MARKETING 201938 FEATURE
B2B in 2019:
It's a jungle
sometimes
The B2B scene is evolving faster than ever, and the onus is increasingly falling on
marketers to ensure businesses keep up.Josh Lohpicks apart the findings from
Green Hat’s annual ‘B2B Marketing Research Report’ for 2019.his year Green Hat
returns with its
diagnosis of the
Australian B2B
marketing landscape,
taking stock of how marketers are
doing with their objectives from
2018, examining their greatest
challenges in the year ahead and
observing shifting preferences
and advancements in technology,
social media and strategy. The ninth
edition, ‘B2B Marketing Research
Report 2019: The B2B Jungle’,
surveyed 478 participants – a record
response for the annual report.
Proving marketing impact
and ROI remained the industry’s
greatest challenge in 2018 (listed
as a challenge by 49 percent of
participants), followed by the struggle
to optimise customer experience (46
percent) and implement marketing
technology (43 percent). The top
objective for B2B in 2019 will be
generating and managing leads (68marketingmag.com.aupercent), closely followed by proving
marketing impact and ROI (67
percent). The hype around customer
experience (CX) also seems to have
died down, at least for B2B marketers;
this year CX optimisation slipped
from second to fourth priority in
terms of marketing objectives.
Every year the report also off ers
a contrast of how ‘best-in-class’
marketers are approaching the scene.
This year Green Hat is defi ning
these marketers as those who
reported success in customer
empathy, developing customer
journeys and buyer personas, sales
and marketing alignment, having
a strategic partnership and shared
focus on growth, and technology
adoption, eff ectively implementing
a marketing automation platform.
According to Green Hat, ‘best-in-
class’ marketers are more likely to
be ‘astute planners’ across all areas
(including content and digital),
eff ectively measure and communicateROI, and adopt an account-based
marketing approach.
In 2019 the gap between best-
practice marketers and the rest of
the bunch appears to be widening.
“The leaders plan more eff ectively
across all areas surveyed, with the
major gaps being in lead generation/
nurturing, marketing technology/
integration and content marketing,”
the report reads.
Andrew Haussegger, managing
director of Green Hat, says the smartest
marketers are seeing that a strategic
approach to the customer is paying
off , “Why is the gap widening? You
have to pull three things together.
You’ve got to have the right processes
in place (which are related to your
plan, your lead management processes
and your customer journey) and then
putting them in, you’re activating them
through the use of some processes
and fl ows supported by technology. If
you’re missing one of those areas, it’s
going to be diffi cult to succeed.”