B2B Marketing: Growth Strategies for Your Organization is designed for professionals who want to understand the full scope and potential of B2B marketing techniques and strategies. The program delivers a veritable A-to-Z playbook for growth within their B2B-oriented organization or department. No prior marketing expertise is required, and this program is ideally suited for:

• Sales managers and key account managers seeking to improve alignment between marketing and sales—including the handoff from demand generation to lead generation—as well as building stronger funnels and identifying metrics for success.
• Marketing managers, including professionals shifting from B2C environments, seeking the proven tools and frameworks to create and execute strategic B2B marketing plans that support organizational goals.
• Department heads and senior leaders without marketing-specific backgrounds who seek a deeper understanding of the knowledge, skills, and language of B2B marketing so they can more effectively articulate the organization's vision and develop strategies that are modern and growth-oriented.

By the end of this 8-week program, you will be able to:

• Assess your organization’s current B2B marketing capabilities and identify improvement priorities
• Apply modern B2B marketing principles, tools, terminology, tactics and strategies to inform and accelerate organizational performance
• Define the roles that B2B marketers play within an organization, and describe why, in a digital-first environment, great marketing matters more than ever
• Apply the knowledge and skills gained from this program to create a B2B marketing action plan for yourself and your organization
• Take a holistic approach to B2B marketing based on its foundational definitions and applications, to influence your organization’s B2B marketing strategy and drive growth

This program serves as the preeminent A-to-Z strategy playbook for B2B marketing, sales, and growth-seeking professionals, unfolding in eight sequential modules, and is aimed at driving measurable impact in your organization.

Module 1: The New B2B Marketing Imperative—Driving Profitable Growth

Gain a foundational understanding of why B2B-oriented organizations need to modernize and formalize their marketing practices, what that transformation looks like in practice, and the proven tools to get you there.

• Understand that customers have different needs (heterogeneity), and your marketing needs to reflect these differences
• Define the roles that B2B marketers play in an organization and why great B2B marketing matters now, more than ever, in the digital realm
• Assess your organization's current marketing effectiveness
• Interpret a profit and loss statement to quantify the impact of marketing on the organization’s performance

Module 2: Your Go-to-Market Strategy—Understanding the Context

Explore qualitative methods for identifying your customer segments with more precision and determine how to solve their most pressing problems.

• Conduct effective market research, including competitive and category analysis, to uncover customer needs and goals
• Translate customer information into actionable insights
• Develop market segmentation processes that align with your organization's skills and goals
• Estimate the value of customer segments by conducting a break-even analysis

Module 3: Your Go-to-Market Strategy—Choosing Your Path

Apply customer insights to create a compelling value proposition and product marketing strategy.

• Use the Value Proposition Canvas tool to make sure all the key elements are covered
• Analyze current value propositions to identify strengths and opportunities for improvement
• Create a compelling B2B value proposition for your products
• Analyze a marketing plan within the context of these go-to-market concepts

Module 4: Product Pricing

Once you have identified what your customers want and how your products address their unique needs, you can then determine pricing strategies for different segments.

• Gain insights on the strategies and considerations when pricing a product and when changing the price of a product
• Review the value propositions of several example organizations, and reflect on the most and least effective ones
• Discover the immutable link between value proposition and product pricing
• Examine price elasticity to determine the impact of price changes on the net margin

Module 5: Demand Generation and Outbound Marketing

Recognize that demand generation is about building awareness for your brand or product. Employ the Strategic Marketing Framework as a tool for refining your marketing objectives.

• Assess the effectiveness of your organization's current demand generation tactics
• Determine the strategic role of demand generation in support of your marketing objectives
• Identify metrics to measure the success of your demand generation and outbound marketing activities
• Position products using the Strategic Marketing Framework

Module 6: Lead Generation

Generating a lead means that your product or service is now in the consideration pool, but it requires nurturing to convert leads to customers.

• Determine the criteria for marketing qualified leads (MQLs), and evaluate approaches for scoring and nurturing leads
• Master the handoff from demand generation to lead generation, driving better alignment between marketing and sales
• Examine the B2B customer journey from multiple perspectives
• Enlist Kellogg Executive Education's Comprehensive Campaign Template to help drive better results for your organization's B2B marketing efforts

Module 7: Customer Relationship Management and Marketing Automation

Technology plays a crucial role in every marketing organization; it is critical to understand which tools will add substantial value to your organization.

• Conduct a MarTech Maturity Assessment using six key criteria
• Survey the essential marketing technologies needed for optimizing B2B marketing efforts and examine how these technologies interact with sales technologies (e.g., customer relationship management)
• Learn how to automate your A/B testing processes
• Evaluate opportunities for using account-based marketing (ABM) technology platforms
• Identify emerging marketing technologies that could benefit your organization
• Create an action plan outlining steps to improve your organization's use of B2B marketing technologies

Module 8: Your Path Forward

Your learning journey culminates in the creation of a marketing action plan that outlines the next 30, 60, and 90 days, giving you a roadmap for success and enabling transformation.

• Examine your organization’s "Marketing DNA" based on five classic archetypes
• Identify concrete steps you can take to enable marketing transformation and become more agile
• Develop your marketing action plan on how to advance your marketing goals over the next 30, 60, and 90 days

Capstone Project

The final project culminates in the creation of a B2B marketing action plan that you can present to your leadership team, colleagues, or prospective clients. To ensure that your plan is truly actionable, you will also create a schedule for implementing it over a three-month period. A series of pilot programs will test your vision so that you can determine what works and what does not work. Individualized feedback is offered to help you achieve your best output.

Kent Grayson - Associate Professor of Marketing; Bernice and Leonard Lavin Professorship

Jonathan Copulsky - Lecturer of Marketing, Kellogg Executive Education and Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, Northwestern University

What is the program about?

Designed for sales, marketing, and business department heads operating in B2B environments, the 8-week program, B2B Marketing: Growth Strategies for Your Organization, offers an A-to-Z playbook that incorporates all of the modern marketing strategies you will need to reach your organizational goals.

What is the learning experience?

Your learning experience will consist of frameworks delivered via video lectures, live webinars, real world examples and case studies, application of frameworks through weekly activities, customized assignments and quizzes, discussion boards, and faculty engagement. The program culminates with a capstone project, bringing together all of the key concepts from the program.

What is the program format?

The program consists of 8 modules delivered over 9 weeks online. Learners can expect to dedicate 4-6 hours per week to watch videos, complete assignments and participate in discussions. Modules are opened at the beginning of each week and have quizzes/assessments at the module’s conclusion. Learners may choose to engage with the program module all in one sitting or in smaller segments of time throughout the week. While the modules do not close, access to assignments is closed each week.

Could a learner choose to opt out of some topics?

No. This is an online program in which a topic module is introduced each week and the learner is expected to watch the video lectures, participate in the live webinars, complete the exercises/activities and take the mastery quiz at the end of each week to progress to the subsequent week’s topic.

Are any of the sessions delivered in real time (live)?

There will be live webinars, led by faculty and/or subject matter experts, delivered during the course of the program via a video conferencing platform. These sessions provide learners an opportunity to listen and ask questions, and while they are valuable in enhancing the overall experience, attendance is not mandatory. All live sessions are recorded for later viewing.

What methods will be used for grading and evaluations?

Kellogg program leaders will review assignments, discussions and exercises to determine participants’ understanding of the material.

How much time is allocated to complete assignments?

The due date for submitting assignments is typically within 7 days of the module opening, but can be as long as 14 days, depending on the scope of the assignment. However, learners may request deadline extensions to accommodate for business and personal conflicts that may arise during the program timeframe. Reach out to the program leader to discuss any challenges you may have in completing assignments.

Can participation in this program be counted as credit toward a degree, either at Kellogg, Northwestern University or another academic institution?

No. Executive Education offers only non-degree programs and each participant receives a certificate of completion at the end of the program. This certificate does not count as credit toward a degree. In addition, at this time, our online programs do not count as credit toward a Kellogg Executive Scholar Certificate.

Does the program offer community engagement for learners?

Yes, participants can create a profile, connect and collaborate with peers, and interact with academic/industry experts such as program leaders and teaching assistants. Office hours will be held during the program and all participants are welcome to join in with questions or to discuss assignments.

What are the requirements for accessing the program?

Participants will need the following to access the B2B Marketing program:

• Valid email address
• Computing device connected to the internet (Mac/PC/laptop, tablet or smartphone)
• The latest version of your preferred browser to access our learning platform (Chrome and Firefox are preferred for accessing Canvas)
• Microsoft Office and PDF viewer to access content such as documents, spreadsheets, presentations, PDF files, and transcripts
• Additional software and resources may be required for certain programs – this will be communicated upon registration and/or at the beginning of the program

PLEASE NOTE: Google, Vimeo and YouTube may be utilized in the program delivery

Does the program offer a certificate?

Yes. Participants will receive a digital certificate of completion from Kellogg following a successful conclusion to the program. Since this program is graded as a pass or fail, participants must receive an 80% to pass and obtain the certificate. This digital certificate can be shared with colleagues and posted on LinkedIn. (PLEASE NOTE: We do not provide reports of assessments, or “transcripts,” since this is a non-degree program.)

Who is Emeritus and what is their relationship with Kellogg Executive Education?

Kellogg Executive Education is partnering with Emeritus Institute of Management, an online education provider, to develop and deliver this program. By working with Emeritus, we are able to provide broader access to Executive Education, beyond our on-campus offerings, in a collaborative and engaging format that is consistent with Kellogg’s standard of quality.

Additional questions?

Please contact us by calling 847-467-6018 or email us at execedonline@kellogg.northwestern.edu.