Laura Ramos on B2B Marketing Trends

Laura Ramos runs Forrester's B2B Marketing programme. I follow her research closely as, although it's US-centric, it produces some fascinating data on what B2B decision-makers do. Laura's latest comments focuses on B2B Marketing Trends. Pretty much consistent with what we see in the UK - the highlights are (with my notes):

• Commoditisation leading to a lack of differentiation, which leads to marketing all sounding the same (so true);
• B2B buyers buying like consumers. Using peer reviews and social media as decision making inputs (perhaps less true in the UK?);
• Ad avoidance and sales call avoidance - using web sources to delay contact with vendors (I think there is generic 'marketing avoidance' going on);
• Globalisation. Uh huh.

Laura suggests that the outcome of these trends will be the death of B2B Marketing. I agree, at least insofar as B2B marketing can't exist in the way it does. The justification that marketing "creates demand" is slammed by Laura as a cop-out. It needs to be more measurable in sales terms and more aligned with sales.

I'm looking forward to Part 2 of Laura's comments...