Published on the 10/11/2022 | Written by Heather Wright

State of Marketing report has marketers chasing new tales… 

Marketers are treading some new paths as they find new ways – and new technologies – to enable them to tell their stories and provide the seamless, personalised experiences both B2B and B2C customers now seek – but the old ways are still also holding strong.  

That’s according to Salesforce’s eighth State of Marketing report, which draws on a survey of 6,000 marketers worldwide, along with analysis of more than two trillion outbound marketing messages sent using the Salesforce platform. 

51 percent say they have a strategy for Web3 with virtual products and VR/AR key use cases.

The report found the top priorities for the year are heavily focused around technology as marketing teams prioritise getting the most out of their investments.  

Improving use of tools and technologies was cited as the number one priority for the year, followed by experimenting with new marketing strategies and tactics – including exploring Web3 – and modernising tools and technologies.  

That drive for better use of tools and technology is also reflected in the top challenges – ineffective use is the leader in that category.  

Indicative of those priorities and concerns, investment in technology comes in fourth place, at 14 percent of B2B marketing budget (behind advertising, content and account-based marketing), and third for B2C, at 16 percent of budget. 

As to what technologies they’re harnessing, CRM is unsurprisingly the leader at 90 percent, with account-based marketing (ABM) platforms at 89 percent.  

That focus on ABM for both B2B and B2C highlights the increasing importance of personalisation, once largely the domain of B2C, with companies harnessing ABM to help orchestrate targeted campaigns with their sales and service counterparts and provide the seamless personalised experience B2B customers say they want – but still aren’t getting.  

A May report, also from Salesforce, had 62 percent of business buyers saying they generally feel like they’re communicating with separate departments, rather than a single company, and Gartner has also noted that just 14 percent of organisations achieve a 360-degree view of their customer, despite it being a goal for the majority. 

Demand for data-driven, personalised and scalable customer experiences has seen 62 percent of marketers reaching into the AI realms to help capture and unify data.  

AI is also seeing investment as a means of helping organisations augment the customer journey through resolving customer identities and driving next-best offers in real-time, with 68 percent saying they have a ‘fully defined AI strategy’ in place, up from 60 percent last year.  

Automating customer interactions is the leading use case, cited by 90 percent of those surveyed, with automating data integration following closely at 89 percent.   

And while they’re talking up newer technologies, it’s actually an old technology that still reigns supreme when it comes to marketing, with email use increasing 15 percent and accounting for 80 percent of all outbound messaging via the Salesforce Marketing Cloud. 

Marketers are, however, testing the waters with newer offerings such as hyper-targeted ads via streaming services, with TV and over-the-top streaming platforms seeing the largest growth (27 percent) among channels used to reach prospects and customers.  

Digital content and video ­– both preproduced and livestreamed – were also on the up, as was interactive content, the use of which jumped 37 percent – the  biggest increase year on year.   

With customers looking for more ways to engage online, a wide variety of interactive and user-generated content is also being tapped into to meet demand.  

And those hot new technologies making up Web3, such as virtual products, VR/AR, crypto non-fungible tokens and that obscure, yet to be defined metaverse?  

Fifty-one percent say they have a strategy for Web3, and it is virtual products and VR/AR that are the key use cases cited.  

The report also highlights some of the harsh realities of the increasing focus on data privacy, calls for data transparency and a changing regulatory landscape, with a move away from third-party data planned by 68 percent. 

Seventy-five percent however say they are still using third-party data such as device identifiers and cookies from aggregators or data brokers, a growing challenge as marketers and companies aim to walk the personalisation versus privacy tightrope.