Summary

Most marketing doesn’t fail because of bad content,it fails because of unclear thinking. Before you spend a cent, your team must be able to answer seven brutal clarity questions about your customer’s pain, triggers, process, and value or you’re just guessing with budget attached.

Everyone wants pipeline. No one wants to slow down and get clarity. But if you skip this part? You’re not marketing — you’re just guessing with budget attached.

I’ve worked with B2B teams for nearly two decades. Startups, scale-ups, enterprise. And I’ve seen this pattern too many times to count:

  • A product or service is good — maybe even great
  • The team is smart and hungry
  • The growth goals are big
  • And the marketing? Completely misaligned with the people they’re trying to reach

It’s not a content problem.
It’s not a channel problem.
It’s a clarity problem.

Before you launch a single campaign, before you write a homepage headline, before you spend a cent on demand gen — your team needs to answer these seven questions.

If you can’t, you’re not ready to market yet.

1. What are the top 3 actual problems your ICP cares about?

Not “what our tool solves.”
Not “our differentiators.”
I’m talking about the business pain that’s making your ideal customer:

  • Miss targets
  • Lose deals
  • Get side-eyed by their VP
  • Question their career
  • Burn out and browse LinkedIn at 11:42 PM

You need to know the real problems they’re feeling — not just the technical ones your product addresses.

This is where everything starts. And if your answers don’t match your customer’s reality?  verything else breaks.

2. What do those problems feel like day to day?

Symptoms matter. Is your ICP…

  • Manually updating dashboards that still don’t tell the full story?
  • Copy-pasting between six systems just to send a campaign?
  • Onboarding new hires with Frankenstein processes that don’t scale?

If they don’t feel it, they won’t search for it.
If they don’t feel it, they won’t buy a solution for it.

Good marketing speaks to the moment they realize it’s costing them.

3. What’s the real value of solving that problem?

You need to be able to say:

  • “This saves your team 12 hours/week.”
  • “This cuts down churn by 18%.”
  • “This moves your pipeline 22 days faster.”

The value isn’t in your features. It’s in the before/after moment they’re betting on.

And if you can’t tie it to revenue, risk, retention, or time? You’re marketing friction, not value.

4. What triggers your ICP to start looking for a solution?

Marketing that shows up “just because” is forgettable. Marketing that shows up right when the pain gets real is sticky.

Know what activates your audience:

  • Did their last tool break under pressure?
  • Did they get a new boss asking hard questions?
  • Did a funding round change expectations?

Trigger moments are your best entry point. Miss them, and you’re background noise.

5. Where do they go to learn?

Not just “where do they click.” Where do they go when they’re uncertain, curious, or overwhelmed?

Slack communities?
Product Hunt?
Industry podcasts?
Peer groups?
Google? LinkedIn? A friend in Ops?

You can’t just be “everywhere.” You need to be precisely where they trust what they find.

6. Who owns the budget?

Be honest: are you marketing to the buyer? Or just the user?

A lot of teams make beautiful campaigns for the people who want the tool — but not the person who signs the contract. (If procurement isn’t in your buying group definition for large B2B purchases, time to rethink.)

You need both.

Build language for the end user.
Build logic for the economic buyer.
And map how they influence each other.

7. What’s the buying process really like?

This is where deals stall. If you don’t understand their process, you’ll waste time trying to push instead of guide.

  • Do they trial first and buy later?
  • Do they need an internal champion to get signoff?
  • Are legal, IT, or security required to review you?
  • Is procurement a nightmare?

Map it. Because marketing isn’t just getting attention — it’s making the next step easier.

If You Can Answer All 7 of These, Marketing Works

  • Messaging resonates.
  • Leads convert.
  • Sales close faster.
  • Customer success has a stronger handoff.
  • And content actually gets used.

If you can’t answer all 7? You don’t need a new campaign. You need a clarity session with your leadership team. Because go-to-market without shared understanding isn’t strategy — it’s a gamble.

Here’s What to Do Next:

Block 90 minutes. Bring your founder, head of product, and someone close to the customer. Walk through each of these questions with brutal honesty. (If you can get participation from real customers, get it NOW.) Then and only then — go build your marketing engine. Otherwise, you’re just setting fire to budget that could’ve gone to runway.

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