new things that you’ve learned and ways to actually adopt it. What tools?

Michelle Clark: I mean, our company has gone through so many review processes of different tools, and comparing them to each other, and really seeing what makes sense, but also what makes sense for our agency.

Michelle Clark: Um, and that’s going to be really specific.

Michelle Clark: per each business. Um…

Courtney Kehl: Yeah. I heard one comment the other day was, you know, we’re… the company sort of policy is, um…

Courtney Kehl: any task, or any need, or any, um, function, they first ask, can AI do it?

Courtney Kehl: Um, which is an interesting approach, and if AI can’t do it, then they look at, like, actual human beings, and it’s like, oh gosh, that’s really, like, blatant, and how, you know, some of the human roles are…

Courtney Kehl: Um, you know.

Courtney Kehl: at some point, kind of being threatened by AI, but at the other end of that is, if the AI has a purpose, like, if we know that we have something specific that needs to be done within the organization or the business.

Courtney Kehl: then what does that mean? What do we need? What does that look like? Um, and I think that’s where you actually need that extra bit of thought around the, uh…

Michelle Clark: Mm-hmm.

Courtney Kehl: Adoption and operational change.

Michelle Clark: Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I would say these are a good four ways that, you know, marketing companies go a little bit awry, so addressing those. Hmm, big… a big stat.

Michelle Clark: 89%.

Courtney Kehl: Big, big number, always like to throw one out there. Yeah. Um, and you found this one, Michelle, go for it.

Michelle Clark: Yeah, I think it goes back to sort of, like, that larger buying committee and understanding, you know, who your audience is. 89% of purchases are now requiring input from more than one department, so it’s not just 13 marketers, but maybe it’s, you know, 5 salespeople, 5 marketers, some people in product, you know, and so on and so forth.

Michelle Clark: And so, really, what that means is…

Courtney Kehl: Legal, accounting, legal and accounting at the table.

Michelle Clark: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So really, then, your ICP has really expanded, because now you have to consider what your messaging is to each of those departments, because they are all going to have a different perspective.

Courtney Kehl: Yeah.

Michelle Clark: On what you’re selling is gonna impact… what’s gonna impact the business.

Courtney Kehl: Yep. I mean, legal is gonna care about, you know, the contract itself, and the… is there cancellation terms, and yadda yadda, versus, you know, accounting is going to care about, like, the numbers and the dollars, versus product is going to care about, you know, whether or not this is actually going to make the.

Courtney Kehl: solve the problem that they’re concerned with, or, you know, the IT side of things. Um, so yeah, speaking to each one of those, uh, is…

Courtney Kehl: It’s gotten more and more complex, of course. Yeah, 13 different, um…

Michelle Clark: Folks, yeah.

Courtney Kehl: Yeah, or 13 different folks, okay, yeah.

Michelle Clark: Yeah, 13 different folks across however many departments. I mean, that really puts you to the test.

Courtney Kehl: Yeah. Yeah, kind of building that out. So, if you’re building that out, the marketing strategy and the framework that we suggest, um, just kind of, again, reiterating the business objective, start there.

Courtney Kehl: Um, and then build out across as far as, you know, what’s needed to get us from those actual goals to actual results.

Michelle Clark: Yeah.

Courtney Kehl: Um, so maybe you can talk through this one, Michelle.

Michelle Clark: Yeah, uh, as you mentioned, always start with sort of your larger business objectives, um, your revenue, you know, market expansion, so on and so forth, and then we can start to go, okay, now who are we targeting?

Michelle Clark: And we’ve talked about audience here a lot. Um, but I really like this point about, you know, it’s not just personas, it’s not just the title, you know, but it really is about the jobs that need to be done. So, when you’re thinking about those 13 people across the different departments.

Michelle Clark: What are their pain points, and how are you solving for each of those is really, really important, more than ever, um, especially when you’re dealing with so many folks.

Michelle Clark: Um, then the funnel strategy, you know, just really focusing on each part of the funnel and clear ownership. We’ve seen it before with ourselves, with clients, um, doing really great top of funnel, doing really great, you know, bottom of funnel, um, but nobody’s really taking ownership of middle of funnel, and there’s a big gap there.

Michelle Clark: Um, so really honing in on that, understanding who’s owning each part, and making sure to have a strategy for each part of it.

Courtney Kehl: Yeah. Yeah.

Courtney Kehl: I think a big key on that one is really the ownership, uh, because it can get a little disjointed.

Michelle Clark: Yeah.

Courtney Kehl: Uh, so just finding the right folks to really execute in each of the different areas, it makes a big difference. Um, and also, just going back to the pipelines, what does this look like? What is the… what is this…

Courtney Kehl: where does this map into your pipeline as far as conversions? Do you see low conversions in one area versus high conversions in another?

Courtney Kehl: Um, if you don’t have a lot of historical data, I highly recommend you still just throw some spaghetti against the wall and start somewhere with some average.

Courtney Kehl: Sort of numbers and conversions, and then going from there, at least gives you that foundation.

Michelle Clark: Yeah, then you always have it moving forward.

Courtney Kehl: Right. And then channel prioritization, I think we’ve already kind of touched on this, but really, you know, it’s avoid the spray and pray, avoid the temptation to try to do it all.

Michelle Clark: Totally.

Courtney Kehl: Um, it’s really honing in on the ones that… the channels that really matter for your buyers.

Courtney Kehl: Um, and then really focusing on bringing those to a higher level, or to higher conversions and to delivering results. Once you kind of have that as a foundation, you can pivot over to some other sort of test.

Courtney Kehl: test channels, like the Reddits of the world, or… I think Thread now is one coming around the corner, so…

Michelle Clark: Yeah.

Courtney Kehl: All those good ones. Um…

Michelle Clark: Yeah, we usually see this timeline reversed, and that’s where we see most of the issues come into play, uh, where you keep the timeline right, and then… and then, again, there’s, like, sort of… sometimes you’ll take two steps forward and maybe one step back to revisit, and then so on and so forth, but…

Courtney Kehl: Right. Yes.

Courtney Kehl: Right.

Michelle Clark: This is the general timeline that usually we see the most success with.

Courtney Kehl: Yeah, and I think that’s a really good point. We do often see this reversed, um, which is just, you know, you gotta flip it around on its head, so to speak.

Courtney Kehl: Cool. So how do we apply this framework now, as in today? What do we do right out of the gates?

Michelle Clark: I mean, we’re big fans of audits, so reviewing, you know, past stuff, current stuff, and how is it mapping to literally that timeline we just showed, um, if you need to rework things and rework things. Um, identifying those one to two gaps that are creating friction is really important, because then you can really narrow in on why, um, and then are those gaps.

Michelle Clark: sort of, you know, necessary. Does something need to be removed from the strategy or replaced?

Courtney Kehl: Right.

Michelle Clark: Aligning marketing KPIs to sales outcomes always, right? Um, making sure that the two departments are in sync.

Courtney Kehl: Mm-hmm.

Michelle Clark: Um, I don’t know if you have anything else to add with those?

Courtney Kehl: I mean, I was gonna say, with the gaps piece, an example, um, using ourselves as an example, you know, doing outbound dial-downs and calls, just like, ugh, what a slog.

Michelle Clark: Mm-hmm.

Courtney Kehl: But it matters, and, like, identifying that gap, it truly does matter having that fully sort of integrated outreach. And, um, you know, whether it’s.

Courtney Kehl: dialers, or SMS, or, you know, just cold outbounds.

Courtney Kehl: Um, are those gaps? Do you have those gaps? And how do you work on ensuring that you’ve got, you know, those covered?

Courtney Kehl: Um, yeah, again, an example for ourselves.

Michelle Clark: Yeah, for sure. And then I would also add for the third one, Align Marketing KPIs to sales outcomes. I always like to plug our funnel calculator on our website, um, and then we have, you know, like, a spreadsheet version that we’re happy to send to anybody, um, just to make it really a working session, and then you kind of identify, you know, what each step of the funnel, an MQL, an SQL, an opportunity means.

Courtney Kehl: Mm-hmm.

Michelle Clark: for your company. Um, and it’s just really great, honestly, like, get dirty, you know, typing into a spreadsheet.

Courtney Kehl: Right.

Courtney Kehl: Yeah, it gets everyone on the same page, um, it’s not, like, a one-size-fits-all for, you know, these types of conversions and numbers and goals, but it is definitely, like, hey, let’s look at this from every direction. Let’s look at it from the top down, let’s look at it from the bottom up.

Michelle Clark: Work that out.

Courtney Kehl: do we… does it pass, I like to say, the sniff test? Um, you know, if your goal is to have, you know, 1,200.

Michelle Clark: Mm-hmm.

Courtney Kehl: opportunities in the year that’s, on average, 100 opportunities a month. Is that realistic? Like, where were you last year? Did you have… I mean, and you can kind of, like, your radars will go off and say, wait a minute, if we only had 10 opportunities a month.

Courtney Kehl: how are we gonna get to 100 a month? Like, this is… we gotta start kind of massaging this more, and really getting all the stakeholders, um…

Courtney Kehl: Align on it, and, you know, have them kind of sniff it out, and, um, everybody just really can kind of go in that same direction. It makes a big difference.

Michelle Clark: Yeah. Um, and I like the point about always revisiting, especially the most recent year, because again, are you really going to scale that much? We love the goal. We love, you know, a big goal for yourself, but you also don’t want to upset yourself at the end of the year and not reach, you know, miss out on other business opportunities, so…

Courtney Kehl: Right. Yeah.

Michelle Clark: Um, and then the Commit to one quarterly strategy reset, you know, at the end, is it all making sense? Do you need to go back through the timeline? Do you need to go back to whatever those one to two gaps… have those gaps changed? Um, so really just sitting down with the team a few times.

Courtney Kehl: Yeah. Yeah.

Michelle Clark: Yeah, to make sure everything is on track.

Courtney Kehl: Yeah, and this… this really helps, um, ensure that there’s no surprises along the way. Um, I mean, at any given point, I can tell.

Courtney Kehl: exactly where we are, um, in Q1 versus Q2 versus Q3, and it’s because I’m constantly, like, doing that review, and knowing the numbers, and knowing what we have in flight, and…

Courtney Kehl: you know, what’s working and what’s not. So, yeah, it’s definitely just an accountability piece.

Michelle Clark: Yeah, I think internally we’ve been calling it our State of the Unions.

Courtney Kehl: Right, right. And it’s, I mean, it makes a big difference for the overall valuation of the company, too, and also credibility with sales.

Courtney Kehl: Cool. Um, well, that’s all we have. I think we were pretty close on time. We’re trying to keep these nice and short, and little nuggets for everyone to digest. Um, we do encourage you.

Courtney Kehl: put some questions in the chat there, we’ll be sure to loop back around with you, um, or of course, just reach out to us directly. Contact at ExpertmarketingAdvisors.com. Be happy to talk shop with you.

Courtney Kehl: Absolutely love this stuff, it’s, uh, it’s kind of our… our passion, so to speak.

Michelle Clark: Thanks, everyone.