2023 Marketing Predictions
2023 promises to be an uncertain year for B2B marketers. Amidst slow economic growth and some predictions of a recession, marketing will need to re-focus priorities towards those initiatives that directly impact the bottom line.
Customer Lifecycle
In a tough economic environment, businesses always focus on protecting their customer base. Retention becomes a priority, while up-sell and cross-sell will once again become important drivers of growth. Customer marketing becomes the key audience for growth, necessitating a shift in strategy and tactics. This isn't the revolutionary approach that it once was. B2B marketers can use many of the highly-personalised tactics developed and tested through their ABM programs. Up-sell campaigns are an excellent use case for the ABM approach and can be scaled quickly to different aspects of the customer base.
Partner Marketing
The expansion of partner networks has been a critical focus for many companies over recent years. Yet, not all of these partners are driving value. Some channel partners care more about adding an extra logo for marketing purposes than driving sales and revenue for the vendor. This is the year that changes. Pressure will be placed on channel partners to deliver results and business value. However, in the channel, business value is about more than just revenue. Consultancies and System Integrators are critical influencers that rarely close deals but do have a significant impact on the solutions that their customers choose. Your partners are often your best brand ambassadors, and providing them with the right content and message can have a significant impact in the long-term.
Email Automation
Email marketing has seen a resurgence in interest over the last year. The days when everything went through email are over. However, it definitely has its place as an easy and cheap way of getting new messages into the market. It still has one of the highest ROI numbers for any channel. The key decision is finding the right content and audience for your email campaigns. As a channel for distributing highly targeted messages to an engaged audience, email marketing is still unmatched. It should definitely have a place in your customer marketing initiatives. This is the one group you'll have a significant amount of data about, and they're also an audience that regularly engages with your email campaigns.
Sales Alignment
Revenue operations has been a catchphrase for several years now. The oft-discussed merger of sales operations and marketing operations hasn't always worked in practice. It requires close alignment between sales and marketing about priorities, which isn't always present even in the most forward-thinking organisations. It's become difficult to justify complex lead generation programs that don't result in opportunities. As a result, marketing will be asked to focus on sectors and accounts that sales can actually convert. At the top of the funnel, the discussion is increasingly about reach and awareness. Proving to the board that marketing is engaging with those accounts they want to win next year is critical to proving value and ultimately protecting budgets.
Data Aggregation
The long delayed migration away from third-party cookies has sparked plenty of discussion about the role of first party data in marketing. 2023 is the year that this talk will turn into concrete action. Until now, a lack of clarity about future ad tech standards has held the industry back. This is beginning to change. Technologies such as data clean rooms and next-generation web analytics can be combined to enable digital advertising even in a world where third-party data use is heavily restricted. The good news is that none of these technologies are new. Many organisations have been using them for years. First-party data isn't a new initiative either. All they're doing is extending the reach of your existing customer data improvement programs to the top of the funnel.