The 4 outdated rules B2B marketers keep following (and how to break them)

Your marketing plan feels stuck, doesn’t it? You’re playing by old rules in a new game. You chase MQLs for the finance team, run last year’s plays hoping for different results, and live with the constant certainty that another fire drill is just around the corner.

You’re not alone. The old rulebook is obsolete, but most marketing departments still follow it. It demands vanity metrics, rewards volume over value, and creates a mess with the sales team.

This summer, we teamed up with industry experts to write a new playbook. We met to toss out the old rules and build a plan based on strategy, intelligence, and a bit of courage. This is what we learned.

Your strategy starts with your best customer, not just any customer

The first rule to break is that a bigger list is a better list. A clearly defined Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) gives your entire go-to-market plan direction, as Alicia Hale from Demandbase said. It’s your foundation.

The old way of building that foundation was based on gut feel. Inverta’s Kathy Macchi noted that leaders would just target the “Fortune 5000” and call it a day. The new playbook uses data.

The goal isn’t just new logos (although this goal is also aided by a thoroughly vetted ICP); it’s finding sustainable growth. You have to look past the initial deal to metrics like Net Revenue Retention (NRR) and Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). A bad-fit customer costs you more than just the acquisition spend. They distract your sales team, drain your success team and kill your retention numbers.

An ICP isn’t a “set and forget” rule. Alicia detailed Demandbase’s process of segmenting their market into four buckets and vetting their target account list with sales, SDRs, and field marketers. They refresh it twice a year to keep it sharp.

Once you have that focused list, you need to add signals. Jillian Coffin of Informa TechTarget explained that only 5-20% of your ICP is actively in-market at any time. Intent data is how you find them.

Here are the new rules for your list and strategy:

• Start with data, not assumptions. Analyze your best customers to find the ones with high NRR and LTV, and build your ICP around those data-driven characteristics.
• Get cross-functional buy-in. An ICP isn’t a marketing-only document. Involve sales, SDRs, support and even product teams in its creation and refinement to ensure the entire company is aligned.
• Move from MQLs to MQAs. Shift your focus from single leads to engaged accounts. Kathy shared data from one client where multi-threaded deals had a 27% win rate, compared to just 3% for single-threaded ones. The data tells the story and can be helpful in getting the organization on board!

Marry AI efficiency with human empathy

The next outdated play to retire is the one that prizes content quantity over quality. AI has supercharged this problem. As Austin Sandmeyer from Sendoso warned, “If you’re doing bad marketing, AI is just going to scale bad marketing even worse”.

AI is a tool, not a strategy. The baseline has to be good marketing. Daniel Johnson from Clay pointed out that AI’s best use is in improving efficiency, not just mindlessly scaling your outreach.

People are hungry for human connection. The goal is to use AI so the prospect doesn’t “feel the AI.” When they feel like they’ve been algorithmically segmented, you’ve lost.

The real potential for AI is in synthesizing unstructured data. Inverta’s Brian Schmid noted that late-stage sales calls and support tickets are goldmines of human conversation that AI can now analyze to inform your digital campaigns.

Here’s how to put AI to work without losing the human touch:

• Start with an internal pilot. Feeling overwhelmed? Austin suggested using AI to create detailed briefing sheets for your AEs on inbound leads. It provides immediate value, builds internal confidence, and lets you experiment in a controlled environment.
• Focus on research first. Before you let AI write a single email, use it to do the heavy lifting on research and segmentation. As Daniel explained, an SDR could spend months manually researching 1,000 accounts to find the 10 best fits. AI can do that in minutes, freeing up your team to build actual relationships.
• Mine your conversation data for gold. Use AI to synthesize your existing unstructured data from sales call transcripts, CSM notes, and support tickets . This will uncover the common goals, pains, and language your customers actually use, giving you powerful insights to make your marketing more relevant.

Measure what matters, not what’s easy

Of all the old rules, the MQL is the most stubborn. As Jessica Fewless from Inverta put it, the point of metrics is to improve marketing’s effectiveness, not just prove its value. When you’re stuck defending your budget with vanity metrics like MQLs, you’re not focused on growing the business in a sustainable way.

The biggest problem is the sales-sourced vs. marketing-sourced pipeline debate. Ashley called this her “white whale,” arguing that it’s a “relic of the past” that only “causes strife across teams.”. In today’s market, marketing and sales both touch 100% of the pipeline. They should be jointly responsible for the number.

The solution is to stop using single-touch attribution, which Ashley called “just wrong,” and adopt a multi-touch model that looks at the whole account. It’s about seeing which programs create new opportunities versus which ones accelerate deals already in motion.

Here’s how to fix your reporting:

• Adopt a stage-based view of your funnel. Ashley recommends analyzing program impact at different stages: pre-opportunity, opportunity-to-pipeline, and pipeline-to-close. This reveals what’s most effective at each part of the process.
• Replace “Sales vs. Marketing Sourced” with a funnel performance view. Instead of fighting over credit, analyze the funnel by who created the opportunity: SDR, AE, or a partner. This helps you see how each part of the engine is performing without pitting your teams against each other.
• Tie your metrics to business goals. Connect your marketing performance to what leadership and the board actually care about: pipeline, revenue, and customer lifetime value.

Promote Marketing Ops from the sidelines to team captain

The final rule to rewrite is the one that treats Marketing Operations as a back-office function. In a modern marketing team, MOps is your most strategic weapon. As Andrea Frazier from Inverta explained, the key is proactivity. MOps needs a seat at the table earlier on, so you can help inform the strategy that’s ultimately decided”.

Michael Panone described how at G2, MOPs acts as the “guiding light” or “compass,” leading bi-weekly audits with leadership to analyze ROI and funnel conversions. That’s a strategic partner. The panel agreed the “real strategic unlock happens” when MOPs is tightly aligned with marketing, where they can proactively shape strategy.

Here’s how to elevate your MOPs team:

• Give them a role in annual planning from day one. Their insights into what’s possible from a data and technology standpoint are essential.
• Empower them to be proactive. As Michael’s example showed, MOPs can and should be the team suggesting new nurture plays based on performance data or leading the charge on a unified AI strategy.
• Invest in their strategic development. A modern MOPs professional is part data scientist, part business analyst, and part change agent.
• Don’t buy a vendor’s roadmap. AI is evolving at a breakneck pace. As Michael Panone from G2 wisely said, “looking at a roadmap and buying a roadmap are two different things… I’ve done that a time or two and realized I won’t do it again”. Buy what the tool can do now.

So in short

The old marketing rulebook is holding you back. It’s time to replace it with a modern playbook that focuses on sustainable growth, not just short-term gains. This means getting smarter about who you target, balancing AI with a human touch, measuring what truly matters, and treating your MOPs team like the strategic asset they are. It’s not about needing more to achieve your goals but rather using your resources more wisely.

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Summer School: A Modern Marketing Playbook for 2025