3 Things B2B Marketing will see in 2023
I’m in 100% agreement with the Forrester team's 3 predictions on what we'll see with B2B Marketing in 2023 in the recent Forbes article, “B2B Leaders Are Bracing For Economic Upheaval”.
Key takeaways are below.
Faced with all-but-guaranteed economic challenges in 2023, organizations will work to minimize risk and focus resources on the lowest hanging fruit.
For B2B orgs, this will [should] play out in the following 3 ways…
HUNKER DOWN WITH YOUR CUSTOMER:
In other words, strategies will become more oriented around existing customers and as such, will tilt heavily toward retention, cross-selling and upselling. Success will require a stellar customer experience and great relationships - do you have those?
BRACE FOR MARKETING REORGS:
As B2B organizations up their focus on existing customers, the need for sales and marketing to be in lockstep across the entire customer journey will be critical.
If that integration hasn't been optimized already, the author expects to see a jump in marketing teams reporting into sales though, simply shuffling reporting lines won't solve for this. It'll take a cultural shift and at the very least, the same goals and KPIs for both teams.
PARTNERSHIPS WILL MAKE YOU BETTER:
There will be a much bigger focus on external partnerships and as a result, "partnership ecosystem marketing" vs. the more traditional "channel marketing".
New business models with key customers is something my team experimented with at my last employer. These partnerships can absolutely straddle B2B and B2C - think suppliers & their brand customers partnering to find a better way to meet quickly changing consumer needs.
This requires trust and transparency - significant hurdles in the customer/supplier relationship for sure - and needs complete buy-in from leadership at both orgs to work.