Insight

Marketers have more control than they used to – more channel choice, more in-house capability, and AI making research faster. But that means more decisions to defend when budgets are set.

With that budgeting process likely happening right now, it’s worth reviewing what best practice looks like. Our guidance on how best to prepare for 2027 relies heavily on industry market research and one theme runs through what follows: mining buyers are more sceptical than they used to be – of vendor content, of AI-generated noise, of inflated claims. And marketing needs to catch up.

1. Interrogate your channel spend

Circulation and “reach” numbers flatter to deceive. Before renewing anything, ask what it delivered — not impressions, but real, actionable data. Display is still popular, but it needs to work harder.

Many publishers have dropped print for PDF or eBooks as a cost saving, pitching better tracking. So demand it: open rates, time spent reading, time on the page your advert sits on, and the benchmarks behind them.

Then check who’s in the readership. A majority of trade-press readers are typically other service providers (~40%), and if you’re targeting miners you also navigate explorers, developers, governments and academics. With a niche offering, or one jurisdiction, likely buyers might be <5% of circulation – wasted spend, however good the headline looks.

Trade press isn’t the enemy; there’s excellent journalism in this sector. It’s the old pay-to-play model that deserves scrutiny.

2. Get sales and marketing pulling the same way

Sales targets shift constantly; that’s the role. But it shouldn’t leave marketing flying blind on what’s measured. Alignment starts with shared objectives and the same KPIs, reviewed together rather than reported past each other.

Sales should also see what marketing does day to day: campaigns running, pipeline built quietly, months before it shows as a number. Marketing too often gets noticed only when something’s missed, never when the groundwork was solid. Have that conversation before the 2027 target lands.

3. Use AI. Don’t rely on it.

LinkedIn now lets people flag posts as AI slop (source). Harbour’s Content Conundrum research found 68% of miners are sceptical of AI-generated content, and the web is already filling up with sameness.

Use AI to move faster. Draft with it, check with it, tighten with it. Just don’t let it be your voice; that’s the bit only you can do. And Harbour research shows buyers want to hear from your experts.

Full disclosure: We’re Harbour, an advisory, and some stats here are our own research — worth flagging, since point three asks you to be sceptical of exactly that. A person checked every stat and wrote the final version by hand.

4. Build your ABM list properly

Mining is a small world. There are only so many producers, EPCM/EPC firms and contractors worth targeting, so a ‘mining companies’ list that runs into the thousands represents criminal levels of wastage.

Segment by new logo, existing customer, lost customer and partner growth. Assess each on its own terms, align with sales, and feed it into your event strategy. Cutting corners here wastes budget on the wrong names.

Any competent ABM partner should help build that list and QA it – mine type, commodities, and geographies for a start – not just ask you for accounts to mindlessly pepper.

5. Make CRM everyone’s job

A database is only as good as what you feed it, and that isn’t solely a marketing problem. If sales, leadership and operations don’t treat CRM discipline as part of their job, marketing is building on sand.

That includes events. Too many teams run conferences, brand and demand as separate operations, and the intelligence gathered on the ground – structured and unstructured – is lost instead of feeding back into customer intelligence.

CRM has to be a cultural pillar, which starts with leadership seeing it as more than a pipeline report – hard when marketing is one or two people wearing five hats. Start with what you control, your own CRM hygiene, and use it to recruit the rest.

6. Repurpose and refresh case studies

Nearly 80% of mining buyers see case-study support and validation as a major influence on supplier trust, according to our research. That alone should settle the argument for keeping it current.
Miners are risk-averse. They want proof over time; not a snapshot. This should be a story that holds up over two or three years. Most companies already have decent material. Where client participation is hard, refreshing case studies built with long-term clients gives you current collateral and the evidence of longevity buyers want.

7. Nobody gets married on the first date

Lead generation numbers quickly become a vanity metric. Sales will be selective about quality, and most of the friction comes down to disagreement on the definition of a lead. Build that consensus company-wide, not department by department.

If you’re running a lead-gen program, know where those leads really come from. This industry has more than its share of questionable supply chains – a transparency issue as much as a commercial one. Ask whether delivery is outsourced, to whom, and what consent processes are in place.

8. Protecting your first-party audience

Direct EDM is still a core asset, years in the building, and it’s being eroded by poor practice. Harbour’s research found 90% of miners had stopped opening email from some vendors that over-used the channel, while 86% said the content usually wasn’t relevant. Most of us keep sending because we need something to report up.

This audience took real budget and years of engagement to earn. It deserves better than being burned through for a send-count.

None of these eight actions are complicated on their own. What’s harder is doing them all at once, under budget pressure, while buyers grow more sceptical of every claim marketing makes. That’s the real job for 2027: earning back trust with relevant content.

Eight suggestions may feel like boiling the ocean, especially for small teams (or ‘teams’ of one!). So, if you take only one into 2027 planning, get sales and marketing agreeing on what’s being measured. The rest then becomes easier.