Digital

Intelligence
Briefing

B2B Digital Trends

2016-2017
in association with
Digital Intelligence
Briefing
B2B Digital Trends
2016-2017

in association with

Published September 2016 Econsultancy London Econsultancy New York

4th Floor, Wells Point 350 7th Avenue, Suite 307
79 Wells Street New York, NY 10001
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be London W1T 3QN United States
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, United Kingdom
electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording Telephone:
or any information storage and retrieval system, without Telephone: +1 212 971 0630
prior permission in writing from the publisher. +44 207 269 1450

http://econsultancy.com
Copyright Econsultancy.com Ltd 2016 help@econsultancy.com Econsultancy Singapore
20 Collyer Quay
#23-01
Singapore
049319

Telephone:
+65 6653 1911
Contents

1 Foreword by Adobe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2 Introduction: trends, opportunities and a peek at the future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

3 The many priorities within CX. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

4 Culture, politics and the push to improve CX. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

5 Data driveneverything. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

6 People are mobile, but brands are standing still . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

7 Marketing to changing realities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

8 Planning and execution in 2016. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

9 Appendix: respondent profiles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

 1 Foreword by Adobe
This is our fifth annual survey
focusing on B2B, and from the
very beginning, our mission has
been to identify material trends so
that organizations can be on the
front of waves of disruption.
The results of this years survey are
as rich as those in past reports. This
edition continues to provide guidance to
organizations that want to stay ahead of the
B2B curve.
Based on our research, there are two
overarching trends that are permeating the
B2B space. Content marketing continues
to be a huge component in B2B priorities,
and customer experience has taken on a
prominent role as well. To provide additional
context, we compare B2B responses to B2C.
Some priorities in digital marketing for
B2B organizations are known to lag the
B2C space, often by two years or so. For
example, B2B marketers rated content
optimization as one of their highest
priorities in 2016, which was top for B2C
in 2014. Having dealt with that already,
B2C marketers have turned their focus to
targeting and personalization, social media,
and mobile.
4 Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017
Since B2B marketing competencies follow
a similar trajectory as B2C, visionary B2B
marketers keep a close eye on B2C trends
and work to blend B2C competencies into
their marketing practices. B2B marketers
should thus begin thinking about how
targeting and personalization, social media,
and mobile will come into play in the B2B
space in the near future. Our research
revealed that content marketing continues
to be very important for B2B marketers,
especially the ability to create high-volume,
high-relevance, high-velocity content. Once
these content-velocity capabilities are
mastered, B2B marketers will be freed to
focus their efforts on other capabilities, such
as mobile optimization.
Another contrast between B2B and B2C
marketing is that B2C marketers focus on
personalization, while B2B marketers view
customer experience through the lens of
content marketing. And this makes sense,
as B2B marketers market to top decision-
makers at companies and business units,
while B2C marketers tend to market to
individuals and households, which are much
more individualized and generate much
more data than their B2B decision-making
counterparts.
In association with
In 2014, customer experience emerged
as one of B2B marketers top priorities. In
both 2015 and 2016, it has continued to
dominate that list. This is the mark of a real
trend, one for which we see a continued
level of interest and investment. Companies
are now consistently investing in customer
experience. They recognize the added
value a superior CX can bring, in the form
of increased loyalty and referrals, not to
mention reduced turnover.
When asked what respondents thought
was their single most exciting opportunity,
the top three answers were optimizing the
customer experience, data-driven marketing
that focuses on the individual and creating
compelling content for digital experiences.
In other words, businesses today are poised
to invest in the customer experience, driven
by data and models that are enabled through
modern technologies. CX is king.
Within CX, marketers gave top priority to
strategy and data. Marketers need a CX
strategy to guide the many decisions that
go into creating a top-notch CX. Having a
cohesive plan, long-term view and executive
support were most often ranked as top
priority for CX.
Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017
Likewise, data is crucial to the development
of compelling customer experiences and
should underpin any customer interaction,
from advertising through service. In this
years study, we see that the marketing
community understands this opportunity
and is investing in the resources needed to
overcome the obstacles to achieving it.
But those obstacles are becoming less of
an impediment. In the 2013 report, legacy
systems and processes were rated as the
biggest impediment to digital progress, far
more than any other barriers. In 2015, that
percentage is down to 35%, in line with other
challenges such as skills shortage, short-
term focus and data-integration issues.
As you prepare for 2017, we hope this
report gives you the fortitude to face the
complexities of B2B marketing and inspires
you to take bold action to get ahead of the
curve in the B2B marketing world.
Jill Steinhour
Director Industry
Strategy and Marketing
High-Tech and B2B
Adobe
In association with 5
 2 Introduction: trends,
opportunities and a peek
at the future
This years Digital Trends in B2B report
benefits from the input of more than
1,000 marketing, digital and ecommerce
professionals in B2B, giving us a rich pool
of data and confirming that the community
is very interested indeed in how their peers
view digital trends.
This is part of the fifth annual trends study
conducted by Econsultancy and Adobe, and
as in any research that spans a number of
years, there is more similarity than difference
in many of the findings.
In most comparisons between them, the
tendency is to point out the ways in which
B2B trails B2C marketing. Certainly well see
and examine those differences in this report,
but its also worth noting a key similarity.
While the resources of consumer marketing
arent necessarily available in B2B, the
driving forces for both are increasingly
aligned.
Throughout this report we see that the
quality of the customer experience is seen
as central to growth and that its intimately
tied to priorities in personalization and data
management.
Its clear from this research that B2B
marketers have learned from their
experience as marketers and consumers.
They recognize that product and process
isnt enough to protect market share in a
world where every year new sectors find
themselves in a state of digital upheaval.
The companies that are going to win the
battle for business loyalty will bring a
consumer marketers sensibility to B2B
making everything from discovery to pricing
to service easier, faster and more intuitive.
6 Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017
The drive to better understand and serve
customers is real and evident in the data.
Companies arent simply paying lip service
to being customer-centric; theyre investing
in technology, reworking strategy, making
mistakes and achieving success.
The challenge now is to build the B2B
marketing teams that can fulfill on this
promise. While in previous years issues like
legacy tech or data management were cited
as top barriers, today its talent.
Not surprisingly, then, training and up-skilling
existing staff is a top-three goal in the pursuit
of digital maturity.
A new area of inquiry in this years study
is in breaking down some of the important
elements of customer experience and
exploring their challenges and opportunities
through the eyes of our respondents.
One aspect of the digital shift that hasnt
enjoyed enough attention in the past is
the need and possibility for improved
collaboration. With marketers everywhere
pressed for time and resources, the need
to work together has never been greater,
across teams, departments and even
organizations.
As in 2015, the priorities that sit atop
marketers lists are tied together by their
focus on the individual. Personalization,
content optimization and marketing
automation are overlapping capabilities with
the customer at the center of their Venn
diagram.
To us, that suggests that B2B is headed in
exactly the right direction.
In association with
 The range of needs pressing
reflects the whole-cloth change in
the mission and requirements for
the modern marketing department

Company respondents sector comparison

Figure 1: Which three digital-related areas are the top priorities for your organization
in 2016?
Content optimization 37%
24%
Targeting and personalization 28%
38%
Marketing automation 26%
15%
Multichannel campaign management 23%
27%
Brand building / viral marketing 22%
20%
Social media engagement 21%
27%
Search engine marketing 20%
14%
Conversion rate optimization 18%
24%
Video content 16%
13%
Mobile optimization 12%
21%
Customer scoring and predictive marketing 12%
9%
Joining up online and offline data 11%
12%
Mobile app engagement 9%
13%
Social media analytics 7%
8%
Real-time marketing 4%
9%
Programmatic buying / optimization 4%
8%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%
B2B B2C

Econsultancy
 / Adobe Digital Intelligence Briefing B2B respondents: 1,034
B2C respondents: 1,145


The differences in response continue to
suggest that B2B marketing is poised
further back on the innovation wave than
their customer-focused peers. Content
optimization is top ranked in B2B, as it was
for B2C in 2014. Its no less important for
those companies today but is further along in
its maturity. Similarly, marketing automation
ranks higher for B2B, where email
campaigns support a long sales cycle.
Although some priorities rise to the top each
year, the reality for digital marketers is that
every item on this list is on theirs. Many of
the capabilities called out in Figure 1 are
complementary, and some are dependent
on one another. That so many needs are
pressing reflects the whole-cloth change in
the mission and requirements for the modern
marketing department.

Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017 In association with 7

 Any tensions in the results relate to that
complementary relationship between
different techniques. For example, social
media analytics ranks relatively low
compared to the engagement its designed
to measure. Similarly, while much of
personalization must be performed in real
time, that capability ranks near the bottom of
the list.
The point is not that marketers are
missing these implications, but that skills,
technologies and processes are less
independent every day. The data they
produce and require is the bonding agent.
In Figure 2 we again see an emphasis on
data-driven marketing to the individual in
B2C thats 12-24 months ahead of B2B,
where theres greater potential seen in
the possibilities for automation to increase
efficiency.
The customers experience is the top priority
for both categories of marketer. As well
see in the next section, however, customer
experience demands a dizzying array of
goals and capabilities. Many of the lower-
scoring opportunities on this list are required
to create or complement a great CX.

Figure 2: Which one area is the single most exciting opportunity for your organization /
clients in 2016?

20%
Optimizing the customer experience
24%
17%
Creating compelling content for digital experiences
16%
14%
Data-driven marketing that focuses on the individual
20%
14%
Using marketing automation to increase efficiency and yield
7%
8%
Cross-channel marketing
9%
7%
Internet of Things / connected devices
3%
6%
Video to increase brand engagement
5%
4%
Social marketing
7%
3%
Reaching and understanding mobile customers
5%
Location-based services that add place and time to the customer 2%
relationship 2%
5%
None of the above
2%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%

B2B B2C

Econsultancy
 / Adobe Digital Intelligence Briefing B2B respondents: 977
B2C respondents: 1,103

8 Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017 In association with

 Over the next five years, the
industry believes it will move
from innovation to mastery

B2B respondents
Figure 3: Most exciting opportunity 2016 vs five years time

14%
Data-driven marketing that focuses on the individual
19%

20%
Optimizing the customer experience
19%

17%
Creating compelling content for digital experiences
17%

14%
Using marketing automation to increase efficiency and yield
12%

7%
Internet of Things / connected devices
9%

8%
Cross-channel marketing
7%

6%
Video to increase brand engagement
5%

Location-based services that add place and time to the customer 2%

relationship 4%

4%
Social marketing
4%

3%
Reaching and understanding mobile customers
3%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%

Most exciting opportunity in 2016 Most exciting opportunity in five years' time

Econsultancy
 / Adobe Digital Intelligence Briefing Respondents: 477

How do B2B marketers view their discipline
in five years? With the exception of a modest
rise in the importance of connected devices
(Figure 3), the future they describe isnt
one of media or channel innovation, but of
a leap forward in taking advantage of the
opportunities they have today and are still
striving to perfect.
While B2B respondents today cite
automation and content as their most
exciting opportunities, the potential for data
is seen as the key to the future. Marketers
know that they arent making the most of
their technologies, because the pieces are
still being put in place. Over the next five
years, the industry believes it will move from
innovation to mastery.

Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017 In association with 9

 3 The many priorities
within CX

Customer experience cant exist as a single
discipline or set of goals: it depends on a
wide array of capabilities, tools, teams and
systems. Approaching CX requires that
organizations look at their businesses from a
variety of dimensions, to ensure that all parts
of the system work together for the good of
the customer. Figure 4 provides some insight
into how client-side marketers perceive the
various elements that make up the customer
experience.
In most respects B2B marketers are similar
to their peers in B2C, but one interesting
difference is in design, which gets a
significantly higher rating. In the customer
world, design is already baked into strategy
and execution. In B2B this is a new area of
focus and potentially a greater differentiator,
since so many business-oriented sites
are behind the times in usability, form and
function.

B2B respondents
Figure 4: Please rank the importance of these elements of the customer experience
from 1 to 5, where 5 is most important to success.
Strategy the cohesive plan, long-term view and executive
4% 3% 12% 31% 50%
support for the future of our customer

Data having access and control over customer and marketing

3% 7% 18% 34% 38%
application data

Skills combining digital marketing skills with analytics and

3% 4% 18% 43% 32%
technology

Culture a cross-team approach with the customer at the heart

3% 5% 19% 35% 38%
of all initiatives

Technology the tools to use data to create compelling,

3% 5% 20% 38% 34%
personalized, real-time experiences

Design having well-designed user journeys that facilitate clear

3% 4% 20% 32% 41%
communication and a seamless transaction

Collaboration having tools that allow for streamlined workflows

2% 6% 25% 36% 31%
between creative and content marketers / web teams

Process having the means and methods to ensure strategy is

2% 5% 23% 39% 31%
carried out efficiently

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
1 2 3 4 5

Econsultancy
 / Adobe Digital Intelligence Briefing Respondents: 404

10 Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017 In association with

Strategy
A manifestation of a customer-centric
culture is the long-term plan to enable and
incentivize all parts of the organization to
focus on the experience of the customer. In
many cases, the customer strategy is still
owned by marketing or cross-departmental
teams, which is to be expected, especially
given the size and complexity of some
organizations. However, it will be incumbent
upon organizations over time to reorganize
around stakeholder input and create
processes that enable every part of the
organization to play its part in driving a better
customer experience.1
Data
Datas value to the customer experience
puzzle is clear: it is the key to understanding
customer journeys, cross-platform
identification and personalized experiences.
However, just as important is having the
tools and personnel to understand and
manipulate datasets, with the purpose of
revealing something new. Collecting data is
extremely important, but is useless without
the analysts to make sense of it.
Skills
From new technologies and capabilities, to
re-understanding business fundamentals in
a new digital world, skills continue to be a
vital piece of the puzzle many are missing. A
skills shortage is the biggest barrier to digital
programs2, as older employees struggle to
get to grips with waves of new technology.
And although digital natives are naturally
savvy with technology, there is typically an
inability to apply this with sound commercial
understanding.
1
https://econsultancy.com/reports/understanding-the-
customer-journey/
2
https://econsultancy.com/reports/effective-leadership-in-
the-digital-age/
3
https://econsultancy.com/reports/quarterly-digital-
intelligence-briefing-the-cx-challenge/
4
https://econsultancy.com/blog/67308-15-crucial-web-
design-trends-for-2016-beyond/
Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017
Culture
The transformational nature of the internet
has brought the disjointed nature of many
organizations to the fore. The process of
attempting to unify existing practices with
new digital realities has revealed the differing
goals, values and attitudes that exist in
any organization. Deviating from this to
a culture that is uniformly concerned with
the customer is difficult. Regardless, it is a
crucial foundational element to achieving a
personalized customer experience that must
be pinned down.
Technology
The ability to disentangle customers from
the aggregate and address each one as an
individual with incredible speed at minimal, if
any, marginal cost is an extremely powerful
commercial capability that starts with
technology. Implementing such technology
will take considerable, but necessary, upfront
investment into an infrastructure that will
facilitate addressing the customer with the
right experience at the right time.
Design
From new customer devices and a growing
number of touchpoints, to mapping out a
non-linear customer experience, design
goes far beyond an optimized new website.
Bearing in mind that design budgets are
likely to remain the same3, converging
design-pattern standards4 will allow
designers to spend more time identifying
and implementing around a customers
contexts, wants and needs when building or
changing products. Such insights will require
collaboration to unify what customers truly
care about.
In association with 11
 Collaboration Respondents in an Econsultancy study
on change management cited moving
In a tie with process for the lowest ranking beyond siloed thinking as the top factor in
(31%), collaboration is perhaps the most successful transformation efforts; any goal,
underestimated element. While it may like an improved customer experience,
be difficult to measure its overall impact, that transcends a single team requires a
collaboration is fundamental to having a collaborative response.5
cohesive customer experience. Without
teams working together, the experience Growth may be born of strategy, but it
becomes disjointed as the customer flows dies in the trenches when collaboration is
through the different parts of the journey, slow or inefficient. Companies that place
invariably interacting with different teams an emphasis on design should consider
with potentially no idea of previous activity. collaboration a parallel priority.

Figure 5: Where does your organization place the highest emphasis in terms of
improving the customer experience?

32%
Making our experience as valuable as possible
19%

25%
Making our experience as personalized and relevant as possible
28%

18%
Making our experience as easy to understand as possible
19%

9%
Making our experience as safe and reliable as possible
10%

Making our experience as consistent as possible across 6%

channels 7%

4%
Making our experience as fast as possible
5%

2%
Making our experience as mobile-friendly as possible
4%

1%
Making our experience as fun/fulfilling as possible
6%

3%
None of the above
2%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%

 B2B B2C B2B respondents: 678
B2C respondents: 835
Econsultancy / Adobe Digital Intelligence Briefing


5
Econsultancy, Global 1000 Marketing Innovation Study, 2014

12 Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017 In association with

One area where its easy to see the
importance of collaboration is in design,
which is ranked as the second most
important factor in CX success (Figure
4). Design processes have grown more
complex along with the digital landscape,
involving more minds on more teams at
more organizations with each new channel,
platform and device. Customers are only
becoming more demanding of good design,
but its increasingly difficult to deliver it
across a panoply of media.
Brands recognize that design is integral to
growth and retention, but they havent all
connected the dots to understand that design
is dependent on collaboration. Content
today is rarely the product of one team, let
alone one person. Strategists, writers and
graphic designers must work with coders,
UX experts and platform specialists even to
create relatively simple interactive content
or applications. A more likely scenario also
involves digital marketers and teams from
outside partners.
If making the customer experience
personalized is truly applied throughout
the business, organizations would create
products and services geared towards
leveraging an opportunity that has never
been present at this scale: to serve every
customer at no marginal or transactional
cost.6 This transformative opportunity to
serve any given customer, regardless of their
profile, is at the heart of some of the most
disruptive organizations. However, in most
instances, organizations have an extensive
journey in front of them as they aim to
realize the potential behind any of these
approaches.
Of course, it is important that organizations
be competent in delivering fundamental
individual elements of the customer
experience. However, if organizations are
truly going to make considerable strides
in improving CX in 2016, it will be critically
important to prioritize the cross-functional
capabilities that allow businesses to engage
with customers in the most valuable way.

The speed and immediacy of the internet

have made ease of use fundamental when
improving the customer experience, at
least in customer markets. Many business-
side experiences are still hampered by
outdated supporting systems for inventory
management, product content management
and dissociated sources of data.

Their highest emphasis is still reserved for

value, but B2B marketers are turning their
attention to personalization and ease of
experience.

A poor experience when on-boarding is a

key reason for churn. A focus on ease goes
beyond the product: marketing campaigns,
payment forms, and anywhere else the
customer interacts with the brand, present
an opportunity to make life easier for them.

6
https://stratechery.com/2015/beyond-disruption/

Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017 In association with 13

 4 Culture, politics and the
push to improve CX

The last few years have seen such rapid
innovation that many B2B organizations find
themselves at a point where the possibilities
have outstripped their ability to take
advantage of them. For them, the issues
in 2016 are not technology but people and
process.
True technical innovation demands
parallel infrastructure changes to support
implementation and utilization, and this can
be a challenge to corporate culture.
In this years study, we asked respondents
about their infrastructure with respect to
data collection, a process essential to bring
about customer experience improvements.
In neither B2B nor B2C is there a broad
strength; only 40% agree that they have
a strong infrastructure and only 7% do so
strongly (Figure 6).

Figure 6: Do you agree or disagree with the following statements?

100%
12% 11% 8% 8%

90% 24% 22%

23% 25%
80%

70%
30%
29%
30% 27%
60%

50%

40%
32% 33%
31%
29%
30%

20%

10%

6% 6% 7% 7%
0%
B2B B2C B2B B2C
We have the analysts we need to make sense of our data We have a good infrastructure in place to collect the data we
need
 B2B respondents: 844
Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree
B2C respondents: 981
Econsultancy / Adobe Digital Intelligence Briefing


Likewise, Figure 6 shows that data skills
remain elusive, with similar percentages
saying that they have the analysts necessary
to make sense of their data. Filling these
roles can be met with budgetary and
organizational challenges, and a talent gap
has existed in the industry for the last couple
of years in the availability of analysts able
to utilize the quantities of data available and
draw actionable insights from it.

14 Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017 In association with

A recent Econsultancy report on digital
leadership7 highlighted the importance of
Capitalizing on
organizational culture in enabling, supporting digital opportunities:
and catalyzing change. The interview-
based report found that many saw a clear
the importance of culture
difference between companies with a digital
culture and those without in their ability to
Survey respondents
adapt, innovate and create.

For many, a change in culture would enable

the key priority for marketers in 2016 We need to create a culture where
customer experience to be improved. we can fail fast. We need to always
Many industry commentators would in fact be thinking through a digital lens.
claim that culture comes above all other
elements in truly successful companies,
because without the support of the various
stakeholders, strategy is unlikely to impact
day-to-day operations. The organization needs
to adopt a customer-
Customer experience is impacted by every focused culture. The
channel and interaction, and therefore biggest challenge is
almost every department within a company, getting other members
whether digital or not. A good CX requires of the organization on
the linking of technology, data and teams board with what we are
so that experiences are consistent and doing.
seamless, and it requires a culture and
organization that reflects the fifth stage in
Econsultancys digital maturity model8; a fully
integrated structure. In the Econsultancy /
Adobe CX Challenge report9, the difficulty
in achieving this structure is illustrated. Our internal culture
Even among those companies who rated is outdated. We live in
themselves as advanced in terms of a modern, dynamic,
customer experience maturity, only 33% said digital world, but our
that responsibility for CX spanned the entire corporate culture lacks
organization. room for innovation and
360-degree feedback
Cultural change is arguably the hardest between executive
to engineer when it comes to digital team, management
transformation, and B2B companies can be and other staff.
particularly susceptible to inertia. Even with
a limitless budget, without the full buy-in and
support of all management employees, it
can be difficult to elicit meaningful change,
with common objectives and incentives. This
research shows that marketers are focusing
on this goal despite its difficulty. Many of Were a legacy business that is
the qualitative responses to a question on struggling with shifting our culture to
capitalizing on digital opportunities were a digital culture; this has the follow-
around creating a more complementary on impact of making technology
culture. and capability a challenge to build
a case for. Were very much a
7
https://econsultancy.com/reports/effective-leadership-in-
traditional trading-led organization
the-digital-age and as such still see digital as
8
https://econsultancy.com/reports/digital-marketing- secondary or a service rather than
organisational-structures-and-resourcing-best-practice- a core part of the business.
guide
9
https://econsultancy.com/reports/quarterly-digital-
intelligence-briefing-the-cx-challenge/

Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017 In association with 15

 5 Data driveneverything

Data-driven marketing is increasingly seen
as the heart of the new customer-centrism.
To improve customer experience, customer
data is needed. To improve user experience,
data is needed. To personalize and optimize,
data is needed. Companies that can
effectively capitalize on the data they collect
will be able to tailor communications based
on customer habits and contextual factors.
In Figure 3, we saw that nearly a fifth (19%)
of marketers believe that in five years time
the single most exciting opportunity will be
data-driven marketing that focuses on the
individual. This shows awareness of the
vital nature of data in improving customer
experience and indicates that marketers are
aware that this importance will not dwindle.
In fact, given that data and customer
experience are indivisible, the two may be
considered a single, overarching priority.
When asked to rank five strategic marketing
priorities, data-driven marketing comes out
on top by a significant margin. In fact, half
of all respondents ranked this as their first
choice. A case could easily be made for
saying it is integral to the next four items in
Figure 7. Each of these activities is driven
by data and is improved through use of the
data a company has on its processes and
customers.

B2B respondents
Figure 7: Please rank these five areas in order of priority for your organization in 2016.

Data-driven marketing 50% 27% 13% 90%

Cross-channel marketing 21% 28% 26% 75%

Customer experience 18% 25% 29% 72%

Mobile 6% 13% 20% 39%

Programmatic buying / optimization 4% 6% 11% 21%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
First choice Second choice Third choice

Econsultancy
 / Adobe Digital Intelligence Briefing Respondents: 894

16 Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017 In association with

The importance of data may be well-
known, but there are significant obstacles
to its collection, understanding and use.
Companies report time and again that there
are barriers due to lack of training, resources
and involvement or understanding from
those higher up in the business.
Respondents were also asked to rank the
difficulty levels in mastering certain elements
of customer experience, and it is evident
from the top three most difficult factors
shown in Figure 8 that there are still multiple
challenges when it comes to data.

Figure 8: Please rank the difficulty in mastering the following elements of customer
experience from 1 to 5, where 5 is most difficult.

100%
12% 13% 16% 14% 12% 11%

90%
30% 32% 31%
28% 32%
80% 33%

70%

60%
34% 37% 36%
37%
50% 32%
29%

40%

30%

20% 18%
20% 17% 18% 18%
15%
10%

6% 5% 4% 4% 4%
0% 2%
B2B B2C B2B B2C B2B B2C
Technology the tools to use data to Data having access and control over Process having the means and methods
create compelling, personalized, real-time customer and marketing application data to ensure strategy is carried out efficiently
experiences
1 2 3 4 5

Econsultancy
 / Adobe Digital Intelligence Briefing B2B respondents: 380
B2C respondents: 456

10
https://econsultancy.com/reports/data-driven-marketing-trends-briefing-digital-cream-london-2015/

Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017 In association with 17

 With so many tools and programs newly
available to B2B marketers, the choice and
functions can be overwhelming, and the
selection of the correct tools problematic
Accessing, defining and using customer data
is one of the most difficult challenges faced
by the modern marketing organization.
In a data-driven marketing trends
briefing10, based on the issues discussed
by marketers at Econsultancys Digital
Cream event, it was emphasized that
before embarking on a fully-fledged, data-
focused program, marketers need to have
an in-depth understanding of their business
requirements. The report goes on to say
that the prospect of having so much data
to work with is exciting, but it can quickly
become overwhelming. The risk here is
losing sight of the bigger picture and not
being clear enough about the exact business
case for each activity.
Of almost equal difficulty is technology, with
42% of respondents ranking it as highly
or most difficult. As mentioned earlier,
this refers to the tools that interpret and
manipulate data in order to power data-
driven marketing activities. Not only does
the technology need to be fit-for-purpose,
but there also needs to be the skillset to
use the tools correctly. With so many tools
and programs newly available to B2B
marketers, the choice and functions can
be overwhelming, and the selection of the
correct tools problematic.
There are also many companies of all
sizes struggling with legacy systems. As a
short-term solution, bolt-ons can be added,
but legacy systems are often unfit for the
purpose and can lead to problems when
trying to push forward with a new data-driven
strategy.
This leads directly to the third element shown
in Figure 8: process. Behind any tools,
10
https://econsultancy.com/reports/data-driven-marketing-trends-briefing-digital-cream-london-2015/
18 Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017
technology and data must be processes
to analyze, interpret and use it. With many
citing this as one of the most difficult
elements of customer experience, it is clear
that while technology can assist companies
in their process challenges, its not a solution
in and of itself.
Process is a reflection of culture over time.
Long-standing companies of any size
are inevitably slowed by processes that
were designed for a set of circumstances
that have since changed. Any important
innovation should be accompanied by a
review of associated processes, but thats
rarely the case. Yet, when transformation
efforts are examined, we find that many
failures owe to the small but persistent ways
in which processes dont conform to new
conditions.
In marketing, for example, many creative
departments still have slow, largely
manual processes for handling creative
assets, reviews and authorizations. The
time taken up by these activities erodes
the opportunity for rapidly deploying or
optimizing campaigns, undermining the
responsiveness that should be a strength of
digital communications.
In association with
 6
B2B respondents
People are mobile, but
brands are standing still

Figure 9: How important will the following be for your digital marketing over the next
few years?

Optimizing the customer journey across multiple touchpoints 67% 30% 3%

Ensuring consistency of message across channels 66% 31% 3%

Training teams in new techniques, channels and disciplines 54% 40% 6%

Using online data to optimize the offline experience 40% 47% 13%

Understanding how mobile users research / buy products 31% 44% 25%

Using offline data to optimize the online experience 31% 53% 16%

Understanding when and where customers use different devices 29% 46% 25%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Very important Quite important Not important

Econsultancy
 / Adobe Digital Intelligence Briefing Respondents: 753

Customers dont differentiate between
channels, inbound and outbound; they think
in terms of a general brand experience. So
it makes sense that brands should attempt
to be more integrated across all touchpoints.
For a growing share of business buyers, that
experience includes mobile and for some, is
defined by it.
B2B marketers put understanding their
mobile users in the second rank of priorities,
with less than one-third saying its very
important. The question is whether this is
justified by the market.
Any company can be myopic, losing context
in favor of an easy-to-understand specific
goal. This is a dangerous habit, especially in
times of upheaval when small changes are in
fact signs of a larger shift. It may be that this
describes how B2B companies view mobile,
as a tactical problem to solve rather than
a seismic event. But based on the growth
of mobile traffic and influence, that view
may underemphasize the need for greater
capability.

Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017 In association with 19

 Figure 10: Proportion of respondents ranking mobile as a top-three area of priority for
their organization / clients in 2016

100%
12% 13% 16% 14% 12% 11%

90%
30% 32% 31%
28% 32%
80% 33%

70%

60%
34% 37% 36%
37%
50% 32%
29%

40%

30%

20% 18%
20% 17% 18% 18%
15%
10%

6% 5% 4% 4% 4%
0% 2%
B2B B2C B2B B2C B2B B2C
Technology the tools to use data to Data having access and control over Process having the means and methods
create compelling, personalized, real-time customer and marketing application data to ensure strategy is carried out efficiently
experiences
1 2 3 4 5

Econsultancy
 / Adobe Digital Intelligence Briefing B2B respondents: 894
B2C respondents: 1,007

Respondents were asked to rank five
key digital marketing areas in order of
importance for their organization in 2016
(Figure 7). Mobile was one of these
options. Figure 10 shows the breakdown for
organizations and how they responded with
regard to mobile.
For 61% of B2B respondents, mobile doesnt
crack the top three priorities for 2016. This
raises two red flags.
First, this suggests that mobile is forgotten
as a key part of the experience in a time
when optimizing touchpoints across the
customer journey is the top answer to the
question of whats most important in digital
marketing over the next few years.
Second, it begs the question of what B2B
marketers know (or dont) about their mobile
visitors. For many, most or all conversions
are still happening on the desktop, but the
sale is just one stage of a complex path from
awareness to retention. The role of mobile
in purchasing decisions is largely unknown,
and may well skew toward senior decision-
makers who arent a deep part of the sales
process but represent the essential last mile
of that sales journey. If they cant access
the information they need, or get a negative
impression, it can derail an otherwise
successful sale.

20 Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017 In association with

 7 Marketing to
changing realities

Transformation isnt easy. Corporations Looking at how survey respondents prioritize

today are grappling with multiple issues in
how to become genuinely data-driven and
customer-centric, and theyre doing so in a
context of constant change. Their customers
habits, beliefs and personal technologies are
evolving at a faster pace than ever before,
and marketers have to not only keep pace,
but anticipate whats next.
their efforts for the medium-term future, it
appears that the first order of business is to
bring together technology, process and talent
in ways that create a seamless, consistent
and valuable experience for their audiences.

B2B respondents
Figure 11: Proportion of respondents saying these will be very important for their
digital marketing over the next few years

Optimizing the customer journey across multiple touchpoints

67%

69%
Ensuring consistency of message across channels
66%

58%
Training teams in new techniques, channels and disciplines
54%

44%
Using online data to optimize the offline experience
40%

39%
Understanding how mobile users research / buy products
31%

36%
Using offline data to optimize the online experience
31%

37%
Understanding when and where customers use different devices
29%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

2015 2016

Econsultancy / Adobe Digital Intelligence Briefing Respondents 2016: 753

Respondents 2015: 624
Note: Optimizing the customer journey across multiple touchpoints is a new option for this years survey.

Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017 In association with 21

 With customer experience optimization
emerging as the single most exciting
opportunity for 2016 (Figure 2), it comes
as no surprise that nearly seven in ten
organizations consider optimizing the
customer journey across multiple touchpoints
to be very important in the context of their
digital marketing efforts (Figure 12). Ensuring
consistency of message is very much a part
of that and a prerequisite of good CX.
As Figure 4 shows, skills are considered
to be one of the most important elements
of customer experience success (slightly
behind strategy and nearly as important as
design), so it is encouraging to see that well
over half (54%) of marketers understand the
need for their teams to be trained in new
techniques, channels and disciplines.
The shortage of skills has been a recurring
issue over the last few years and shows no
signs of abating. In How Google Works11,
Eric Schmidt described the type of people
that he believes have the greatest potential
to impact their organizations. He called them
smart creatives customer- or product-
focused staff who have a unique combination
of skills drawn from three main areas:
technical knowledge, business expertise
and creativity. He argues that it is the
combination of these skills that can shape
the future of entire companies: when you
put todays technology tools in their hands
and give them lots of freedom, they can do
amazing things, amazingly fast.
11
http://www.amazon.com/How-Google-Works-Eric-Schmidt/dp/1455582344
12
http://landing.adobe.com/en/na/products/creative-cloud/185397-design-advantage-multi.html
22 Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017
This seems straightforward enough, but
most businesses are run to minimize
risk, not maximize agility and freedom.
Additionally, its in focusing too much on
one of these three skill areas (largely due
to internal politics), to the detriment of the
other two, where organizations often fail. The
truth is that marketing is in a state of flux:
the increasingly dynamic nature of customer
behavior and competitive pressures has
started to tilt the marketing scales more
towards technology rather than creativity.
According to a Forrester / Adobe study12
on how creativity impacts business results,
companies fostering creativity enjoy greater
market share by a factor of 1.5 when
compared to their less creative counterparts,
and those companies that embrace creativity
are more likely to achieve revenue growth.
While creativity should arguably be an
intrinsic characteristic of organizations of
all sizes, the reality is quite different and
paints a stark picture of the extent to which
creativity is cultivated in the business world.
Albert Einstein once said that creativity is
intelligence having fun. To some extent,
many marketers have started to neglect
that fun element and have lost the ability
to create and test hypotheses for better
business outcomes.
We define creativity as the ability to make
connections between diverse ideas,
concepts and data with the aim to originate
new ideas and challenge existing concepts
and models. Some might argue that in a lot
of organizations, particularly larger ones, a
data deluge and an ingrained reluctance to
experiment stifle creativity. A common issue
In association with
indeed, but problems often run deeper than
that: agile creation of ideas is only possible if
theres a joined-up approach to strategy and
creative.
The importance of developing the practices
and processes required to nurture untapped
creative potential and putting creativity
back on the business agenda is widely
recognized: as seen in Figure 4, having tools
that allow for streamlined workflows between
creative and content marketers or web
teams was ranked as being important to CX
success by two-thirds (67%) of responding
organizations. However, two in five (39%)
rated this as a 4 or 5 on the difficulty scale.
majority of those surveyed recognize the
importance of creative workflows (93%) and
internal collaboration (90%), ongoing testing
and experimentation are perceived to be
very important by less than a third (26% and
22% respectively).
According to Jarek Ziebinski of Leo Burnett
Asia Pacific, we live in the era of data-driven
creativity: pulling meaningful, actionable
insights from your data and using those
to drive the creative process and in turn
elevate business results might become one
of the most efficient approaches to modern
marketing.

When exploring the perceived importance of

various internal factors in delivering a great
customer experience (Figure 13), none of
them emerged as being a stand-out factor.
While its encouraging to see that the vast

B2B respondents
Figure 12: How important do you think the following internal factors will be in
delivering a great customer experience over the coming year?

Optimizing internal collaboration between creative and

49% 41% 10%
marketing teams

Optimizing creative workflows to facilitate the rapid creation and

49% 44% 7%
deployment of content across multiple platforms

Building more 'native' online content such as interactive

44% 46% 10%
applications, short-form video, etc.

Ongoing and widespread testing of creative variations 26% 59% 15%

Experimentation with channel-specific creative formats (e.g.

22% 47% 31%
Snapchat video, Twitter cards, etc.)

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Very important Quite important Not important

Econsultancy / Adobe Digital Intelligence Briefing Respondents: 713

Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017 In association with 23

 Capitalizing on digital
opportunities: the
importance of creativity
and design
Survey respondents

As content
remains the best
The digital experience needs way to drive a
to become more real, tangible brand forward,
and agile. This is exciting creative brilliance
because of what technology has is key.
on offer and its up to creatives
to find ways to deliver.

Organizations need to
have a structured plan for
The world is at your both design and marketing
fingertips when you that will collect the
appropriate data and create
introduce creativity
a unique user experience
into the picture.
for the end user.

Organizations
Designing for experience need to
is a big shift from designing recruit and
looks and interfaces. The train creative
best experience sometimes
technologists
requires absence of an
interface. This is a big to capitalize
change in thinking. on the digital
opportunity.

24 Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017 In association with

 8 Planning and execution
in 2016

Is the integration of digital at a standstill? At How do these contrasting insights coexist?

first glance, Figure 14 suggests that theres
been little movement in the level of digital
integration across organizations marketing
activities. Comparing the 2015 and 2016
surveys, the responses are essentially
identical.
However, now more than ever, businesses
need to catch up with the reality of how
customers are engaging with brands, and
over the last 12 months, marketers have
been newly dedicated to meeting the rising
demands of connected customers.
Econsultancys Effective Leadership in the
Digital Age Best Practice Guide13 revealed
a key shift in the approach to integrating
digital into business as usual. While many
organizations have traditionally centralized
digital capability to some degree in digital
centers of excellence, there is now a
growing expectation that digital should be
the responsibility of a far wider grouping of
roles, disciplines and functions.

B2B respondents
Figure 13: To what extent does digital permeate your organizations marketing
activities?
45%

40% 42% 42%

35%

30%

25%

20% 22%

19% 19%
18%
15%

13%
10% 12%

9%
5%
4%
0%
Digital marketing is very Digital permeates most Digital permeates all our We are a digital-first Don't know
much separate of our marketing marketing programmes organization
programmes
2015 2016
Respondents 2016: 848
Econsultancy / Adobe Digital Intelligence Briefing
Respondents 2015: 641

13
https://econsultancy.com/reports/effective-leadership-in-the-digital-age/

Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017 In association with 25

 But there remain challenges on the path
to full integration, with 18% of respondents
agreeing that digital marketing is very
much separate and the share describing
themselves as digital-first actually dropping
significantly.
A continuing trend is that marketers still
struggle to measure ROI. Digital platforms
have facilitated practitioners efforts to collect
data about customer behaviors and overall
campaign performance.
However, online marketing is still largely
dominated by proxy metrics such as clicks
or ad impressions. This makes it challenging
for marketing departments to show what
these measures mean for their organization
and connect the dots. Further confounding
marketers self-evaluation is that as they
push forward in their analytic capability, so
too do their goals evolve, making confidence
in measurement something of a moving
target.
A significant proportion of marketers are still
in the process of working out the correct
metrics to measure ROI. Monitoring the
cost per engagement of a campaign and
integrating data-driven insights on user
journeys can provide marketers with more
definable, actionable insights. However,
greater transparency is still required in the
industry for there to be progress around the
standardization of measurement in 2016.
According to Figure 15, less than a quarter
of companies are confident in their ability to
measure ROI for offline programs. According
to Econsultancys Measurement and
Analytics Report , companies are not just
growing their in-house analytics capabilities,
but also merging digital and non-digital
teams into single teams to combine both
online and offline metrics. This is crucial for
B2B firms looking to engage and connect
with customers in todays omnichannel world.

B2B respondents
Figure 14: On a scale of 1-5, where 1 is Not at all confident and 5 is Extremely
confident, how confident are you in your organizations ability to measure the
following?

Return on offline ad spend 23% 32% 31% 10% 4%

Return on investment for mobile marketing programmes 16% 25% 38% 16% 5%

Return on investment for offline marketing programmes 15% 32% 32% 17% 4%

Return on mobile ad spend 15% 29% 33% 17% 6%

Return on digital ad spend 9% 20% 35% 25% 11%

Return on investment for digital marketing programmes 9% 17% 36% 31% 7%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
1 2 3 4 5

Econsultancy
 / Adobe Digital Intelligence Briefing Respondents 2016: 672

Respondents 2015: 586

14
https://econsultancy.com/reports/measurement-and-analytics-report

26 Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017 In association with

B2B respondents
Figure 15: Proportion of respondents agreeing (strongly or somewhat) with these
statements

87%
Our marketing activity will be more measurable in 2016
77%

73%
We are going to be experimenting heavily with digital in 2016
59%

44%
Our digital plans for 2016 mainly involve 'more of the same'
40%

We have a good infrastructure in place to collect the data we 40%

need
39%

37%
We have the analysts we need to make sense of our data
35%

30%
Omnichannel personalization will become a reality in 2016
32%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
2015 2016

Econsultancy
 / Adobe Digital Intelligence Briefing Respondents 2016: 846

Respondents 2015: 683

Digital offers marketers the opportunity of
actionable data, and understandably the
majority strongly or somewhat agree with
the statement our marketing will be more
measurable this year. The proportion of
companies agreeing with this statement
declined by ten percentage points this
year (Figure 16), reflecting the continuing
challenges companies have measuring ROI,
as discussed earlier in the section.
This has also had an impact on appetite
to invest, with a fourteen percentage point
reduction in the number of marketers
agreeing that they are planning to
experiment heavily with digital this year.
Thats not a negative for some: B2B
marketers grappling with the challenge
of integrating digital across the wider
organization are better served focusing on
longer-term, strategic goals over the latest
tech gadget du jour.

Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017 In association with 27

 9 Appendix:
respondent profiles

This Quarterly Digital Intelligence Briefing The following charts provide further details
is based on an online survey of 1,141 on the profile of survey respondents.
B2B marketing, digital and ecommerce
professionals, carried out in December 2015.

Figure 16: In which region are you based?

70%

60%
59%

50%

40%

30%

26%

20%

10%

7%
5% 1% 1% 1%
0%
Europe North America Asia Australia / New Middle East Africa Other
Zealand

Econsultancy / Adobe Digital Intelligence Briefing Respondents: 1,258

28 Quarterly Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017 In association with
Figure 17: In which of the following countries are you based?

Manager 44%

Junior executive / associate 18%

Director / senior director 13%

C-level / general manager 5%

VP / SVP / EVP 5%

Board level 3%

Other 12%

0% 20% 40% 60%

Econsultancy / Adobe Digital Intelligence Briefing Respondents: 1,136

Figure 18: In which of the following countries are you based?

30%

25% 26%

20%
20%

15%
15%

13% 13% 13%

10%

5%

0%
<$1.5 million $1.5 $15 million $15 $75 million $75 $225 million $225 million $1.5 More than $1.5
billion billion

Econsultancy / Adobe Digital Intelligence Briefing Respondents: 670

Quarterly Digital Intelligence Briefing: B2B Digital Trends 2016-2017 In association with 29
Digital
Intelligence
Briefing
B2B Digital Trends
2016-2017

in association with

Published September 2016 Econsultancy London Econsultancy New York

Wells Point 350 7th Avenue, Suite 307
79 Wells Street New York, NY 10001
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be London W1T 3QN United States
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, United Kingdom
electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording Telephone:
or any information storage and retrieval system, without Telephone: +1 212 971 0630
prior permission in writing from the publisher. +44 207 269 1450

http://econsultancy.com
Copyright Econsultancy.com Ltd 2016 help@econsultancy.com Econsultancy Singapore
20 Collyer Quay
#23-01
Singapore
049319

Telephone:
+65 6653 1911