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Kathy Floam-Greenspan
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| 5 min read

B2B Marketers Are Under Pressure and the C-Suite Needs to Pay Attention

By Brent W. Peterson

Brent Peterson sits down with Kathy Floam-Greenspan, founder and chief strategist of POM Marketing, to discuss the findings of a new industry survey titled “Marketing Under Pressure.” The conversation digs into the real challenges facing B2B marketers today, from shrinking resources and shifting priorities to the rapid rise of AI adoption without a clear roadmap. If you manage or work alongside a marketing team in the B2B space, this episode delivers insights you can act on right now.

Key Takeaways

  • 69% of B2B marketers report that expectations are outpacing their staffing, time, or budget. The resource gap is real and widespread across titles and company sizes.
  • Only 29% of marketers feel confident proving marketing’s impact. Despite access to analytics platforms and reporting tools, the majority still struggle with ROI measurement.
  • 80% of marketers say AI is impacting their strategy, but most lack a clear plan for implementation. Adoption is happening fast, yet education and structured rollout remain missing.
  • Quarterly planning is the new annual plan. Staying focused for even 90 days has become a significant achievement in a business environment defined by constant change.
  • The C-suite must help protect marketing’s focus. Leadership plays a direct role in whether marketing teams can execute consistently enough to produce results.
  • These challenges transcend title and company size. Whether you are a CMO, director of marketing, or marketing manager, the tension is the same.

About Kathy Floam-Greenspan

Kathy Floam-Greenspan is the founder and chief strategist of POM Marketing, a boutique B2B marketing firm she started over 25 years ago. Kathy and her team specialize in working with growing technology companies in cybersecurity, IT services, and SaaS infrastructure. These organizations typically have ambitious growth targets but operate with lean internal marketing resources. Kathy has built her career on the ability to translate complex technology offerings into clear, market-ready messaging that resonates with target audiences. She describes her current role as the “chief protector of focus,” helping clients cut through the noise and execute marketing plans that move the business forward.

Episode Summary

After working at both large and small agencies, Kathy recognized a growing need among tech companies for outside marketing support that could provide both strategic guidance and execution capacity. That realization led her to launch POM over two decades ago.

Kathy explains that the motivation behind the survey was straightforward. “We saw it and we felt it with all the clients that we were working with,” she says, noting that the team wanted to quantify what they were already observing in the field.

The first major finding centers on the resource gap. A full 69% of respondents indicated that leadership expectations are outpacing available staffing, time, or budget. Kathy notes that while this wasn’t surprising given their client work, seeing it validated across the board reinforced the severity of the problem.

The second finding proves even more striking. Only 29% of marketers surveyed feel confident in their ability to prove marketing’s impact. Considering the volume of analytics and reporting tools available today, Kathy found this number particularly noteworthy. She and Brent discuss how consolidating data from multiple tools into a single dashboard system can help marketers build a clearer performance narrative for leadership.

The third pillar of the report addresses AI. While 80% of respondents agree that AI is significantly impacting their marketing strategy, many organizations have adopted tools without a structured plan for how to use them effectively. Kathy shares that she recently completed a 13-hour masterclass on AI and has been using those learnings to guide her own team. She maintains a healthy skepticism, emphasizing that AI-generated content still requires human oversight and sourcing to ensure quality and accuracy.

Brent mentions that audiences are becoming increasingly skilled at recognizing AI-generated content. Both agree that without meaningful human input, AI output tends to be generic and risks damaging brand credibility.

One of the most compelling moments in the episode comes when Kathy discusses the universality of these challenges. “It had nothing to do with title,” she explains. “It didn’t matter about company size and it didn’t matter about role.” Directors, managers, and CMOs all described the same tensions around limited resources, proving ROI, and finding time to figure out AI.

The conversation also touches on the shifting dynamics of B2B leadership. Brent points out that younger leaders are bringing different expectations to legacy organizations, and Kathy agrees that this generational transition, combined with factors like private equity ownership changes, adds another layer of disruption to the marketing landscape.

Kathy wraps up with a call to action for the C-suite. She believes that protecting marketing’s focus requires active participation from leadership. When priorities shift weekly, marketing teams cannot build the consistency needed to deliver measurable results.

Final Thoughts

Marketing teams are not short on talent or effort. They are short on focus, resources, and aligned expectations from leadership. The data from POM Marketing’s survey paints a clear picture. Organizations that want results need to invest in clarity, commit to quarterly plans, and give marketing the runway to execute. So here is the question every business leader should ask: Are you truly supporting your marketing team, or are you just adding more pressure?

The full “Marketing Under Pressure” report is available for download at
https://pomagency.com/marketing-under-pressure-b2b-leaders/
Learn more at https://pomagency.com

This has been produced in cooperation with Content Cucumber
https://www.contentcucumber.com/

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AI in marketing B2B marketing B2B survey C-suite leadership female founders Kathy Floam-Greenspan marketing ROI Marketing Strategy marketing under pressure POM Marketing quarterly planning resource gap Talk Commerce

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Brent W. Peterson

Brent W. Peterson

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