Adelaide marketing advisory says the problem is not budget or channels, but a broken messaging foundation
ADELAIDE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA — Lustosa Marketing, a boutique B2B marketing advisory based in Adelaide, has released a strategic report arguing that most B2B organisations are misdiagnosing their marketing problem, and as a result are pouring growing budgets into tactics that fail to move the needle.
The report, authored by founder and Fractional CMO Celeste Lustosa, draws on research from Forrester, Gartner, McKinsey, 6sense, and the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) to argue that the real issue in B2B marketing is not spend or channel selection. It is a foundation problem: unclear positioning, generic messaging, and a lack of long-term brand investment.
According to the report, Forrester’s 2024 State of Business Buying research found that 86 percent of B2B purchases stall, and 81 percent of buyers end up dissatisfied with the vendor they chose. Separate Gartner research cited in the report found that 73 percent of B2B buyers actively avoid vendors that send irrelevant or generic outreach.
“These numbers should stop every marketing leader in their tracks,” said Ms Lustosa, Founder and Fractional CMO of Lustosa Marketing. “Companies are not failing because they are not trying hard enough. They are failing because the messaging underneath all that effort was never built to hold up.”
The report also points to a widening gap between marketing activity and marketing effectiveness. It cites industry analysis showing that B2B companies are now producing roughly four times more content than they were five years ago, while conversion rates have declined over the same period. Around a third of marketers report regretting recent technology purchases, according to Gartner’s 2024 to 2025 findings referenced in the report, even as many organisations respond to underperformance by buying more tools rather than fixing strategy.
A central finding highlighted in the report comes from 6sense’s 2025 Buyer Experience Report, which found that in 95 percent of cases, the vendor that wins a deal was already on the buyer’s shortlist from day one. Eighty percent of buyers say they contact the vendor they already intend to purchase from first.
“The buying decision is largely made before a prospect ever fills in a contact form or takes a sales call,” the report states. “Content, brand presence, and word of mouth are doing the decisive commercial work long before any formal sales process begins.”
“Most businesses still treat marketing as something that supports the sales conversation,” Ms Lustosa said. “In reality, marketing is usually deciding the outcome long before sales ever picks up the phone. If your positioning is not clear and consistent well before that point, you are already competing from behind.”
The report also references Gartner findings that 61 percent of B2B buyers would prefer to buy without engaging a sales representative at all, and Forrester predictions that more than half of large B2B transactions over one million dollars will move through digital, self-serve channels.
The report leans heavily on the work of Les Binet and Peter Field, whose landmark study The Long and the Short of It (IPA, 2013) reshaped how marketers think about effectiveness. Binet and Field’s later research with LinkedIn’s B2B Institute found that B2B brands investing at least half their marketing budget in long-term brand building deliver stronger financial returns, with an optimal split of around 46 percent brand building to 54 percent short-term activation.
Despite this evidence, the report argues most B2B marketing budgets remain heavily weighted toward short-term lead generation activity such as paid search, gated content, and outbound outreach, at the expense of sustained brand building.
Les Binet is cited in the report as saying that too many B2B marketers focus only on what shows up immediately in dashboards, rather than the longer-term shifts that shape buyer decisions.
The report also examines the growing complexity of B2B buying groups. Citing Forrester and Gartner data, it notes that the average B2B buying committee has grown from three to five decision-makers fifteen years ago to between six and ten today, and can reach as many as twenty-two stakeholders in complex enterprise deals.
The report argues that generic, one-size-fits-all messaging fails this more complex buying environment, contributing to the high stall and dissatisfaction rates identified by Forrester. It calls for a clear message architecture that combines a consistent brand narrative with audience-specific messaging tailored to each stakeholder group.
The report concludes that the highest-leverage marketing investment available to most B2B leadership teams is not a new campaign, rebrand, or technology platform, but foundational strategic work: clarifying positioning, understanding the buying audience, and building coherent messaging across every channel.
It references Anteriad’s 2025 Agile Marketer Report, which found that only 12 percent of marketing leaders believe their current organisational design will help them meet revenue targets over the next year, as evidence that the gap is strategic rather than tactical.
“When the foundation is right, every downstream investment performs better,” the report states. “When it is wrong, no amount of campaign spend will compensate.”
“This is not a call to spend more,” Ms Lustosa said. “It is a call to fix the foundation first. Get the positioning and the messaging right, and every campaign, every piece of content, and every sales conversation after that starts working harder for you.”
About Lustosa Marketing
Lustosa Marketing is a boutique B2B marketing advisory based in Adelaide, South Australia, led by founder and Fractional CMO Celeste Lustosa, who brings 25 years of marketing experience. The agency specialises in B2B pipeline growth, LinkedIn lead generation, and fractional marketing leadership for businesses that need senior strategic input without a full-time hire. Lustosa Marketing works with clients across a range of industries and authored the Australian B2B Marketing Trends Report 2026 to 2027.
Media contact
Celeste Lustosa | celeste@lustosamarketing.com | lustosamarketing.com
