Consolidation, convergence and the collective: Three Cs will drive B2B marketing in 2017

The lull between Christmas and New Year’s is traditionally a time for looking back at the best practices (and missteps) of the year gone by, in the hopes of getting a jump on the trends that will dominate the coming year. For B2B marketers, 2017 will be about three Cs: Consolidation, Convergence and the Collective.

Consolidation of vendors and dashboards

2016 might best be described as the year Account-Based Marketing (ABM) took over B2B marketing. While the basic principles of ABM are not new, ad tech and martech providers worked hard in 2016 to make the process of finding, nurturing and continuing to engage with a select group of prospects more streamlined and efficient.

The focus on ABM will continue in 2017 — but the explosion of so-called ABM vendors will not. In fact, there will likely be consolidation, since marketers want fewer dashboards and products to buy and integrate. ABM and other martech solution providers will need to make sure their data can be activated through the most widely adopted tools — think mainstays like Salesforce, Marketo and Eloqua — if they want user adoption.

[Read the full article on MarTech Today.]

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Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.

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About The Author

Erik Matlick guides corporate strategy and vision at

Bombora

bringing over 15 years in founding, board and executive management experience. As an online performance marketing pioneer, Erik’s strategic insight from the data analytics media operations, ad serving technology and sales/marketing arena are the driving force behind what makes Bombora unique. Erik is also the Chairman of Madison Logic, the predecessor of Bombora. Prior to founding Madison Logic and Bombora, Erik was the Founder and CEO of IndustryBrains, which he sold to Marchex in July of 2005. Prior to IndustryBrains, he founded MediaBrains and served as an Ad Sales Manager for Ziff-Davis Publishing.Erik has invested in Fetchback (sold to GSI), Tynt (sold to 33 across), and LeadSpend (sold to Experian) and is a current investor in AddShoppers, Switch and Crisp Media. He is also an advisor to Metamorphic Ventures and Syracuse University Newhouse School. Erik holds a B.S. in Marketing from the Syracuse University School of Management.

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