2018 was a year of trial and error around topics like GDPR, data integration, system automation, and marketing attribution models. The good news is that the hard b2b marketing work is starting to pay off. Based on our interactions with customers in the second half of 2018, B2B marketers and salespeople are poised to take a huge leap forward in 2019 in how they apply intent data to everyday goals like lead discovery, qualification, and opportunity creation.
Here are 5 reasons that justify this statement:
GDPR a blessing in disguise
No one is against a good clean-up to start the new year off right. GDPR was painful and, for many, it still is. Some vendors have reported to us architect database that they “lost” up to 70% of b2b marketing their database with GDPR. That’s a high range, but unfortunately, not that far from the reality for the majority of our customers.
But I wouldn’t call the GDPR impact a “loss
but rather an “addition by subtraction,” like mowing a lawn to make it grow back faster. Ultimately, this big database cleanup in 2018 will translate into increased email conversions and more effectiveness in 2019.
The effort required by the GDPR has put us in an advantageous b2b marketing position compared to our international collaborators who will also how do you know if you need to do smarketing? soon have to deal with new privacy regulations, as evidenced by the California Consumer Privacy Act and many others that will surely follow. Plus, consider that these “lost” contacts would not have converted well anyway.
Our systems are streamlined, as are our processes
2017 and 2018 were years of data harvesting and technology experimentation, marked by pilots, betas, and many failed tactics. We spent a lot of cell phone number time learning how b2b marketing to manage data, normalize records, score contacts, assign grades, automate workflows, and use prospect interests to improve message personalization. While our work is far from over, 2019 will definitely be a year of large-scale production.
There’s one lesson to keep in mind for the new year
Though: Better systems and workflows won’t eliminate the need for healthy marketing and sales practices. We’ll still need to pay close attention to our audience, our content, and our product offering. The difference in 2019 is that our systems and data flows will be the foundation for these practices rather than a drag on their development.
Sales teams are more comfortable in a world where data is accessible
When it comes to data-driven marketing and sales, most companies have made faster progress in marketing automation than in sales orchestration. 2019 will be the year sales catch up.
Making salespeople data-driven means changing long-standing habits. Because let’s face it, it’s a lot easier to call inbound prospects, which is why sales is always b2b marketing asking for more of them. But 2018 taught us that sales teams that break those old habits and adopt a new way of selling—using intent signals beyond direct engagement—are putting themselves in a much better position to uncover more opportunities.
we saw rapid growth in the use of Priority
Engine by our clients’ sales forces. More and more of our clients’ sales teams used the information we provide them on prospect interests, search direction, vendor considerations, and technology installed bases. Based on this data, the most engaged sales teams saw a 4x or greater increase in opportunity conversion rate. In 2019, we expect this trend to continue.
Coordinated multi-channel marketing is no longer a pipe dream
In 2018, there was a lot of talk about creating a “golden bedrock” – a single database of clean account and contact records to power multichannel digital outreach. We continue to make steady progress towards this goal – GDPR has helped – but we still have a lot of work to do to use this clean database for marketing and sales.
For example, while marketing automation platforms and DSPs have made great strides in the past year to help us optimize the reach and engagement of our campaigns, our messaging and advertising systems aren’t coordinated in this way and have no way to surface conflicting signals.