The Pulse: Customer Marketing Investment And Priorities

Customer marketing plays a direct role in driving growth within the customer base and in reinforcing the brand promise in the post-sale journey. Forrester benchmark data shows that organizations of all sizes are investing in customer marketing, particularly initiatives that incorporate the customer’s point of view. Customer marketing leaders should track metrics that demonstrate their impact on growth, retention and advocacy.

B2B customer marketing teams are currently surfing the waves of increased attention and investment. In fact, the entire discipline of customer engagement has become more prominent, with businesses that use software-as-a-service (SaaS) and other recurring revenue models leading the way to help their customers succeed and grow. Customer marketing, in particular — one of the key functions within customer engagement — has made strides in its ability to demonstrate its impact on growth and retention. In this report, we review findings from Forrester benchmark data on B2B organizations’ current and future investment in customer marketing, as well as trends involving specific aspects of customer-centric programs typically owned by marketing.