Read Paul's Blogs
Insights, learnings and stories from the world of B2B marketing and communications, direct from Velo’s B2B agency team
Paul Crabtree
An IDM-qualified senior sales and marketing professional who has held board positions in various marketing agencies since 2005. Although he claims not to look old enough, the emerging silver locks tell a different story. As MD, founder and owner of Velo, his role is to lead the agency maintaining our quality standards to be the level that means we continue to be built on recommendation. He has a particular focus on new business, overseeing all our client relationships and leading our strategy function to make sure that our team has the skills and capabilities that our clients need, so we continue always craft great work to be proud of. Find him on LinkedIn here.
AI & MarTech for B2B, B2B Marketing Agency Selection, B2B Marketing Leadership
Governance of AI in practice
Anthropic’s Claude now embeds an invisible watermark directly into the text it generates using patterns of text it chooses, a requirement driven by the EU AI Act’s transparency obligations. Every model launched from that date carries it by default, and older models are being retrofitted. Image and file outputs carry a different mark: signed C2PA provenance metadata […]
B2B Marketing in Professional Services, B2B Marketing in Technology, B2B Marketing Leadership, B2B Research, B2B Strategy
How do you track market share without a big market study?
Formal market studies cost more than most challenger brands can justify, and revenue comparisons rarely help either. This piece sets out three practical proxies, brand search volume, competitor invoice patterns and tender win rates, that give a genuine read on competitive standing a board will recognise.
B2B Marketing Leadership, B2B Strategy
Received investment? How to make sure your marketing operation is ready to scale your activities and your company.
When private equity invests, marketing comes under immediate pressure to prove it can deliver growth fast. This piece sets out a seven-part readiness framework across market-facing and internal factors, potential, proposition, pipeline, perception, process, people and priorities, plus a 90-day roadmap for finding out what needs fixing first.
B2B Marketing Agency Selection
When is the right time to wrap an agency around your in-house team?
In many B2B organisations today, the question is no longer whether to use an agency. It’s if and followed by when. In-house teams are close to customers, more embedded in the business, and increasingly capable across strategy, execution and performance. In-house teams bring clear advantages, but they also come with trade-offs that are easy to miss when you’re in the middle of it. On the one hand, they’re more cost-effective, but […]
B2B Marketing Agency Selection
Why choosing a B2B agency should come with a guarantee
Choosing a B2B agency is still, in most cases, a leap of faith. You review credentials, assess chemistry and compare proposals, but ultimately you are making a decision based on limited information and a degree of trust. That would be fine if the stakes were low. But they are not. Marketing is expected to drive growth, influence revenue and stand up to […]
Why B2B Marketers need to reclaim the revenue conversation and how to do it
Marketing has a credibility problem. And it’s one of our own making. Being a senior marketer in B2B has never been harder — or lonelier. Stress levels are high, scrutiny is constant, and the pace of change is relentless. Just keeping current with AI and martech developments demands a level of curiosity and energy that leaves little room to pause […]
B2B Marketing Agency Selection
When the heat is on, does your agency rise to the occasion? Are they there when it actually matters?
Choosing an agency is rarely a capability problem. Most can show impressive work, strong credentials and a confident pitch team. The real question is simpler: when the pressure is on, or when a larger client becomes demanding, will you matter? That’s where agency relationships are genuinely tested. And it’s worth finding out before you sign anything. The size paradox Agency size cuts […]
B2B Marketing Agency Selection
Why the recommended choice is never a shortcut. It is a quality standard.
When marketers describe how they select an agency, the process sounds structured. Long lists. Formal briefs. Credentials reviewed. Pitches compared. In practice, the journey usually begins somewhere much simpler – with the agencies people have already heard of. A recommendation from a peer. An agency someone used in a previous role. At first glance, this looks like a shortcut. It isn’t. It’s how complex purchasing […]
B2B Marketing Agency Selection
Future-proof or already obsolete? How to assess an agency’s shelf life
Appointing an agency is meant to make your life easier. You bring in expertise, fresh thinking and additional capacity. Someone who understands your market, challenges your assumptions and helps move things forward. Yet many agency relationships quietly drift into something else entirely. Instead of shaping strategy, they wait for instructions. Instead of anticipating change, they react to it. Instead of driving results, they produce assets. When […]
B2B Advocacy, B2B Marketing in Professional Services
Does your customer advocacy programme really pay back?
Customer advocacy shapes commercial performance in ways few other initiatives can. Get it right and you strengthen win rates, reduce acquisition cost and protect lifetime value. Get it wrong and margin quickly starts to slip. Buying and renewal decisions are no longer made on spreadsheets alone. They’re influenced by first-hand experience and credible proof of […]
Agentic AI: The new co-worker in your B2B team?
AI has been quietly reshaping how we work. But a new flavour of it is now making waves and headlines. It’s called agentic AI. And it’s not just something you ask for help from. It’s something that gets on with the job. Some headlines suggest the robots are taking over. We’ll let you decide. And […]
B2B Marketing in Professional Services, B2B Marketing in Technology, B2B Marketing Leadership, B2B Strategy
Why the orchestration of strategy into activation matters more than ever in B2B marketing
B2B marketing is evolving — because it has to. Economic uncertainty, shifting buyer habits, and a talent gap post-pandemic have reshaped the expectations placed on marketing teams — and the agencies that support them. Today’s successful B2B marketers are prioritising four things: 1 -Agility — to respond quickly in an uncertain macroeconomic climate. This is […]
B2B Branding, B2B Marketing in Insurance, B2B Marketing in Professional Services, B2B Research, B2B Strategy
Does brand matter when selling into a B2B niche?
Like Brexit-era Boris, there are two short answers here: yes, and no. But in B2B, short answers rarely get you far. No: Specification trumps story In industrial B2B – whether you’re selling sensors, safety signage or software – brand often takes a back seat. Buyers are responsible for production lines, compliance officers and procurement frameworks. […]
B2B Advocacy, B2B Audiences, B2B Branding, B2B Campaigns, B2B Content, B2B Marketing in Technology
How Tech Marketers should prepare for 2026
Most B2B tech marketers are optimising for the wrong outcome. They’re chasing reach, perfecting attribution models, and testing endless variations of the same campaign. But when a prospect is ready to shortlist, when a customer is asked for a recommendation, when a board member needs a supplier, your brand either comes to mind, or it […]
B2B Advocacy, B2B Audiences, B2B Branding, B2B Campaigns, B2B Content, B2B Marketing in Professional Services
How Professional Services Marketers should start 2026
There is a hard truth. Nobody wakes up excited to hire a facilities management company. No finance director celebrates finding a new insurance broker. Building services, business services, B2B insurance – these aren’t impulse purchases. They’re considered decisions about who you’re going to trust with something important: your operations, your risk, your reputation. And when […]
B2B Advocacy, B2B Campaigns, B2B Content, B2B Creative, B2B ESG, B2B Marketing in manufacturing
How Manufacturing Marketers should approach 2026
When your value is invisible until something goes wrong The best health and safety equipment never makes the news. Precision-engineered components that perform flawlessly for twenty years earn no headlines. Medical devices that work exactly as designed don’t generate case studies about dramatic turnarounds. In manufacturing sectors where success means nothing goes wrong, marketing faces […]
Christmas comes once every year. In B2B, so does the January scramble – spend December getting ahead.
Here’s the thing: you’ve got a budget sitting there. Money that vanishes towards the end of a quarter. We’ve wrapped up a set of small, strategic projects that you can sign off on today, ensuring your Q1 is calmer, sharper, and more successful with minimal work from you. Think of them as a gift to […]
ABM, B2B Branding, B2B Sales Enablement
What we learned about influencing LinkedIn’s algorithm with an unscientific test using SSI
TL:DR We ran a quick internal test to understand LinkedIn’s Social Selling Index (SSI) and what actually drives influence on the platform. Our goal? To find out whether it’s worth the effort for B2B marketers, especially in niche sectors to invest time into personal posting. The headline takeaway: yes, personal posts often outperform company ones, […]
B2B Advocacy, B2B Audiences, B2B Research
Customer recommendation is the main metric that matters in B2B marketing.
In B2B, there’s one signal that matters. Not your CTR. Not your MQL count. Not even your pipeline size. Just one thing – would your customer recommend you without being asked? If it’s no, the rest of the metrics don’t matter. You’ll have issues with retention and repeat business. Recommendation is the real signal of […]
B2B Campaigns, B2B Marketing in Professional Services, B2B Search, SEO & GEO
The biggest shift in search since “just Google it” – Google AI Mode.
DooH running at London Bridge station, SE1 to mark the launch On 29th July 2025, Google quietly changed the internet. No big reveal. No drumroll. Just a flip of the switch and suddenly, the most powerful search engine in the world stopped being a search engine. It became an answer engine. Welcome to AI […]
B2B Research, B2B Search, SEO & GEO
Agentic AI: The new co-worker in your B2B team?
AI has been quietly reshaping how we work. But a new flavour of it is now making waves, and headlines. It’s called agentic AI. And it’s not just something you ask for help, it’s something that gets on with the job. Some headlines suggest it is the robots taking over. We’ll let you decide. And […]
B2B’s Judgment Day: Marketing during the Rise of the Machines
It is like a science fiction plot. The worst kind. Where Armageddon is on its way, and the world will never be the same. A dystopian future has been thrust on the world, causing destruction everywhere. Where the noise of change drowns out the commonsense calmness and is whipped up into a cacophony of […]
Same old B2B events? How to stand out.
At Velo, we’re big believers in B2B events – but only when they’re done well. When done badly, they’re a costly sponge. A glossy presence that eats up time, budget and goodwill. But when done well? They can do more than generate leads. They can fuel brand awareness, support ABM, enable sales conversations, and set […]
What sales enablement tools should you consider for your B2B Sales team?
Sales enablement tools are technology-based solutions built to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of sales teams. Most of our clients use a CRM tool such as Salesforce.com so we favour those that integrate. To determine the best tools, we advocate mapping the sales process and spending time with your team answering questions like: What […]
B2B sustainability creds without cliché is harder than it looks
Credential presentations used to be simple. You needed to show that you had: Relevant experience in working with similar companies or solving similar challenges Key people, especially if you provided professional services Capabilities that you differentiated via a unique theme, phased around an opinion or an approach Corporate information that provided reassurance around size, stability […]
ESG leaders are influencing your customers’ buying decisions. Who? What? How? Why? Your complete guide.
How do you reach ESG leaders as they are already influencing your customer’s buying decisions? Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) considerations guide business strategy across many sectors. For B2B marketers, understanding ESG and who drives this within their target customers is becoming more important. They are a new player in the buying unit, whose influence […]
What to choose the Best B2B marketing agency for you?
A View from the Agency Side. Choosing the right B2B agency isn’t easy. You can craft a detailed brief—laying out your context, challenges, and aspirations. You can scour the internet for agencies that look the part, hoping to find case studies that give you confidence. But ultimately, it’s still a leap of faith. The real […]
B2B Marketing Agency Selection, B2B Marketing in manufacturing, B2B Marketing in Professional Services, B2B Marketing in Technology
Why use a pitch when selecting an agency? It puts too much pressure on a client’s brief.
When looking for a new agency, common practice is to invite selected agencies to generate initial ideas, explain their approach, and share relevant experience around the problem you’re seeking to solve. Typically, most pitches involve an initial brief. This brief is crucial for the agency, as it provides the basis for deciding whether to participate […]
B2B Marketing Agency Selection
How should B2B marketers select a new agency that targets a niche? A comparison scorecard
When you’re considering appointing an agency, a bit of preplanning will make it much easier to select the right partner. For B2B marketers who target a niche, this is a harder process than it looks. Similar case studies are hard to find or rarely celebrated (when was the last time you saw a true niche […]
B2B Direct Mail is back. Did it ever go away?
“But is anyone in the office anymore?” This has been the standard objection to using direct mail over recent years. Mandated RTO policies are here. We know this as, in many places, it is causing conflict between management and employees. However, it feels like a one-way road, with some, like Publicis, going as far […]
B2B Marketing Agency Selection, B2B Sales Enablement
Why is it called “winning” a new client when a good client-agency relationship is a partnership?
The vocab is just wrong. If someone wins, someone else loses. To apply this vocab to starting a new business partnership exemplifies how the pitch process is broken. Most clients talk about appointing a new agency. Never winning a new agency. Why? In day-to-day life, you rarely speak this way. You don’t “win” a new member of […]
B2B Content, B2B Creative, B2B Marketing in Technology
What makes a creative B2B ad?
This article was prompted by a LinkedIn study into Drivers of B2B Ad Effectiveness. Using empirical data, it investigates what makes compelling B2B ads on LinkedIn. Of course, it has an agenda. Of course, LinkedIn is not the only channel used in B2B marketing. Of course, it has some flaws. But, it does have […]
Your competitors may be unwittingly cutting off their noses to spite their face.
The latest Gartner CMO survey reports that marketing budgets have fallen 15% YoY. Why? The adoption of AI and macroeconomic uncertainty. There are over 60 countries entering elections in 2024. Turbulence is an understatement. These factors are making long-term investments hard to justify. As a result, spending is falling and what remains is often […]
B2B Marketing Leadership, B2B Strategy
B2B marketing to a niche is harder than it looks – and under-appreciated
B2B marketers who promote a niche brand in a niche market are a rare breed. Quite simply, it is hard and demands one of the purest forms of marketing. With small audiences, each interaction and every message counts. You simply don’t have the gift of huge numbers to learn slowly. You need to plan, […]
B2B Branding, B2B Content, B2B ESG
How to calculate the footprint of your B2B website
At Velo, we’ve conducted a study into how to make a website as sustainable as possible. The reality is that carbon is emitted even just by hosting and serving your website. And, after all, we want people to visit our website and then engage with the content. It is not about zero emissions; it […]
How to measure your B2B brand strength
You might think your brand is powerful, but how can you be sure? Do you have a method for tracking it over time to effectively manage it? You might think your brand is powerful, but how can you be sure? Do you have a method for tracking it over time to effectively manage it? As a B2B […]
B2B Marketing Agency Selection
Is well-being in an agency the responsibility of the company or the individual?
Working in an agency can be hard, particularly at specific times of the year. We do our best to manage workloads and timelines at an organisational level, but with varied and challenging work, there is always room for improvement. Everyone has different needs and tolerances. Operating in a world where change is a constant simplifies […]
2024’s B2B marketing trends for those targeting a niche
We’ve sifted through over 75 individual trend reports to find what is relevant for B2B marketers, so you don’t have to! It’s that time of year when anyone providing professional services is sharing an opinion on the year ahead. And yes, we’re no different. What is different, however, is that we’ve identified what we […]
B2B Marketing Agency Selection
Absolutely (Christmas) Crackers!
2023 was crackers! We wanted to end it by putting a smile on all B2B marketers faces, with our Christmas Cracker hunt! The Velo team has hidden 12 crackers in our very own Christmas London festive scene for you to find. Each one contains some B2B marketing wisdom to help you in 2024 and hidden […]
B2B Audiences, B2B Campaigns, B2B Marketing in manufacturing, B2B Marketing in Technology, B2B Strategy
What are the lessons for B2B marketers trying to create a new market for their product? Lessons from the BSRIA briefing on Air Quality.
After attending BSRIA’s Briefing on Air Quality, I wanted to share the lessons I observed for marketers taking products to market in Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) which apply to anyone bringing a product to a niche market. From HVAC to building services, many Velo clients — including BSRIA — are active in this space. And […]
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