Earlier, we published the research ‘B2B Marketing Reflections & Predictions for 2023’.
The study is based on predictions from leading research institutes such as Gartner, Forrester, Salesforce and Content Marketing Institute and our own observations in the market. By exploring trends for 2023, we see that the future of B2B marketing and sales revolves around three key areas: customer experience, digital transformation and proving marketing ROI.
Wanting to validate these predictions, I agreed with my colleague and business partner Shimon Ben Ayoun to interview several marketing managers and have more insights into where their daily challenges lie.
We talked about the importance of customer experience, what Marketing and Sales need to invest in and what the impact of this further shift to the customer will be. We reflected on the goals and challenges of today’s leaders in B2B marketing and sales.
Key takeaway: customer journey says it all
Whether we ask a CX, marketing, sales or digital marketing executive to share their challenges with us, their stories all show an unmistakable pattern. It is the story of collaboration between Marketing and Sales, mapping the customer journey so you can better personalise and proving ROI of marketing.
The customer perspective and the buying journey keeps coming up as a key challenge of our nine respondents. The only way to address this and work on proving your ROI is to align sales and marketing efforts and focus on the most impactful strategies and tactics. So, what are the topics the B2B Marketing Manager is most concerned with?
- Personalisation: With the recognition that customer experience is essential, we need to prioritise our customers in everything we do. This means starting with in-depth research into customer behaviour and buying patterns and planning a personalised and effective content strategy. Collaboration with sales is key here.
Micha Isacson (SAP) says: “Of course we work together with Sales. We help them with social selling and support them in multiple touch points, with both content and events. To do this, we look at the entire customer journey to create an optimal experience for our customers.”
- Technology can help us automate tasks, support content creation and make time for both sales and marketing. We recommend letting data and technology help you create or maintain your competitive advantage. But, interviews also reveal that adoption of new technology is not always easy.
Linda Geerdink (SUSE): “We use 6sense for marketing and sales, as well as Salesforce, Outreach, Zoominfo, TechTarget, Qualified chat and TechTarget Priority Engine. But we underestimated the difficulty of implementing new technologies in the organisation.”
- Our brand has to be top of mind when buyers are ready to step into a sales conversation. Brand affinity is very hard to measure, but the power of a strong brand that builds a relationship and emotional connection with a customer should not be underestimated.
Rik ten Wolde (AFAS): “Our brand is leading and employer branding as well as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) are important parts of our customer experience strategy.”
Want to read more? The State of B2B NL survey in the format of a Secret Diary: ‘The Secret Diary of 3 B2B Marketing Managers’ is now available!
I will keep you posted!
