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Why fast time-to-value matters in B2B

By  Rob Fraser  ·  3 minute read

In B2B, time can be a huge momentum killer.

Long implementations. Slow rollouts. Months spent configuring tools that never work as intended. Great ideas half-executed. Commitment to a project losing out to competing priorities.

Your projects drift along while the sales team is starved of pipeline and opportunities. The longer it takes to get a growth or demand gen program operational, the less valuable it is to you and your business.

That’s why fast time-to-value is one of the biggest competitive advantages a B2B company can have.

The hidden costs of slow starts

Time really is of the essence when it comes to growing your business. Especially if growth activities are not hard-wired and baked into daily operations.

Typically, a B2B business will go through the normal ups and downs (or feast and famine) of lead and opportunity flow. Growth initiatives become a focus only when things slow down, and in this case, leads need to be generated fast.

Just when you need things to move quickly, a delayed growth initiative leads to the loss of:

  • Unseen opportunities

  • Brand familiarity and salience

  • Compounding messaging

  • Pipeline readiness

  • Sales confidence

  • Leadership alignment

Essentially, business momentum stalls just when you need it to lift. And in B2B, buying cycles are long, so every week you are delayed, that’s another week buyers aren’t warming to your business.

Why fast beats big, every time

Many companies aim big with complex marketing and sales initiatives that have long lead times built in. This is a luxury most businesses can’t afford.

Not only does time-to-value take too long, but feedback is delayed, so it’s hard to pivot and adapt based on what you are learning at the coal face where prospects are engaging with you.

Big doesn’t win. Soon wins.

Speed drives feedback. Feedback drives optimisation. Optimisation drives momentum. Momentum drives results.

Fast to value means:

  • Faster insights

  • Faster adjustments

  • Faster results

  • Faster revenue impact

Time is a luxury B2B businesses don’t have anymore. Speed and agility need to be part of how modern organisations operate.

Why many solutions are slow by design

If you’ve ever tried to launch a growth initiative, you’ll be familiar with one or more of these obstacles for fast execution:

  • Internal marketing teams are under-resourced and already juggling too much. Adding more to their workloads (without expensive new headcount) is doomed to fail.

  • Marketing automation needs to be fed. Having the tools (such as a feature-packed CRM) is all well and good. But they are only as good as the information that goes into them. This includes strategy, content, email sequences, ICP data and much more.

  • Outsourcing to traditional agencies takes time. Forget weeks, we’re talking months to agree the brief, get a budget signed off, do the planning and creative, and finally producing the campaign assets to launch to market.

The Demand Stream was built to eliminate all these obstacles, with time to value a key feature of our programs. It’s not a nice to have, it’s a must-have.

What fast to value looks like in growth marketing

In the first two weeks we deliver:

  • Defined ICP

  • TAM quantified

  • CRM (ours) starting to fill with prospects

  • Automation configured

  • 3-months of content briefed

By the end of the first four weeks:

  • Blogs and socials live

  • Email nurture underway

  • Lead qualification underway

  • Qualified, intent-signalling leads passed through to your CRM

Using a mix of human intelligence, efficient content approval and publishing platform, AI-backed CRM and a robust and proven process, the focus is on getting you to market fast.

We’re talking as little as four weeks from kick-off to be seeing results.

Best of all? We’ve made the system as hands-off as possible for you. Reviews are proactively notified, and approvals are easy. Meaning we get your business to market fast while you get on with the rest of your priorities.

Fast to value means fast to alignment

When you get to market with growth initiatives quickly, it’s easier to bring your team and wider organisation along with you. When you can demonstrate market coverage to the marketing team, and show ICP engagement and intent signals to sales, everyone gets on the same page fast.

And fast results mean management visibility and confidence to continue with the program to deliver results. Everyone wins.

Want growth this quarter? You need to act this week! The best way to get something up and running that is both strategic and fast is to bring in the growth experts at The Demand Stream to help.