Meeting templates, B2B buying stats, marketing worries

#1
Short and sweet case study inspiration

Sometimes brevity has the biggest impact. Really digging these concise case studies from SWIDIA Growth Marketing Agency.

They’ve distilled each case study into a row of results, paired with a tight summary of the goal, audience, deliverables, and outcomes. It’s everything you need to know—no fluff.

Even if you feel your case study game is good, I recommend reading through these. Some of their projects/initiatives are really creative... maybe you'll want to try something similar!

My question to you: how can you showcase client success stories in new, unexpected ways in your marketing?

#2
2024 B2B Buyers Experience Report by 6Sense (for those of you with looong expensive buying cycles)

For months, one stat has been following me: webinar slides, podcast intros, multiple conference presentations...

I'm talking about "69% of the purchase process happens before B2B buyers engage with sellers", and you can find its origin in 6Sense's 2024 B2B Buyers Experience Report.

This ungated report is packed with insights into B2B buyer habits—habits we often mistake for disinterest. And also reinforces that brand awareness, audience research, and customer journeys are critical for Marketing to successfully pass the baton onto Sales.

Some things I found interesting:

Buying cycle length averages 11.5 months.
A "buying group" (from influences to decision makers) averages 11 people.
72% of buyers use consultants or analysis to guide their decision making (can confirm as a martech consultant!)
The average buying team evaluates 4.6 vendors

My question to you: does your marketing line up with your audience's buying cycles?

#3
How to fix your SEO-flavoured marketing challenges

Lara Siebert of Uberall has an excellent article titled From Stress to Success: How to Fix Your Marketing Challenges for you to check out.

The article tackles seven common digital marketing challenges, with smart strategies to address them. They skew towards SEO challenges, but often the strategies pull in other aspects such as copywriting, UIUX, or audience research. Here's the list, so you can decide which one to dive into:

SEO Isn’t Driving Enough Revenue

SEO Is Taking Too Much Time

Lack of Control Over Online Presence

Low Conversion Rates Despite High Visibility

Inconsistent Performance Across Locations

Competition Dominating Local Search Results

Negative Reviews Dragging Down Reputation

My question to you: what processes do you use to spot and address marketing inefficiencies before they impact results?

I use a number of them in my own strategic planning sessions (see image above of one setup), including:

Impact Effort Matrix (to decide value of a specific initiative)

Sailboat Retrospective (to gather strengths, gaps, and opportunities in team capacities)

Meeting Parking Lot (to safely park out-of-scope ideas for another time)

Priority Pyramid (to limit choice and commit, dangit!)

My question to you: what behind-the-scenes tools or resources could you showcase in your marketing to give prospects a taste of your process?

Your work is jazz. But is your B2B marketing is elevator music?

Here’s a pattern I’ve noticed: as service providers, we pour every ounce of creativity and effort into our client work. But when it comes to marketing ourselves, we may go quiet or too generic.

This mismatch not only undersells your brilliance — it keeps you from resonating with the people who need what you do.

If your marketing is meant to reflect your work, shouldn’t it also get the thought and care you put into client projects?

Sometimes, it just takes a strategic partner to help you see the clarity and opportunity in your marketing—to make it as thoughtful as the work you deliver to clients.

I’m opening 2 Short & Sweet Strategic Session slots in January to map out meaningful next steps in your marketing.

Topics we can cover (sessions are 2.5 hours):

Positioning & Messaging
Ideal Customer Profiles
Goals, Objectives, Strategies, KPIs
Content Planning
Channel-specific strategy (email, LinkedIn, earned media)

Reply with “Jazz” if you’re interested in learning more!

"Energy": my theme for 2025

As this is the last Marketing Snacks of the year, I’m ending on a personal note. Since 2020, I’ve chosen a word of the year as my North Star for personal and professional growth.

For 2025, my theme is: Energy.

I’m known for my positive energy, and this year I want to amplify it while fiercely protecting how I spend it.

Theme Song #1: "The Spark" by Kabin Crew & Lisdoonvarna Crew ("We got the energy, we'll tell you all about it; I searched for my Spark and I found it;").

Theme Song #2: "Guided By Angels" by Amyl and The Sniffers ("I've got plenty of energy; it's my currency; I spend, protect, my energy currency").

(When I lose focus, I’ll play these songs and get back on track.)

Doing More:

Earned media to grow my influence and impact.
Public speaking (put on hold this year due to biz and professional dev investments).
Long-term client projects to deepen support and outcomes.
Biz dev in the US (Atlanta and Boston specifically).
Long-format writing
Nothing-to-do-with-Alison-K-Consulting activities (Improve classes? Volunteering? Figure drawing? Figure drawing modeling?).

Doing Less:

Typical B2B marketing content. Time to turn things back up to 11.
Meetings per day (keep running out of time and energy).
Hesitation/procrastination. Gotta trust the process and myself.
Making assumptions. Lean more on research and feedback.

Over to you: What is your word/theme/intention for 2025? I's love to celebrate it with you!