As B2B organizations realize the impact on marketing for driving growth and revenue, marketing leaders should capitalize on this opportunity. They should use their position to strengthen their team while driving value for the business.
2022 is the third year since the onset of the pandemic, which still continues to reshape the business dynamics. Digital behaviors of customers continue to witness upheaval from time to time while their expectations are constantly changing.
With the effects of the COVID-19 still affecting the B2B ecosystem, marketing leaders, in 2022, should strengthen their commitment to accelerate their transformation at scale. C-suite executives are finally recognizing the impact of marketing on sales, results, and growth, leading to an increase in the marketing budget. In fact, as per a 2022 report from DCMN, titled “The Growth Guide” 66% of marketers expect their budgets to increase that has been in a stalemate for the past couple of years. Therefore, it is critical for today’s marketing leaders to take responsibility for driving change and value to their organization.
Also Read: Mitigate the AI Bias in B2B Marketing
Here are five strategies for marketing leaders to effectively drive value for their organizations in 2022:
Grab the opportunity
In the past, marketing has been viewed as a cost center, resulting in CFOs trying to reduce the expenditure with every opportunity they got. However, the past couple of years has shown CFO and other C-suite executives that marketing is a revenue driver.
Today’s various media – social, programmatic, search to name just a few- can be thoroughly measurable. These parameters have made other leaders in the organization accustomed to expecting results from their marketing expenditures.
Marketing leaders should, thus, capitalize on this opportunity to gain more influence within the organization. In 2022 and beyond, the key for CMOs will be to make the results understandable to a broader audience across the organization. They should be able to present the value of their efforts right from top-of-funnel brand awareness to bottom-of-funnel click-to-purchase moments. The more marketing leaders can show the organization that their marketing investments are driving some form of performance, the better.
Also Read: B2B E-commerce Success Depends on CMOs to Rethink their Marketing Strategies
Take hold of the end-to-end growth agenda
The growth agenda of today’s B2B organizations do not stay restricted or operate on the conventional definition of marketing or other respective functions. Marketers thus should reinforce an explicit claim for driving the growth agenda while simultaneously acting as cohesive leadership advocates.
It is not just about building an orbit to hold the data, analytics or technology agenda, teams, or the overall budget. It is more about developing the proper internal connectivity via the customer journey lens.
Marketing leaders should collaborate with their colleagues to remove any friction customers may face while delivering an exceptional customer experience. Additionally, they should ensure that areas such as data-driven marketing, CRM, e-commerce do not function in silos as they can stand in the way of accelerating the top-line growth.
Hire the right people or train the existing ones
While addressing the challenges associated with data and technology should be of primary concern, marketing leaders cannot afford to ignore the challenge of talent issues.
Organizations increasingly find themselves with talent challenges such as data-driven skill scarcity, overall retention challenges, and incentive alignment. Dealing with these requires marketing leaders to hire the right people or train their existing people to have diverse and detailed expertise. They can begin with creating a curriculum to transform their present talent into modern, full-time marketers.
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