Coming from a software development background, I witnessed first-hand the transitions from rigid waterfall software development life cycles into agile iterative models due to the rapid changing demands in business requirements and organization maturity in the digital age.
Currently, I believe B2B marketing is undergoing the same transition due to 3 key factors:
1. Explosive Availability of Data
The combination of 1st party analytics data and 3rd party intent data enables marketing practitioners an almost real time glimpse into the sentiment and responses of their target audiences, creating infinite possibilities of next steps that yields higher returns than the original plan created without such insights.
2. Rise in Prospect Demands and Expectations
In a world where most have experienced Amazon and Netflix, B2B prospects similarly expect their vendors to understand exactly what they want, when they want it and how they want it. Mass broad marketing approaches will quickly become a source of annoyance and the vendor that delivers to the expected experience will have a clear advantage.
3. Increased Importance of Marketing in Supporting Sales
Management legend Peter Drucker declares there is only one purpose of a business: to create a customer. What used to be the sole domain of sales is increasingly a shared playing field with marketing playing a large role in accelerating and influencing sales opportunities. In the world where prospects may know more about your product and services than you, it’s all about providing consultation in solving their exact problem – and this comes via understanding their intent and responses to marketing channels and campaigns.
Here in 2X we are built for agile-first, with key focus and investments in utilizing technology, processes and people development specifically meant to adapt for client’s shifts in demand. Our teams are trained to research, collaborate, and ultimately provide the best possible solution in reaching the newly minted outcome.
This in turn has enabled our clients to quickly launch customized Account Based Marketing campaigns, create visually stunning sales presentations and unlocking the hidden potential from their Marketing Analytics intent data to provide sales with daily insights to accelerate their opportunities.