Yes, it seems hard to believe, but the first B2B marketing predictions for 2017 are already being rolled out on the Internet. Forrester Research has come up with three predictions for the coming year, based on trends the company been observing within the B2B space. Here are the three things to watch out for over the next 12 months:
Prediction #1: 2017 is the year account-based marketing (ABM) goes mainstream
We’ve been hearing about account-based marketing throughout the year, and now it looks like it’s about to get another burst of momentum heading into the new year. As Forrester explains, the ABM trend will lead to “new approaches that team up marketing and sales to grow long-term, highly-engaged revenue relationships with key clients.” Traditionally, using ABM, the biggest companies would pool all their resources to go big-game hunting and pull down massive accounts.
There are a few implications here. One is that a greater focus on ABM will make the conventional sales funnel obsolete. Secondly, the greater collaboration between marketing and sales will give marketing more control over the post-sale customer experience. Instead of just “handing off” the customer relationship to sales, there will be much more of a virtual feedback loop, in which marketing gets more involved in the process.
Prediction #2: 2017 is going to be a year of vendor consolidation
If the norm had been lots of nimble startups offering lots of “experimental tech,” then the new normal is going to be lots of vendor consolidation. For company, that means doubling down on the types of marketing solutions that are known to work, such as customer relationship management (CRM), customer analytics, and customer personalization tools. With a customer personalization tool like Personyze, it’s possible to analyze, personalize and monetize content.
The biggest shakeout, says Forrester, will be in predictive analytics. So many vendors are offering analytical tools to predict future customer behavior, but now it’s time to choose the big winners.
In addition, all this vendor consolidation will force companies to re-think their marketing stacks. Instead of having several competing stacks, or one bloated stack, the goal will be to create a single, streamlined marketing stack with solutions that work.
Prediction #3: B2B sales and marketing teams will re-think talent
At the end of the day, it’s still people who make the sale, not technology or software. However, that doesn’t mean that the types of skills, experiences and know-how in greatest demand won’t change. According to Forrester, this will result in three distinct skills in highest demand: an ability to manage the entire customer lifecycle, customer insight skills, and an ability to create “customer obsession.”
This last skill is of particular note, since it’s what we would more conventionally expect of a B2C sales team than a B2B sales team. Yet, as Forrester points out, B2B brands are going to be doubling down on the customer experience, and that means individuals on the sales and marketing team who can make customers excited and, yes, even “obsessed” about their B2B brand partners.
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What other predictions do you have for 2017? We’ll be keeping an eye on this space.
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Dane
Dane Cobain is a published author, freelance writer, book blogger, poet and (occasional) musician from High Wycombe, UK. Before going freelance, he worked as a social media marker, now specialising in writing about publishing, technology and marketing.