As 2018 comes to an end, we took a look at some of the key trends that helped shape Revenue Marketing this year. We also look ahead at the top opportunities for Revenue Marketers in 2019.
Marketers, Embrace for [Economic] Impact
The current economic expansion is long by historical standards, and thus the risk of recession rises with each passing month. In a recession, marketing is usually one of the first few departments to take a budget cut. But a recession also presents opportunities for well-prepared marketers to take advantage of the turmoil and gain share practicing Revenue Marketing.
In 2019 marketers will be under more pressure than ever to prove their worth. We will be tasked to move beyond anecdotal evidence to provide the hard facts and figures that demonstrate our influence on the bottom line. To do this, we will need powerful analytics and dashboards that can help us demonstrate ROI.
Revenue, Not Leads.
At CaliberMind we are on a mission to turn every B2B marketer into a Revenue Marketer with the data, analytics and smart workflow automation they need to grow revenue faster together with sales. That is why, earlier this year, when we looked at how the best B2B marketers grow revenue, we were happy to find that 70% of marketers are now held accountable for revenue (no longer leads or engagement). That is great news for our industry since it helps to align marketing with sales and with the c-suite on the one and only number that matters – revenue!
However, as it turns out, we still have lots of work ahead of us since only 22% of marketers qualify themselves as Revenue Marketers (Accountable for 30% or more of actual revenue and bookings, and are ‘highly confident’ in hitting their revenue goal).
New Roles: Revenue Marketer & Director of Marketing Data
According to Kristin Kelley, CMO of staffing firm Randstad North America, Revenue Marketer is one of the top three roles for marketers in 2019:
“Revenue Marketers is a position that is dedicated to optimizing marketing ROI through a systematic approach to identifying and leveraging drivers of revenue. This position is valuable because when marketing teams start new projects, increasingly they want to know what the outcome will be. This role has the ability to model the predicted return on any marketing investment. No project should start without a clear idea of ROI. Someone in charge of revenue marketing will work with the marketing team to build out project or investment scopes and then determine what outcomes will come from them.”
IBM, in their 2019 Marketing Trends, goes as far as creating another new and exciting role – The Director of Marketing Data:
“Data integration and marketing data architects will emerge as new and vital roles in marketing organizations.”
MarTech Consolidation Continues
In the first half of 2018, we saw two out of three attribution point tools (Bizible & BrightFunnel) getting acquired, mainly because attribution is a feature not a category, a point solution to a point problem (Marketing ROI). In 2019 B2B marketers will need to think more holistically about Revenue Marketing and how to pull together the data, analytics, and smart workflow automation to grow revenue, instead of piling up more non-integrated point tools.
In the second half of 2018, we also saw Marketo, the last independent (and last generation) Marketing Automation Platform, getting acquired by Adobe. In 2019 look for next-generation marketing automation platforms that can integrate data, build dashboards and automate workflows with no code/ low code to power marketing teams. In fact, Forrester predicts that in 2019 more than 70% of B2B marketers will choose CDPs over data lakes.
Look for MarTech consolidation to continue in 2019. Scott Brinker predicts that as much as https://chiefmartec.com/2018/09/3-thoughts-adobe-acquiring-marketo-4-75-billion-means-martech/.
Marketers Are Drowning in Data and Starving for Insights
As we move into 2019, the volume of marketing data generated from multiple channels and touchpoints is going to expand even further with new ways to deliver VR content, AI-driven channels, live video, micro-influencer communities and more. As B2B marketers, we need to have a deeper level of understanding of our end buyer’s behaviors, the channels they trust, and their location along the buyer’s’ journey. The closer we can match our communications activities and channels to these buyer behaviors and preferences the faster we can grow revenue.
In 2019, look for purpose-built, marketer-friendly, BI solutions, that can integrate data in 1-click, automate dashboards for different stakeholders (Ops, Demand, CMO, C-Suite) and turn data into actionable insights without the help of data analysts/ scientists. Forrester is already acknowledging this trend with a new and exciting Wave report, due early in 2019, titled ‘B2B Customer Analytics’ which they define as:
“The tools, solutions, and platforms that help insights professionals in B2B or B2B2C industries understand their customers (accounts or individual business buyers), predict customer behavior, and translate marketing and sales activity to business results.”
ABM Hangover
Like many other B2B marketers, we are going to wake up in 2019 with ABM hangover. Yes, ABM has been proven to drive business results and there is more knowledge (and budgets) on how to do it right, but unlike some of the perception driven by venture-backed ABM tech vendors, the ABM category is overhyped and most marketers are still just looking to layer ABM as another go-to-market tactic alongside inbound, outbound and demand generation to drive revenue.
“Among a proliferation of point solutions, what’s missing is the ability to collect and normalize data across sales and marketing programs and channels, and to resolve those data against a persistent view of each target account and buying role. Without this, marketing will never connect to measured interaction or revenue impact. Rather, it will exist primarily to pursue channel-based marketing objectives based on volume and miss the opportunity to stimulate target audience pipeline.” (https://www.accountbased.marketing/abm/abm-data/)
Trailblazing Revenue Marketing
At CaliberMind, we also had an exciting year. We continued to grow our customers, some of the best and brightest Revenue Marketers at NetApp, mParticle, Fidelis CyberSecurity, Aptrinsic by Gainsight, WorkWave, Everbridge, and many others. We also released our Revenue Analytics Suite, the most comprehensive B2B marketing analytics suite for Revenue Marketers, published the first annual State of Revenue Marketing Report with the awesome folks at Heinz Marketing, took our Hands On Revenue Marketing event series on the road to meet some of the best B2B marketers in the nation and published the UnMarTech Manifesto, our customer code of conduct of how we want to treat and be treated as customers.
In 2019 look for more exciting product announcements, strategic partnerships and a new online education opportunity for marketers to master their data, analytics and Revenue Marketing skills.
Thank you so much for sharing this journey with us. Happy Holidays!
