Read Lottie's Blogs
Insights, learnings and stories from the world of B2B marketing and communications, direct from Velo’s B2B agency team
Lottie O'Donoghue
A commercial leader through and through, before Velo, Lottie led the marketing function of a scale-up tech SaaS platform moving to the world of agencies to run Accenture’s ABM and marketing activity across EMEAR. Now, Lottie leads the agency's teams for new business clients across brand strategy projects through to websites and campaign activation. She also owns Velo's own marketing, too.
B2B Branding, B2B Marketing Leadership, B2B Strategy
How do senior B2B marketers tell if their B2B positioning is working?
If you’re the marketing leader accountable for how your business shows up, here’s a test that will tell you more about the campaigns you’re about to sign off than any positioning workshop will. Ask five people in your business “what is it we sell?” and see how many different variations come back. We use this test with marketing teams regularly, and the results […]
B2B Marketing Leadership, B2B Strategy
New to the role as a senior marketer? A 9-step blueprint for successfully taking over a team.
Taking over a marketing team is as much about people as it is about a plan. This piece lays out a 9-step blueprint for the first 90 days: understanding what success looks like, learning how the business and its customers really see marketing, and building the credibility that makes bigger changes possible later.
B2B Advocacy, B2B Audiences, B2B Marketing in Professional Services, B2B Strategy
How do you influence buying decisions before they’re even being made?
There’s an uncomfortable truth sitting at the heart of most B2B marketing right now. Recommendation is the most influential driver of revenue, but it can only be indirectly influenced – and it’s even harder to measure. The channels you can measure are rarely where the real decision gets made. The channels where it does – the peer conversation, the internal Slack thread, the industry […]
B2B Marketing Leadership, B2B Strategy
How to successfully integrate two marketing teams following an acquisition.
The acquisition has closed. Two businesses now sit under one roof – and so do their two marketing teams, running two sets of campaigns, two martech stacks, and two cultures. A senior leader now has a choice to make: keep both teams running as they are, or blend them into a single, reshaped function. That decision shouldn’t be made on instinct, or on whoever argues their case hardest. Get […]
Curiosity is eroding inside marketing teams. That should worry you.
Something uncomfortable is happening inside marketing departments. Not a shortage of ambition, tools, or activity, but a quiet erosion of curiosity. Speak to senior marketing leaders and a similar pattern emerges. Candidates appear technically competent. Campaigns get delivered. Teams are busy. But the instinct to explore, question and challenge, the thing that once distinguished great marketers […]
12 hard truths for B2B Marketers from 2025, and how to make 2026 easier
Buying cycles are longer. Budgets are smaller. And let’s not even start on the AI-generated content sludge. Sound familiar? B2B marketing in 2026 isn’t broken. But it is being stress-tested. The old playbooks and channels? Under pressure. Attribution models? Struggling to see in the dark. Martech stacks? Getting heavier without pulling harder. Pressure to show […]
B2B Branding, B2B Content, B2B Creative, B2B Marketing in Technology
Is there a place for characters in B2B marketing?
Not quite a mascot. Not quite a metaphor. But definitely memorable. When we created U.ME for McGraw-Hill — a visual anchor for the next generation of doctors stepping into the world of work — we didn’t realise we’d started something. Then we used the same idea again, in early creative thinking for Bolt EU’s B2B […]
Why so many new B2B start-ups struggle and what it tells us about the importance of brand strength in B2B.
Launching a B2B start-up can feel like pushing a boulder up a mountain. You’ve got a product. You’ve got a proposition. You’ve even got some budget. But the leads don’t come. The sales cycle drags. And doors refuse to open. What gives? Often the founders’ willingness to continue. Here’s the hard truth: most B2B start-ups […]
The B2B Marketer’s Guide to 2025: Operate a high-performing Marketing function
Behind every successful marketing campaign is an efficient, effective team. That is the focus of this final article in the series: your team. It’s packed with practical tips to help you optimise your marketing operations, enabling your team to do more with less while maintaining quality excellence. It focuses on how to: Make content that […]
The B2B Marketer’s Guide to 2025: How to maximise revenue and create demand
In 2025, for technology, professional services and manufacturing businesses, growth will come from striking a balance between acquisition, retention, and innovation. Whether you’re launching new products, entering new markets, or activating channel partners, this guide will help you create integrated campaigns that deliver measurable impact. As a B2B marketing agency specialising in these sectors, […]
B2B Strategy, Customer Experience
The B2B Marketer’s Guide to 2025: Trends for how to earn customer trust and loyalty
Next up in the series is trust and loyalty. These aren’t earned overnight. They’re built by consistently delivering value at every stage of the customer lifecycle – and doing it to high quality, every time. Looking through the lens of marketers in the technology, professional services and manufacturing sectors, we break this into three […]
The B2B Marketer’s Guide to 2025: How to lead in my niche with a strong brand, high awareness, and market preference
It’s that time of year again: trend report season! Yes, we know everyone’s doing trend summaries, but it’s for good reason. We’ve taken 214 reports and distilled the key trends* for B2B marketers targeting a niche in the Technology, Professional Services and Manufacturing industries to bring you a mini-series with curated actionable insights across four […]
B2B Marketing in Professional Services
How to create a high impact corporate sales deck
Presentations are key for sales teams. The difference between a good and bad presentation is made up of many factors: 1. Take the reader on a journey A good sales deck has a flow and a talk track that moves from today’s situation through to a better world by working with your company. We […]
What are the marketing secrets of B2B category leaders?
Over the years, there have been several studies on effective B2B marketing. Many use empirical data to observe the impact of certain activities focusing on growth. This article provides a summary of five of the most pertinent principles for ambitious category leaders looking to lead in their niche, providing a canvas on which you can […]
B2B Marketing in manufacturing, B2B Research, B2B Search, SEO & GEO
How to leverage Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) in B2B marketing
It may feel like the landscape of digital marketing is ever-evolving. The reality is, it is – and keeping up to date is crucial for B2B marketers. There was a lot to take in at this year’s BrightonSEO conference (catch up on our key takeaways here) back in April, but something we’ve been keeping […]
B2B Content, B2B Marketing in Professional Services
Boosting B2B brand authority with content syndication
In B2B marketing, establishing your brand as a thought leader is essential for building trust and credibility with your audience. However, you are not the only ones looking to do this. It is saturated. You are competing for share of voice. It is not impossible, just harder than is perhaps used to be. One […]
What Google’s U-turn on 3rd-party cookies means for B2B marketing
After years of anticipation and multiple delays, in a surprising – or, perhaps, unsurprising – move, Google has decided to scrap its plans to phase out third-party cookies on Chrome. Whatever your view, this decision undoubtably shifts the landscape for B2B marketers who have been preparing for a future without third-party cookies. Earlier in […]
A sales and marketing relationship designed to supercharge your growth
In part one of this article, we highlighted the fractured nature of the two key functions sat at the heart of an organisation’s growth; sales and marketing. In this second part, we explore a series of practical steps designed to help create closer alignment between the two functions. Collaboration Depending on the size of your […]
Your sales team will tell you who your best prospects are. Well, 16% of the time
When approaching any new project, one of the most valuable pieces of work anyone can do is speak to the people buying the products: the customers. Anyone who has worked in B2B long enough will tell you that the ability to do this can vary from tricky to borderline impossible. Rarely are customers free to […]
Need a B2B persona for senior HR Leaders?
Knowing your audience is the first step in constructing strong B2B marketing campaigns. You need to understand their motivations and pain points, but also how you can pragmatically reach them. This series of articles provides deep dives on the audiences we target most regularly here at Velo. Senior leaders at large organisations who are responsible […]
B2B Audiences, B2B Marketing in manufacturing
Need a B2B persona for production managers in an industrial setting?
Knowing your audience is the first step in constructing strong B2B marketing campaigns. You need to understand their motivations and pain points, but also how you can pragmatically reach them. This series of articles provides deep dives on the audiences we target most regularly here at Velo. In most manufacturing and industrial plants, customers with […]
How should B2B marketers approach 2024?
This article follows our “2024’s trends in B2B marketing for those targeting a niche” article and focuses on what you can do to navigate 2024 as a B2B marketer targeting a niche. This article follows our “2024’s trends in B2B marketing for those targeting a niche” article and focuses on what you can do […]
How to roll out new brand communications without damaging brand strength
If you target a B2B niche, your brand becomes one of your most crucial assets. It can both help you and harm you. What we often see is that it can lose potency as it is rolled out. The hero assets are brilliant, creative and hard-hitting. By the time the roll-out is covering product brochures, […]
B2B Audiences, B2B Campaigns, B2B Content, B2B Marketing in Insurance, B2B Marketing in manufacturing, B2B Marketing in Professional Services, B2B Marketing in Technology, Customer Experience
Is there more to marketing effectively across EMEAR than just translating your marketing? Yes.
Is there a country called EMEAR? Has anyone ever said they live or work in EMEAR? Does everyone that lives in France have the same habits, preferences and challenges as people that live in Germany? Of course not. So why do so many B2B marketers treat EMEAR as if it is all one homogeneous zone? […]
B2B Branding, Customer Experience
Why do B2B marketers need to go much deeper to understand their customers? Making the case for expanded Buyer Personas.
Answering this question is where Velo, and any self respecting marketing professional should, start with all clients. When was the last time you read a blog, an article, a social media post, watched a video or listened to a podcast and thought – wow that really spoke to me? It wasn’t just a case […]
B2B Content, B2B Marketing in manufacturing, B2B Marketing in Professional Services, B2B Marketing in Technology, Customer Experience
How can you increase the number of your B2B case studies that get signed off?
As a B2B marketer, one of your key goals is to use thoughtful storytelling to create success stories that demonstrate your product or service’s power. Particularly for B2B marketers in the technology and professional services sector, success stories are key as a sales enablement tool. They are also essential for reinforcing credentials within the […]
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