Green Hat’s annual B2B marketing outlook report has seen account based marketing displace lead generation as a top marketing challenge. But measuring brand awareness and health resolutely remains #1.
Given that the last 18-24 months has been driven by Pandemic thinking, it’s no surprise to see this shift in focus in the lower rankings – brand requires strategy as does ABM. And successful lead generation occurs when strategy, segmentation, targeting and journey mapping all work hand-in-hand. So in many ways, these top 3 challenges speak to the need for strategy.
Interestingly, the research indicates that 64% of marketers have no personas or journey maps, or have only developed one of these.
As we emerge from our own Pandemic inspired marketing fog, it’s perhaps worth reminding ourselves that the world has changed. There are new conditions, expectations and challenges. There are also opportunities that we are yet to fully grasp.
With this in mind, perhaps it is time go back to basics:
- Work from core strategy out – assess, measure and re-validate your brand, brand health and levels of awareness
- Define and validate audiences – develop and test personas, document your segmentation
- Develop and match customer journeys – map journeys by audience / persona
- Map your messaging to key points on your buyer’s journey.
And with Q4 just around the corner – you’d best get started now.