Even as the digital transformation continues to send tsunamis through marketing, one key performance indicator remains consistent – a balance between awareness and demand activities. In 2019, tech companies invested 48% of their budget in awareness and 52% in demand. IDC published a document called Redefining Awareness Marketing for the Digital Age that refreshes the definitions of awareness and demand. Quoting marketing guru, Seth Godin, IDC believes that marketing has two jobs – turning strangers into friends (this is the job of awareness activities) and turning friends into customers (this is the job of demand activities).
However, beneath the placid surface of this stable KPI, the nature of how marketers build demand is changing significantly. The evolution of customers’ preference to engagement via digital requires companies to boost registered nurse database marketing’s pipeline building role. The IDC survey finds that marketing is getting a larger allocation of the sales-and-marketing cost envelope. Business development reps (BDRs), the non-quota-carrying team that nurture leads and set appointments, are increasingly moving into marketing.
Key Finding: Investment Moves into Post-Purchase
CMOs continue to shift more investment into activities that influence post-purchase customer behavior. Traditional focus for B2B marketing had been the very earliest stages of customer interaction, after marketing ceded actions to sales and service/support. Now, marketing is taking a broader role in expansion, retention and loyalty activities.
IDC added the new staff category of Loyalty and Advocacy to the taxonomy in 2016. This year, the definition was expanded to include customer marketing, which includes customer experience roles within marketing. Watch this category! It has already ballooned to nearly 3% of total marketing staff – more that marketing technology. In the 2019 survey, nearly a quarter of program investment focused on the post-purchase activities for those companies that can track investments by customer journey stages.