It is going to be a mix really. The marketers who were able to show what they contributed to the bottom line and are able to forecast marketing contribution for 2022 will definitely have a head start. On the other hand, those marketers who were unable to adapt to a new way of working may struggle to justify their budgets.
We are in the “era of relevance” – the age of “make it personal to me.” A 2018 US study showed that in the US market, “companies are losing $1 trillion in annual revenues to their competitors because they are not consistently relevant enough…on serving a customer’s most relevant needs in the moment.”
ABM continues to ride high in B2B marketing, but it isn’t a magic cure for poor sales and marketing, nor is it deployed successfully and optimised fully in all scenarios. One of the challenges of ABM is the ‘resource’ in terms of people and the skills required in marketing to fully leverage it. A one-to-one approach for a business that relies on large-scale demand generation is going to represent a significant change and refocusing of effort. The benefits are well-documented and will continue to be an aspiration for B2B marketers.
Rather than asking for more budget, I would start with what the marketing team need to contribute from a revenue perspective in 2022. Once we have the revenue number, we can reverse engineer metrics from total revenue and the number of new and existing customers, SQOs, SALs, MQLs and inquiries. Once we know how many inquiries we need, we can then forecast activity by channel, the budget required and what we are going to measure.
In my opinion, there is no such thing as a business that is not ‘marketing friendly’. The challenge is in educating the business on what value marketing can bring and having the strategies, plans and metrics to achieve it.
Neuromarketing is something that is really taking off with the market expected to grow by 15.6% per annum for the next 5 years. Marketers need to think about two things here:
Firstly, surveys, interviews and focus groups are becoming redundant in some scenarios where differentiation is becoming increasingly difficult. Secondly, before engaging in expensive rebrands, large-scale campaigns, new packaging or CX investment, neuroscience techniques may guide you to greater success.
There is also a growing realisation that CX is a differentiator that underpins profitability over the long-term. Unfortunately, marketing doesn’t always own all, or much of, the CX journey but as customer champion, it is something they are ideally positioned to develop.
Finally, there is a push towards ABM automation platforms to scale one-to-few or one-to-many programmes. This enables campaigns to target accounts matching your ICP using digital tools but I would caution that many technology solutions are not a replacement for good sales and marketing and are similar to demand generation.
Over 50% of organisations do not have a strategic marketing plan. With that in mind, I would recommend to plan for the whole of 2022. Start with numbers and keep adapting it as and when necessary to better serve your customers, employees and other stakeholders. Remember, a marketing plan is not a static document to file away and check it again next year. It should be regularly reviewed and the evaluation of activities fed back into the plan to keep it up to date.
When marketers fail to plan and get into a habit of ‘just doing things’, it undermines credibility when you need to justify marketing actions to the CEO or CFO. Would you invest in a business that has no business plan? Would you secure third-party funding without an investment prospectus and detailed financial forecasts? No, you wouldn’t. So, why do we believe that reactive tactics are the solution?
Hybrid is the way forward. In some instances, online events may be the answer but in others, face-to-face is better. For example, a bitesize learning event can be done virtually whereas an industry-wide conference may require breakout sessions, time for networking and lunch that are easier done in-person.
Firstly, start with the numbers. What is the organisation requiring of marketing to deliver the 2022 revenue target? Secondly, don’t forget the need for research to better understand what your customers need, your competitor landscape and your market. Thirdly, make sure that you fully understand your value proposition and why it is unique to your market. Once you have these things, you have a basic foundation to plan for the year ahead.
