Featuring:

Barbie Mattie, VP and Principal Analyst

Show Notes:

Heading into 2023, B2B CMOs may be experiencing déjà vu. Many faced pressures to slash budgets early in the pandemic and may be weighing similar decisions now. Yet cuts to satisfy current pressures could easily hinder long-term competitiveness, says VP and Principal Analyst Barbie Mattie. On this week’s What It Means, she explains the merits of a disciplined “spend money to make money” approach and shares highlights from Forrester’s inaugural planning guide for B2B marketing executives.

An advantage that marketing leaders have this time around is that they can draw from lessons learned over the past two years. For instance, Mattie says, companies that have thrived during that time (which she defines as growing by more than 20% year over year) have invested more heavily than their peers in postsale customer engagement. They also have placed greater emphasis on brand perception.

“Traditionally, marketers have been overindexing in demand [generation]” as they pursue new leads, Mattie says. In the coming year, they will need to balance investments across demand generation and postsale customer engagement, as well as reputation building (i.e., awareness and brand building) and sales enablement.

On the operational investments that will help marketing organizations succeed, Mattie advises that “it’s worth every penny, every resource, every effort to wrangle and normalize all of your customer data so you have a single view of the customer.” A tight relationship with marketing operations leaders will be key for CMOs to make sound investment decisions that advance marketing objectives, she adds.

Later in the episode, Mattie elaborates on the approach marketing leaders should take to selecting new technologies and describes six foundational capabilities that marketing teams should have in place. She also explains why marketing leaders must shift focus from acquiring individual leads to managing opportunities with buying groups. Listen to the episode for more 2023 spending guidance for B2B CMOs.