We surveyed leaders across our company for their predictions for the new year. From trust and transparency to B2B influencer marketing here are the top marketing observations for the year ahead:
1. Matt Yorke: Trust & Transparency Ripple Through the Marketing Ecosystem
Chief Revenue Officer, Foundry
Clients and agencies will gravitate further toward trusted sources of data and partners that they can trust to deliver. History will repeat itself, just as the programmatic market matured & clients demanded transparency in terms of fees and data sources, we are witnessing the same in the data and demand generation segment. Clients are actively seeking disclosure of data and lead sources. This is a net positive for the industry and reflects a wider trend towards trust and transparency throughout the marketing ecosystem.
2. Jason Tenenbown: ROI becomes a double-edged sword for marketing
Chief Strategy Officer, Foundry
Emphasis on ROI will foster good and bad behaviors inside the market. MQL, SQL and nurturing and pipeline conversion should be primary focus. But, missed revenue targets will cause erratic behavior and oversteering. Brand budgets will suffer. Demand marketers will be tempted to sacrifice quality and trust for cost. Stay the course. Put your brand reputation 1st, map your KPIs to pipeline, and build a foundational integrated program that allows for quarterly turning of the dials between brand and demand. If anything, we know it’s going to be another busy year, and you will probably have to do more with less.
3. Tom Koletas: Demand Gen buyers will demand transparency, and engagement metrics
SVP Media and Martech, Foundry
More agencies and marketers will require proof that their leads had engagement with their content and the lead gen programs and display ad programs will have to prove they work together to show results. Agencies will demand that ABM providers can add meaningful insights and not just the commodity of leads and impressions.
4. Matt Egan: Trusted connections with the right people will win the day every time.
Global Editorial Director, Foundry
Fundamentally marketing never changes. Tell your buyer the right story about the right product at the right time. Solve their problems and communicate with honesty and panache. Periodically marketers are blinded by the bright new thing, and chase volume through trickery. But in times of economic hardship and an increasing focus on privacy the marketer who focuses on real connections with real people will succeed. And the provider of quality, highly focused data and media at scale will win.
5. Brian Stoller: The Philadelphia Eagles will win Super Bowl LVII.
Chief Marketing Officer, Foundry
We will witness the rise of a new football dynasty in Philadelphia. And unfortunately watch as the celebrating fans burn the city to the ground afterward. Fly, Eagles, fly!
6. Kirsten Yee: Customer marketing will take center stage
Director of Marketing, Triblio, a Foundry company
As the macro-economic conditions trend downward, marketing emphasis will shift towards engaging and retaining existing customers. Organizations that prioritize customers as the heart of the business will weather the economic storm and have an advantage going into 2024.
7. Olivia Kenney: Marketing Breaks the Fourth Wall
Director of Marketing, Foundry
In 2023 audiences have officially seen the marketer behind the curtain. Whether B2B or B2C, they’re more aware than ever that marketing orchestrates most of the content they see and interact with online. Now, it’s up to marketers to treat them like they’re in on the plot.
They expect and deserve, to be engaged authentically, on a level playing field, with content that is additive to their day. This means no more broad-stroke targeting or generic messaging. Marketers need to hone in on creating experiences that are actionable, educational, or at the very least, fun. The technology not only exists to make tailored timing, messaging, and distribution channels possible, but it also results in higher-performing campaigns.
8. Christian Drake: Data Driven Strategies vs. Regulation & Restriction
Managing Director, Western Europe/META Commercial, Foundry
Slowly but surely more regulation and restriction will try and slow down paid media. New opportunities and strategies will continue to emerge in 2023 on ways of collecting data – through automation, platform integration, AI capabilities, email and log in environments. Data collection needs to offer a clearer value exchange to the audience and user, through better experience and relationship. Partners who can offer this, as well as be innovative in ways of capturing data – therefore future proofing customers’ data targeting strategies – will win.
9. Maggie Aherne: B2B influencer marketing and social media content to reach new audiences
Director of Revenue Operations, Foundry Intent & KickFire
B2B marketers will work to create more short-form content and involve influencers into their campaigns in 2023. The shifts made over the past 2 years in how people purchase items as consumers primarily online, will continue to translate over to how they make purchasing decisions in their professional roles. With people resources and budget resources being limited to teams, they will develop strategies that take a single piece of content or a single video and break it down into smaller pieces to be used to reach a wider social media audience. I think we will also see a rise in B2B marketing teams investing in influencer marketing so those pieces of content can reach followers that can be hard to reach without that connection and be used in short-form versions across platforms.
10. Tommy Heffernan: The curtain will be pulled back.
VP, Growth & Business Development, Americas, Foundry
The jig is up and arbitrage in the demand gen world will be exposed. The veil has been pulled on vendors with unethical practices and marketers are asking very pointed questions about the origin of their leads, the fidelity and compliance of data, and the legitimacy of methodology that very few can answer well. Those that can will rise to partner status in a season where budgets become tight.
11. Nicole Peck: The value of in-person interaction sees a resurgence
Vice President and GM – North American Events, Foundry
The pandemic proved that the serendipity found in the unexpected moments at an in-person event isn’t replicable elsewhere. When done correctly, event participation allows a brand to connect with its customers in an authentic way providing much-needed, emotionally forged relationships. As cutbacks and belt-tightening ensue, those relationships will be key in forming partnerships and closing business. Plus, events provide the opportunity to meet with accounts and prospects and build pipeline in one location.
12. Rachael Ferranti: Marketing (and martech) becomes about people again
VP, Corporate Marketing, Foundry
I’m a firm believer that all of what we do as marketers can be traced back to a form of empathy—trying to identify a need, relate with a pain point, find human meaning beneath numbers and data. While we may have lost sight of this as we became fatigued with metrics, in 2023 we’ll see marketers begin to reclaim this idea that what they see in their data and their dashboards has roots in human behavior and stimulation. New metrics will emerge to support existing ones and tell a truer story, and marketing technology and services will face greater pressure to deliver more nuanced and accurate insights that drive performance and justify marketing spend.
