Just a few years ago, a well-designed presentation and a persuasive sales representative were enough to secure an initial meeting. Those days are long gone. Today, in technical fields, much of the qualification process happens without you. Your prospective clients Google you, consult peers, query AI engines and read case studies. By the time they finally contact you, they often already have an opinion of you.
It is this structural shift that B2B/B2G marketing must adapt to. No longer is it simply a matter of communicating to maintain a presence, but of demonstrating value to win over prospects, even before the first sales contact.
Operational marketing is no longer just a support function; it is a tool for closing deals
In many technical companies, marketing is still seen as a window-dressing function: it is expected to produce attractive marketing materials, update the website and organise events. The sales team, on the other hand, ‘do the real work’.
This separation is counterproductive. In a long sales cycle involving six to ten people and significant sums of money, marketing plays an active role at every stage. It lays the groundwork before the sales representative steps in. It addresses objections before they are even raised. Month after month, it builds the reputation that will ensure a buyer thinks of you when drawing up their specifications.
The right question is no longer “How many leads have we generated this quarter?” but “Which deals have we moved forward thanks to our content and our online presence?”
Selling to a committee isn’t something you can wing
A purchasing decision in the B2B or B2G sector is almost never down to a single person. There is the person who signs off on the decision, the one who approves the budget, the one who gives technical approval, the one who will have to use the solution on a day-to-day basis, and sometimes an elected representative or a lawyer who holds a veto.
This committee does not meet to discuss a single document. Each stakeholder processes the information differently, at their own pace and according to their own priorities. The finance director looks at the total cost of ownership and the impact on balance sheet risks. The security manager checks certifications and contractual commitments. The end user wants to know whether the solution is actually workable in practice.
Marketing that produces a single generic message ultimately fails to resonate with anyone. The challenge is to create content tailored to each individual’s profile, delivered at the right stage of the cycle, to support each decision-maker in their own thought process.
The system of evidence: addressing every objection before it is raised
In technical contexts, people don’t sign on a whim. They sign because they’ve had their questions answered – often without even having to voice those questions aloud. This is where what might be called the ‘evidence system’ comes into play: a coherent set of content and demonstrations that address all possible doubts, depending on the type of prospect and the stage of the buying cycle.
Educational evidence
During the exploration phase, your contact is looking to understand, not yet to compare. The content that works best here is that which simplifies a complex subject without oversimplifying it: white papers on industry-specific issues, interactive demos, and technical explainer videos. The aim is to be the go-to resource that shapes the prospect’s thinking, not yet the one that sells.
The proof is in the pudding
Nothing beats a demonstration in real-world conditions. Site visits to industrial facilities, prototype loans and documented feedback from similar customers are what turn a purchase intention into a firm decision. User groups, when well-run, also fulfil this role: they turn your existing customers into the best salespeople you’ll ever have—without ever having to pay them.
Proof of performance
As the decision approaches, the figures take centre stage. A well-designed ROI simulator, an honest calculation of total cost of ownership, and a well-documented comparison of carbon footprints – these tools speak directly to the financial decision-maker and the executive committee. They also enable your internal contact to champion your proposal to their own management without having to wing it.
Reassurance
When the stakes are high, the issue of risk takes precedence over that of performance. Certifications, industry standards, service level agreements, independent audits: all these factors ensure that you will still be in business in five years’ time and that you will honour your commitments. In some sectors, it is this level of proof that makes the difference between two technically equivalent offers.
Institutional evidence
In the public sector in particular, credibility is built outside of commercial meetings. It is fostered through participation in working groups, the publication of benchmark studies, and attendance at trade fairs where relationships of trust are forged over time, often far removed from formal tendering processes.
2026: your evidence must also convince AI systems
A subtle yet profound shift is changing the way your customers find you. Increasingly, before consulting a service provider, they ask their questions to ChatGPT, Perplexity, or the Copilot integrated into their work environment. These tools generate their responses based on what’s available online, and in particular on your content, provided it is well-structured.
In practical terms, this means that a well-written technical FAQ, an industry guide or a detailed case study can now be more valuable than a display advertising campaign. Content that is too vague or overly sales-oriented will be ignored. Content that is precise, factual and answers specific questions will be cited. This is not a revolution in substance, but a revolution in form and structure.
B2B and B2G: same principle, different contexts
The basics remain the same – building credibility before making the sale – but the operational constraints differ.
In B2B, you can capitalise on speed and personalisation. Account-based marketing, which involves targeting specific accounts with tailored content, can deliver quick results when done well. You’re allowed to be direct, to talk about return on investment right from the first conversation, and to qualify leads quickly.
In B2G, the timeframe is different. Tenders are planned months in advance, sometimes even years. Marketing needs to get involved well in advance, at the stage when the specifications are being drawn up, not when they are published. A player who is not known to the technical teams and decision-makers before a tender is published is often already behind the game.
Launching a technical product: a process, not a one-off event
A successful launch in the B2B/B2G sector is not a one-off publicity stunt. It is a campaign spanning several months. We begin by publishing content addressing the issue at hand, without yet mentioning the product, so as to establish an association with the topic before offering a solution. This is followed by the official launch, involving a presence at a key industry event and a live demonstration. We then seek out carefully selected pilot customers to whom we lend prototypes: their feedback will serve as initial proof of concept. Next, targeted campaigns focused on priority accounts take over, with content tailored to the sector and stage of maturity. Finally, we train integration partners so that they can incorporate the offering into their own solutions.
What needs to be measured, and what we still measure far too often
Too much marketing reporting still focuses on metrics that measure activity rather than impact: visitor numbers, email open rates, leads generated. These metrics aren’t useless, but they don’t tell us whether marketing is helping to win contracts.
What really matters is knowing what proportion of active leads have been reached by at least one piece of content or event, whether certain profiles or sectors convert better than others and why, whether the content produced is actually used by sales staff in meetings or whether it remains on a server, and whether the company’s expertise is cited when an AI engine is asked questions about its field. This alignment between marketing and sales is not a luxury reserved for mature companies. It is essential for ensuring that everyone is working on the right priorities.
In conclusion
What B2B/B2G marketing needs to build is not so much a lead-generation machine as a coherent body of evidence, delivered at the right time, to the right people, via the right channels – including algorithmic channels, which now pre-process information for your buyers.
Companies that have realised this no longer wonder whether their marketing is effective. They know exactly which deals it has helped them win.
Five questions to help you assess your system honestly
Can you link each marketing initiative to a specific deal, whether ongoing or closed? Do your sales representatives actually use the content produced, or do they rework it in their own way? Do you have a documented response for every recurring objection raised by your key buyer personas? Does your expertise come across in the answers provided by AI-powered search engines on your topics? And finally: does a prospect who discovers you online today leave convinced that you are a leading player in your field?
