• August 31, 2022
• ABM, Content, Demand Generation, Intent Data, Marketing

On the B2B Horizon: 2023 Priorities

Fiona O'Connor

Senior Content Marketing Manager

Share This Post

Fourth quarter is almost upon us and 2023 planning should be ramping up. To make sure you have the inputs you need across your team, TechTarget’s BrightTALK folks are hosting their flagship virtual event, Reach: Intent. Content. Demand., September 27-29. Over three days, experts from across the B2B landscape will share their experiences, insights and methodologies to help you better achieve revenue objectives in 2023. Below, you’ll find a preview of key priorities for 2023 around intent, content and demand that we’ll explore more deeply at Reach.

The growing significance of intent data

With all the excitement out there around intent data’s business impact potential, there’s still significant confusion about how to make the most of it. As is true of many still-evolving categories, there remain important nuances and complexities that go-to-market teams should understand as they assess investments. Here are a few ways teams will be using intent data in 2023:

• Organizations will have more refined strategies for adopting and leveraging intent. With many organizations now past the early “crawl” stages of intent data adoption, there’s clearer guidance for how to bring people, processes and technology together to capture value.
• To better address evolving buyer needs, B2B organizations will look to leverage insights more broadly. While we’ve known for a long time that buyers (and buying teams) are dynamic, the GTM organizations that will outperform in 2023 are likely to be those that can better incorporate this into their strategies and actions.
• Go-to-market organizations will apply intent data to more use cases and within more teams. We are now past the first generation of intent data adoption. It’s become quite commonplace for advertising and related marketing plays. And many teams are already experimenting aggressively within their sales organizations. In the coming year, expect intent insights to make their way into planning, not only to guide messaging and positioning, but even as an input to product initiatives as well.

Join us on September 27 to further explore the still-evolving intent data category.

The B2B content challenge

As they look to improve performance and de-risk their operations, B2B buyers have a seemingly insatiable hunger for information. At the same time, the ways they prefer to access and learn continue to change. Both the need for information and the changing preferences regarding channel and format further stress that organizations like yours need to keep up. Here are a few ways practitioners will be tackling these challenges in the coming year:

• Teams will rely more on data to address buyer’s journey issues directly. Teams will rely less on colleagues’ intuition and word-of-mouth. They’ll become more truly data- and market-driven in how they position, message and deliver into channels and touchpoints.
• Organizations will use process innovations to overcome barriers to execute at scale. Starting with more systematic approaches to creating content ideas, teams will further advance in how they are staffing, managing, activating and measuring their outputs.
• B2B leaders will look to activate more of the organization to maximize “owned” reach and impact. Thought leadership as a concept must be extended well beyond either the assets a marketing team can produce or the appearances made by corporate leaders. By fully enabling the sales team initially, and eventually a majority of employees, a company can supercharge its brand.

Join us on September 28 for guidance on content engine modifications for sustainable outcome improvements.

Rearchitecting demand gen for greater opportunity capture

Until very recently, most demand gen organizations were all about growing lead volumes as cheaply as possible. Partly due to the inevitable flattening out of performance, and informed by the rise of ABM thinking, significant changes in understanding are upon us. For 2023, we anticipate further momentum in these areas:

• Teams will have a deeper understanding of buyers’ journeys – of when and how to take action. Greater visibility into buyer research activity and GTM actions alike is raising awareness around what could be done better to identify and accelerate more opportunities. Yet while it’s one thing to know what’s actually going on, it’s quite another to get something done about it. Teams that do so effectively will move ahead of their peers.
• Marketing qualified leads (MQLs) will be informed by other indicators. Although we don’t expect marketing teams to abandon MQLs completely, organizations will be incorporating more buyer’s journey and buying team inputs into their qualification practices.
• ABM thinking will continue to inform demand generation practices. Few companies have had the resources to deliver dedicated one-to-few ABM, but most companies now acknowledge the potential benefits of more finely segmenting and prioritizing their audiences. Looking to exploit these concepts where they can, they will select and roll out new efforts using ABM principles as inspiration.

Join us on September 29 for expert insights and methodologies on further evolving your demand generation practices.

B2B content, B2B content creation, B2B marketing, b2b purchase intent data, b2b sales, demand gen, intent data