Another year, another opportunity for us industry professionals to turn into fortune tellers. But as you start to receive more and more \"predictions\" for 2020 marketing trends, Folloze is here to remind you that one year's time just isn't enough to consider - and since our motto is either go big or go home, the following are not only what will impact the industry for the next 12 months, rather, what the next decade will hold and what companies and their CMOs should implement as law now versus as an afterthought down the line.
The biggest thing to be aware of is that there is a new marketing paradigm taking place, and these trends aren't going anywhere - and while you have no doubt been successful in your marketing career up till now, if you want to continue to be successful for the next 5 and 10+ years, you'll need to jump in head first in the New Year. Here's where your skillset will need to zero in, and what you need to know for the marketing of the future:
ABM will go mainstream, so avoid FOMO -- While Account-Based Marketing (ABM) has gotten buzz for years, it's been isolated as a practice versus an \"everyman\" marketing strategy. But this is shifting. As marketing becomes tied more closely to revenue generation, and as customers increasingly demand personalized experiences and the buying process transforms in 2020, successful marketers will focus more intently on top accounts and a data-based approach to engaging them. ABM will become a mainstream, general practice for organizations - both top of mind for CMOs, while at the same time a cake-walk for those already strongly engaged in current programs. It will be key to identifying targets, delivering individualized experiences at the scale needed to bolster customer relationships and moving the needle for business. Heck, ABM will become so mainstream your grandma will even know what it means. So come 2030, if
you aren't immersed in ABM practice, you'll likely become extinct.
You'll need to get intelligent about CX(pectations) -- Customers have come to expect more personalized journeys and demands around experience will only continue to grow. It's up to B2B marketers to give the TLC needed to customers by understanding how best to add value to the relationship and to establish your company as a partner and trusted advisor (not just meet their wants and needs). Trusty tools like AI, hyper-personalization, and high-quality data will be what makes marketers smarter - on customer personas, stages in their buying cycle, pain points and other rich insights - and investment in these solutions will skyrocket. So come 2030, if you're still serving customers generic content based on general pain points and data, you'll quickly be out of luck.
'Eyeballs' won't be the end goal -- Growing economic uncertainty in the New Year will cause CMOs to self-audit their processes, ensuring that they are more results driven in executing strategic initiatives tied directly to revenue generation. Metrics like 'eyeballs' will finally give way to business oriented metrics that more accurately reflect marketing's ROI on the company's bottom line. It's time to start thinking about what really matters to your business. By 2030 the entire concept of three separate functions - Sales, Marketing and Customer Success - will completely disappear and be replaced by a unified team charged with revenue generation. In fact, every single person in the company will see themselves and be seen as an intrinsic part of the company’s ability to bring and retain business. So come 2030, if you're not focused on
where the money is at all times, you'll be sure to go broke.
The biggest thing to remember is that there is a new marketing paradigm taking place, customer engagement from broad to targeted – but at scale, and these trends aren't going anywhere.
