Business-to-business marketers are facing increased pressure to do more with limited budgets, a trend that has many of them emphasizing digital technologies and strategies, Forrester Research Inc. says in a new report.

“Budgets and investments must stretch further to address new demands on the B2B marketing charter,” Forrester says in the report, “Conflicting B2B Marketing Priorities Threaten to Derail Program Progress,” which was authored by Caroline Robertson, Laura Ramos and Jacob Milender along with other Forrester analysts.

The report was based on a survey of more than 200 marketing executives last year about their marketing technology and strategy plans for 2017. It notes that marketers’ responsibilities are expanding beyond brand-building and marketing campaigns, to also cover such areas as lead generation, providing support to inside sales agents and channel partners like resellers and distributors, and interacting with customers in post-sale communications. As a result, Forrester says, B2B marketing departments are putting more emphasis on investing in technology that helps them better interact with customers and prospects before, during and after a sale.

It found the following percentages of marketers who said they planned to increase spending in the following areas:

• Marketing technology, including online software applications for marketing to corporate account customers and interacting with customers and prospects through social media, 50%;
• Website content and personalization, 38%;
• Data and analytics, including reports on what customers and prospects have viewed and purchased online, 36%;
• Sales and fulfillment technology, including applications for managing customer relations and fulfilling orders, 36%;
• Voice of the customer, including methods to compile customer feedback through online surveys and communications with customer service agents, 30%.

The category at the top of the list, marketing technology, includes account-based marketing software, which helps marketers interact with customers with offers of products and services related to their corporate accounts. A marketer at a manufacturer of industrial motors, for example, could use account-based marketing software to send a marketing message with a special offer for a new motor to a customer whose account shows its existing motor may be near the end of its expected lifecycle.

Marketing technology also includes predictive analytics software, which marketers can use to compile information on a customer’s past purchasing activity and other characteristics to predict how he will respond to particular marketing messages and the likelihood he’ll make a purchase. And it includes software designed to help marketers identify who is mentioning their brands on social media and engage with those customers and prospects to address any concerns before as well as after purchases to acquire and engage with loyal customers.

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