In recent years, B2B companies have seen a major shift in the way they interact with business buyers. Today's buyers tend to make decisions in groups, maintain anonymity for long periods of time, and avoid contact with salespeople until they are ready or, in some cases, completely. These changes have a major impact on B2B marketers.
B2B marketing needs to change as buyer behavior negatively impacts revenue growth
According to Forrester Marketing Research (2024), 75% of B2B marketers say buyers are taking longer to commit to a purchase than they did a year ago, which is up from the previous year. This is a significant increase from 67%. With the rise of anonymous digital purchasing behavior, B2B marketing leaders are facing a new reality. Buyers have evolved, but B2B marketing hasn't evolved, or at least not fast enough.
Emerging B2B technologies such as generative AI, customer data platforms, data providers, account-based marketing platforms, and B2B advertising solutions can help address anonymous digital buyer behavior. Additionally, new tactics such as intent monitoring, conversational marketing, technographics, and identity resolution can contribute to increasing buyer engagement. But these advanced features are running up against the walls of traditional marketing silos. As these new digital tactics permeate across demand, account base, field, and customer marketing, it's more likely than ever that buying groups will endure a series of disparate vendor interactions.
B2B marketing departments responsible for pipeline and revenue need to break down silos
Forrester found that B2B marketers face three significant internal challenges when it comes to implementing marketing programs and campaigns, all of which are rooted in silos. The first is coordination between siled marketing teams and marketing service providers, which also impedes sales and marketing alignment. Second, use multiple data sources to create a single view of the customer across the entire marketing team and customer lifecycle. Third, campaigns and programs cannot be developed based on customer needs. This means marketing teams are unable to derive customer needs or translate those needs into relevant programs and campaigns.
These challenges are interconnected with changes in buyer behavior, as silos can fragment the buyer experience across the interaction lifecycle. To overcome these challenges, marketing leaders must adopt a unified outside-in strategy that considers the entire customer lifecycle. Developed by Forrester and known as Lifecycle Revenue Marketing, this strategy involves marketing leaders actively working to break down silos and achieve his three key objectives: .
- Adjust audience engagement across the lifecycle and accommodate all audiences, including anonymous, pseudonymous, and known
- Gather and share insights into engagement across the lifecycle, including both spontaneous interactions orchestrated by marketing and the resulting connections to human interactions with sales reps.
- Influence the entire lifecycle of purchase movements and opportunities, from acquisition to upsell, cross-sell and retention, through coordinated efforts.
Enter front-line marketing: The cornerstone of a customer-focused growth strategy
Lifecycle revenue marketing is not executed by a single team or leader, but by a coalition of frontline marketing functions that break down silos and work together to achieve revenue growth. Frontline Marketing is Forrester's term to summarize her B2B Marketing Team, which is responsible for buyer audience engagement and has the most responsibility for pipeline and revenue outcomes. These are typically demand, account-based, field, and customer marketing. But across different types of B2B organizations, frontline marketing teams are sometimes referred to as growth marketing, digital demand marketing, relationship marketing, or lifecycle marketing.
The name is not important. What matters is the fact that the marketing front is hungry for strategic leadership. While technology and tactics play a role, integrating frontline marketing around the customer lifecycle and adopting a comprehensive, customer-focused frontline strategy (i.e., lifecycle revenue marketing) is the key to modern will be a key driver of future growth for B2B organizations. Leaders can't wait to be handed a better strategy from the top of the organization. They need to become more strategic themselves, taking control of front-line marketing and turning it into the linchpin of the company's core B2B customer-focused growth engine strategy.
Hiring: Marketing Leader at the Frontline of Lifecycle Revenue Results
Realizing the growth potential of frontline marketing requires a leadership mindset that recognizes the need for strategies at the frontline and upstream levels. The good news is that B2B organizations are paying attention to the need for a marketing strategy. In Forrester's 2024 Marketing Study, when B2B marketing decision makers were asked what internal processes they planned to add or enhance in the next year, “marketing strategy” was cited most often, with marketers below senior director I mentioned it the most. VP level or higher.
Leading front-line marketing in strategic efforts to become a key revenue stream requires bold changes. But B2B marketers may not have many options. If you don't like change, you probably don't like disruption even more. The buyer has decided to make a change. Would you like to follow them on their path to growth?
Register to join Forrester B2B Summit North America Learn more about frontline marketing leadership, lifecycle revenue marketing, revenue process transformation, and more.
This post was written by Principal Analyst John Arnold and first appeared here.
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