B2B Marketing Shifts Focus in late 2017
Business-to-Business marketing focus shifted gears in 2017, reversing prior trends. Even as B2B marketing and sales has taken on more of a highly focused account-based execution, companies now express more interest and energy in converting leads to customers. This trend represents a major change from the prior majority focus of generating leads.
According to the newest State of Pipeline Marketing Report, the new inclination toward conversion reverses a prior focus on building and collecting leads. However, as emphasis grows for account-based marketing, so does a new emphasis on revenue performance as a critical metric.
Content marketing driving B2B revenue
It’s important to note in current B2B marketing is the increasing recognition that content marketing has become a revenue driver. More than 75% of those participating in the survey noted that they plan to increase their content marketing activities (and budget) for 2018.
Previous reports noted a greater emphasis on aligning sales and marketing goals. Reducing prior conflict between marketing and sales — particularly in competing for internal resources like budgets and human resources — has been a higher focus in the past. This has lessened as companies have moved forward and achieved success toward meeting this goal. Also, once a major trend in B2B marketing, the prior emphasis on reducing the cost of customer acquisition has fallen to 2% of those participating this year’s survey.
E-mail still dominant
Tried and true e-mailing continues its dominance as the primary B2B marketing channel, which squares with the chief outreach tool for marketing automation applications like Pardot. Email marketing remains a critical attribution model for lead generation and customer conversion.
ROI measurement is also up, varying between different metrics. A 2X investment return remains a common goal.
Several B2B marketers remain unsold on the efficiency of account-based marketing, where resources target specific vertical marketing and sales opportunities.
By Michael Snyder, Managing Principal, MEK Group