The transformation of B2B marketing will continue to accelerate in 2026. In this interview, Sarah Wilhelm, CEO of W4, talks about the changes that are already becoming visible today and how companies can adapt their marketing strategy so it continues to deliver reliable results in the years ahead.
1. WHEN YOU SAY THAT CLASSIC INBOUND MARKETING IS DYING, WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT?
When we say that classic inbound marketing is dying, we are referring to the way inbound has been implemented in many B2B companies over the past ten to fifteen years.
The typical setup looks like this: companies produce e-books, whitepapers and blog articles, gate some of them behind forms, collect leads, “warm them up” through standardized nurturing flows and eventually hand them over to sales as MQLs. Behind this sits a clear but very rigid funnel: awareness, lead, nurturing, close.
This exact model is currently losing effectiveness fast. We see this in several ways:
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The number of leads says less and less about real sales opportunities.
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Contact quality decreases while cost per lead increases.
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Marketing reports success, but sales classifies many of these leads as “not ready yet” or “not a fit.”
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There are often many months between first contact and an actual opportunity, without clear insight into what truly works in between.
At the same time, the environment has fundamentally changed. Buying decisions are made by teams, people inform themselves largely independently, and they expect speed, transparency and real support.
In this context, the classic inbound setup has effectively become an outdated model. The core idea of inbound—being found because you provide real value—remains valid. But the old mechanics from the pre-AI, pre-“always-on” era no longer hold up. That is exactly why we say: classic inbound marketing is dying, and companies need a new approach that fits today’s reality.
2. WHAT HAS CHANGED MOST IN B2B BUYING BEHAVIOR?
I would mainly point to three things.
First, in the past, someone would fill out a form relatively early, request a brochure or call directly, and then be guided step by step through the information process. Today, a large part of this journey happens in the background. People google, read comparisons, watch videos, discuss internally with their teams and seek opinions within their networks. Some even use AI tools to structure information. By the time they fill out a form or request a demo, they often already have internal favorites.
Second, there is hardly ever a single decision-maker anymore. In many cases, an entire buying team is involved: business departments, IT, procurement and management. Each of these roles has different questions and risks in mind. A single lead with a standardized nurturing flow simply does not reflect this reality anymore.
Third, expectations around speed and relevance have increased significantly. Information needs to be immediately accessible, clear, comparable and tailored as closely as possible to the buyer’s situation. Anyone who reacts slowly or delivers generic content loses trust very quickly.
In short, buying processes have become more dynamic, more distributed and more informed than the classic inbound model was originally designed for. And that is exactly where the tension lies.
3. WHAT PROBLEMS DO YOU SEE IN COMPANIES THAT HOLD ON TO THE OLD INBOUND MODEL FOR TOO LONG?
What we often see is a kind of constant pressure with little real progress. Companies invest heavily in content, campaigns and tools, but at the end of the day there is the feeling that a lot is happening, yet revenue barely reflects it. The database grows, reports look good, but the number of truly promising conversations does not increase at the same pace.
Another common pattern is friction between marketing and sales. Marketing proudly presents traffic, downloads and new contacts, while sales experiences that many of these leads either do not fit the target group or are far from a concrete buying decision. On paper, performance looks strong, but in day-to-day reality it feels unhelpful for sales. This quickly leads to discussions about who is “to blame,” instead of jointly questioning the system itself.
At the same time, costs gradually rise: media spend, content production, personnel, tech stack. If the underlying model stays the same, effectiveness per invested dollar declines. Eventually, the question arises whether marketing still “works” at all. And that is where it becomes dangerous, because the problem is not marketing itself, but an outdated inbound model in an environment that has long since evolved.
4. HOW CAN COMPANIES TELL THAT THEIR INBOUND APPROACH IS NO LONGER WORKING?
A strong indicator is when the numbers look “okay” on paper, but the results still do not feel right. There are leads, traffic and campaigns, but when you look closely, too little qualified demand comes out of it.
There are a few concrete signals to watch for:
A first warning sign is when the number of leads increases, but conversion to opportunities stagnates or declines. In that case, the system collects contacts but fails to turn interest into real sales opportunities.
A second signal is a continuously rising cost per lead without a visible improvement in quality. If more budget is required to achieve the same or even worse results, it suggests the model no longer fits the market.
Sales behavior also says a lot. If a large share of marketing leads is never contacted or is quickly marked as “cold” again, it clearly shows that the inbound approach is misaligned with sales reality.
Finally, the timeline reveals a lot. If there is a long gap between first contact and a real opportunity and no one can clearly explain which measures actually work in that phase, then the funnel is driven more by gut feeling than by a reliable system. At that point at the latest, it makes sense to fundamentally rethink the inbound approach.
5. WHAT ROLE DOES AI PLAY IN THIS SITUATION: MORE OF A PROBLEM OR A SOLUTION?
AI is both: part of the problem and part of the solution.
It becomes problematic when it is used mainly to produce even more content, even faster. This leads to a massive volume of similar texts, landing pages and posts that all sound alike. For the audience, this turns into noise. In such an environment, it becomes even harder for companies to stand out with real substance and a clear point of view.
AI becomes powerful when it helps create clarity: identifying patterns in data, understanding behavioral signals, tailoring content more precisely to target groups and journey stages, and automating routine tasks. In that case, you are not only increasing efficiency, but also making better decisions.
From our perspective, one thing is crucial: AI does not replace strategy. It amplifies what is already there. If positioning, target vision and customer focus are clear, AI becomes a real lever. If they are not, it simply accelerates the chaos.
6. WHAT DOES A MODERN APPROACH TO INBOUND AND LEAD GENERATION LOOK LIKE TO YOU?
For us, modern inbound looks very different from the classic funnel many companies started with. We no longer think in a neat, linear path from awareness to close, but in a continuous loop: put something into the market, observe what happens, learn from it and adjust.
The focus is no longer on the number of leads, but on impact on demand and revenue.
Marketing and sales work toward shared goals and look at the same metrics. What matters is not how many forms were filled out, but which activities lead to good conversations and deals.
The buyer’s perspective is also key. A modern approach aligns with the real customer journey and with an entire buying team. Executives, department heads and IT have different questions and risks. Content and touchpoints should reflect this reality, rather than following internal product logic.
AI helps us scale this approach. It supports faster pattern recognition, more flexible content creation and better interpretation of behavioral signals. But the core remains human: clear hypotheses, structured learning and continuous adaptation. This loop is the heart of a modern inbound and lead generation approach for us.
7. HOW SHOULD THE COLLABORATION BETWEEN MARKETING AND SALES CHANGE IF COMPANIES WANT TO MOVE AWAY FROM CLASSIC INBOUND?
I believe the most important step is for marketing and sales to stop seeing themselves as two separate worlds. As long as marketing is responsible for leads and sales for closes, classic inbound remains embedded in people’s thinking, no matter how modern the campaigns look.
From our perspective, both teams should share responsibility for revenue and pipeline. Practically speaking, this means shared goals, shared metrics and shared discussions about what works and what does not. Marketing no longer reports only on traffic and downloads, but on which activities lead to meaningful conversations and offers. Sales, in return, consistently feeds back which contacts truly have potential and where something was missing.
It is also important that sales gets involved earlier and marketing stays involved longer. Not “marketing runs campaigns, hands over leads and is done,” but sales brings insights from customer conversations into content planning, and marketing accompanies deals to understand which questions really arise along the way.
In the end, collaboration shifts from “we deliver leads” to “we jointly build a system that reliably generates demand.” Once this mindset is in place, letting go of classic inbound becomes much easier.
8. ARE THERE SPECIFIC TOOLS YOU USE TO IMPROVE YOUR MARKETING AND LEAD GENERATION?
For us, it is clear that this approach would not be feasible without the right tools. The foundation is a central CRM and marketing platform where all marketing and sales data comes together. We work very closely with HubSpot, because it allows us to cover campaigns, automation, reporting and sales in one system. This gives us clear visibility into which activities actually contribute to opportunities and revenue.
HubSpot is also particularly interesting for us in terms of AI. Many tasks that used to be manual can now be supported directly within HubSpot using AI, such as analyzing contact data, creating variants for different target groups or assessing which contacts and deals should be prioritized at a given moment. Strategy and content still come from us and from the customer, but AI in HubSpot helps us test faster, evaluate more accurately and make decisions on a stronger data foundation.
Around this core, there are of course additional components: analytics tools to better understand website behavior, and custom automation solutions when processes span multiple systems. What matters most to us is not the number of tools, but how well they work together. A lean, well-integrated stack that teams actually use is worth more than ten disconnected tools. HubSpot is the core on which we build everything else.
9. FINALLY, WHAT IS YOUR MOST IMPORTANT ADVICE FOR MARKETING DECISION-MAKERS IN THE COMING MONTHS?
From our point of view, the most important thing is to genuinely acknowledge that the old inbound model cannot simply be saved with a few optimizations. Anyone who keeps trying to make an outdated system a bit faster or a bit prettier mainly wastes time and budget. The first step is therefore a mental one: accepting that the rules have changed and adapting the model, not just the campaigns.
It also makes sense to start small, but consistently. Rather than trying to rebuild the entire machine at once, choose one clearly defined segment, target group or offer and test a new approach there. If you measure cleanly what leads to good conversations and deals, valuable learnings emerge quickly and can be transferred to other areas.
Finally, we strongly recommend bringing marketing and sales even closer together than is often the case today. Shared goals, shared data and a shared understanding of the customer journey matter more than the next trend channel. In a world where customers constantly inform themselves and compare options, the teams that win are those that learn together and continuously evolve their system.
HOW CAN W4 SPECIFICALLY SUPPORT SMEs IN DEVELOPING THEIR MARKETING APPROACH?
We help companies rebuild their marketing so that it actually works in everyday operations. We start by sitting down together to clarify what you want to achieve, who you want to reach and which tools and data you already have, for example in HubSpot. Then we review your current activities and clearly separate what truly generates inquiries and conversations, what mainly consumes time, and what is missing entirely.
Based on this, we establish a simple, transparent way of working together. That means clear steps from first contact to conversation, a well-configured HubSpot setup with a few automations that reduce manual effort, and reports that you can understand and actively use. The goal is not a permanent project with us, but a marketing system that reliably generates relevant inquiries for you again.
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