Direct Your 2015 B2B Budget Gains Toward Creating Exceptional Customer Experiences

For this report, Forrester and Direct Marketing News (DMN) jointly surveyed a new crop of 132 business-to-business (B2B) marketing executives about their 2015 budget plans and expectations. The results reveal that B2B marketers expect program budgets to increase in 2015 while they continue to juggle budget dollars across a fragmented set of funding demands. With little change in strategy, however, marketing leaders struggle to show how marketing programs influence the business. To get out of this pickle, B2B CMOs need to reprioritize budget line items along two key dimensions. First, shift from your historical communications, promotion, and lead management focus to take responsibility for turning the enterprise toward the customer and creating more engaged customer relationships that also derive new insight from each encounter. Then factor risk and reward criteria into your marketing mix choices based on how well programs create differentiated experiences that customers value.