B2B marketing insights for
those targeting a niche
Insights, learnings and stories from the world of B2B marketing and communications, direct from Velo’s B2B agency team
B2B Marketing Leadership
B2B marketing leaders are expected to do more than lead a team. They are balancing strategy, performance, culture, stakeholder management and constant change, often while being asked to prove marketing’s value more clearly than ever. The challenge is leading with confidence in a role that keeps expanding.
That means learning about team structure, budgeting, leadership style, commercial alignment, board communication, capability building, change management, measurement, planning and how modern marketing leaders earn influence internally.
Our insight articles explore what strong B2B marketing leadership looks like in practice, offering perspectives on how leaders can build better teams, make smarter decisions and strengthen marketing’s role in the business.
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 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 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
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 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.
AI & MarTech for B2B, B2B Marketing Leadership
What skills do you need to future-proof your B2B marketing career?
AI has sped up marketing production, but it hasn’t replaced the judgement that makes campaigns work. This piece sets out nine skills that separate marketers who’ll thrive from marketers who just use more tools: curiosity, critical thinking, commercial acumen and the ability to know what’s actually worth doing.
AI & MarTech for B2B, B2B Marketing Agency Selection, B2B Marketing Leadership, B2B Strategy
How are we using AI across our marketing? A look behind the curtain
Velo doesn’t bolt on AI tools one at a time. It runs them as a connected ecosystem: brand-trained models, automated agents and generative tools working across research, planning and delivery. This piece goes behind the curtain to show how human judgement stays central to every layer.
AI & MarTech for B2B, B2B ESG, B2B Marketing Leadership
How do you balance a growing use of AI with the inevitable sustainability impact?
B2B marketers have become the fastest adopters of AI, but the environmental cost of casual use rarely gets examined. This piece argues that the question worth asking isn’t whether AI can do a task, but whether using it is proportionate and efficient, and sets out the workflow habits that make that judgement practical.
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 […]
B2B Marketing in manufacturing, B2B Marketing in Technology, B2B Marketing Leadership, B2B Sales Enablement
Sales and marketing alignment is a myth. Here is what works instead.
Why the real goal is empathy, and the practical approaches that reduce friction. Let’s start with the word itself. Alignment. It sounds sensible. Two teams moving in the same direction, not interfering with each other, broadly coordinated. The kind of language that fits neatly into strategy documents. But that is not how B2B buying works. B2B […]
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 […]
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 […]
AI & MarTech for B2B, B2B Campaigns, B2B Content, B2B Marketing in Insurance, B2B Marketing in manufacturing, B2B Marketing in Technology, B2B Marketing Leadership, B2B Sales Enablement
AI slurry all over LinkedIn? Humans make the best posts
LinkedIn is full of long, lifeless lists, samey headlines and advice that could have come from anyone. This piece argues that authenticity beats algorithmic optimisation: personal connection requests, real engagement and posts that admit to still working things out, rather than polished perfection, are what actually earn attention.
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 […]
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, […]
Women in B2B marketing: celebrating impact and inspiring inclusion
The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is ‘Inspire Inclusion,’ so what better opportunity to reflect and celebrate the talented women who contribute to the success of our B2B marketing agency. Of course, it goes without saying that we don’t need an official ‘day’ to recognise this. We’re committed to fostering diversity and inclusion, […]
B2B Marketing Leadership, B2B Strategy
What are the key metrics you should track as a B2B marketer targeting a niche to be able to justify increasing your budget?
It is important to plan your campaigns and measure their effectiveness carefully. But with so many metrics to choose from, it can be challenging to determine which ones are most relevant to your specific campaign goals. Whether you are focused on building brand awareness, generating demand, or enabling sales, the metrics you need may […]
How to be happy with hybrid
Preparing for hybrid working Working from home and working from the office present very different challenges. The social side, the collaborations, the banter, the informal glances and serendipity all are tough to accomplish when we work remotely. But after a year of lockdown, I’ve noticed several behaviours we’ve adopted that will help all of us […]
B2B Marketing Leadership, B2B Strategy
What does COVID-19 mean for your marketing strategy?
We are all feeling apprehensive at the moment, but let’s make the most of this time to complete some projects and try some new things. Creativity will get us through the darkest of times. Today, instead of posting our usual quick Tuesday tip, we thought it would be more helpful to talk to you about […]
Navigating a post COVID-19 world
It’s a rough time for business leaders. No one really knows what’s going to happen, how long our lives will be impacted by enforced isolation, how long the looming recession will last, or how much governments will intervene and support us. There are some things we definitely do know though. The world will be different […]
B2B Marketing Leadership, B2B Strategy
Advice for Velo clients: how to navigate Covid-19 and be ready to spring back
Without doubt, Covid-19 is causing disruption to marketers in unprecedented ways, and we predict that the changes in marketing will be forever. Although it’s difficult to know what will happen, or how and when businesses will spring back, learning to adapt and acclimatise to the ‘new norm’ is going to be key. Below are a […]
B2B Marketing Agency Selection, B2B Marketing Leadership
Lessons learnt from 10 years of working from home
Yesterday, Velo was established 10 years ago. Incredible. Our growth and success are down to the individuals who work here, the clients we’ve retained and the working environment we’ve created. Thank you to them all. Back then, working from home was the default, so we learnt some lessons about how to do it well without […]
7 Steps to Manage Project Creep
In an ideal world, every project would be on time and in scope. But the reality is that projects morph and develop, and we need to be flexible to our client’s needs – and that means the potential for those two dreaded words; project creep. There are thousands of articles on how to prevent project […]
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