The B2B Playbook #202: Good Friction vs Bad Friction in B2B Marketing: Stop Wasting Buyer Effort
Good Friction vs Bad Friction in B2B Marketing: Stop Wasting Buyer Effort
Too many teams removed every barrier and called it “buyer-first.” The result? Leaky funnels, vanity MQLs, and zero commercial insight. In this episode, we show how to use good friction to earn trust, capture context, and actually help buyers make better decisions (without annoying them).
We (George Coudounaris & Kevin Chen) break down where friction belongs in your buyer journey, when gating makes sense, and how to turn forms, events, and content into useful market intel. We also dig into progressive profiling and cataloguing so Sales get timing, permission, and real-world context they can act on.
We’ll show standout moments like: why you should stop gating case studies, how to design “good friction” for community signups and workshops, and a simple green-yellow-red scoring method to fix bad friction fast.
Tune in and learn:
+ The difference between good vs bad friction (and how to spot each)
+ When to gate (community, events, newsletters) and when not to (case studies)
+ How to use progressive profiling to “catalogue” vendors, renewal dates, and permission to follow up
If you’re a small B2B team, this episode is a must-watch. You’ll walk away with a friction map you can fix this week, a scoring system to prioritise changes, and a smarter way to feed Sales with timing-based insights.
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00:00 Good vs Bad Friction: Why “Less friction” isn’t always better
00:31 Welcome back + Season 7 context
01:10 The 5 Bs (quick refresher for new viewers)
02:10 What is “friction” in B2B? A simple definition that matters
03:00 Good friction vs bad friction – who does it actually help?
03:46 Bad friction example: Long forms for generic PDFs
04:52 More “bad”: CRM-first flows and vanity MQLs
06:10 Content gating gone wrong (case studies… don’t gate them)
07:20 When gating is OK: communities, events, and newsletters
08:18 Using friction to “catalogue” the market (timing + permission)
09:40 Why cataloguing beats ebook MQLs
10:41 Buyers don’t fear effort—they fear wasted effort
11:34 Our CRO School example: progressive profiling that helps
12:45 Turn events into commercial insights (what to ask)
13:50 Start with FAQs to find friction that actually matters
15:10 Map the journey: value exchange at each interaction
16:05 Score friction: green / yellow / red
17:00 Simplify or redesign: make effort earn trust
18:10 Key takeaways + springboard into the new year
19:00 One ask: share this with a marketer who’ll benefit
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S07 E202 - The B2B Playbook
#b2b #b2bmarketing #digitalmarketing #demandgeneration #contentmarketing