Why the Marketing Funnel Is Killing Your B2B Brand Strategy (And What to Do Instead)
Most B2B marketing teams are building on sand, and the funnel is the reason why. Jason and Yiannaki Loizou of Miratech pull apart one of marketing's most sacred frameworks and ask whether it's quietly costing you your best work.
Most B2B marketing teams are building on sand, and the funnel is the reason why. In this episode, we pull apart one of marketing’s most sacred frameworks and ask whether it’s quietly costing you your best work.
Jason is joined by Yiannaki Loizou, Communications Marketing Director at Miratech, for a masterclass in brand-led B2B marketing strategy. Yiannaki brings decades of experience scaling international tech businesses and leading significant rebrands, and he makes a compelling case for why brand is not a luxury in B2B — it is the foundation everything else is built upon.
Together, Jason and Yiannaki explore why the marketing funnel was originally a reporting tool for group behaviour, not a prescription for how individual buyers make decisions. They discuss how the pursuit of measurable, repeatable results has slowly eroded the creativity, experimentation, and distinctiveness that make marketing truly effective. From gaming attribution models to underfunding brand, the conversation covers the real costs of funnel worship in the modern B2B environment.
The episode also tackles the emotional reality of B2B buying, the concept of H2H (human to human) marketing, and what it actually looks like to advocate for brand investment inside organisations that are laser-focused on pipeline.
Key Takeaways
- Why the funnel misleads leadership — it was designed to report on group behaviour, not predict how individual buyers make decisions, and over-relying on it encourages oversimplification.
- How to make the business case for brand — ask executives what truly drives their own purchasing decisions, and watch the conversation shift from slide decks to honest human reality.
- Why B2B buying is never purely rational — committing millions in tech spend over multiple years is an emotional decision, and brands that build trust and credibility long before the buying window opens will win.
- How to position marketing as more than a lead-gen machine — own the narrative internally, educate stakeholders on what marketing can add beyond pipeline attribution, and resist becoming a pure execution department.
- Why starting with brand always pays off — running demand campaigns without a solid brand foundation means fighting with a permanent handicap.
- How to drive change without a full reset — find allies outside of marketing who believe in the brand vision, start with a pilot, and build confidence through small, well-evidenced wins.
Chapter Markers
- 00:00 Intro
- 02:15 Why the funnel was never meant to prescribe behaviour
- 05:00 How attribution models distort marketing reality
- 08:30 Why brand investment is chronically underfunded in B2B
- 11:00 The emotional truth behind B2B buying decisions
- 14:00 H2H marketing and the danger of treating audiences as statistics
- 16:00 Great B2B creative: Trainual and the Office actors campaign
- 18:30 Volvo, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and earning trust through bravery
- 20:30 Where the funnel still has genuine value
- 22:30 How to visualise brand and demand to internal stakeholders
- 25:30 Tactical advice for B2B marketing leaders in their first 90 days
