B2C marketing decision-makers have many conflicting short- and long-term priorities while facing increasingly tough challenges. Welcome to marketing, right? Improving brand perception and customer experience (CX) while achieving a positive ROI is a particularly daunting task in 2024 because:
- A turbulent economy makes it tough to improve marketing’s ROI. Forty-five percent of global B2C marketing decision-makers who prioritize improving marketing’s ROI anticipate that this will be difficult to achieve over the next 12 months. Achieving this gets even more difficult in an uncertain economy where marketing budgets are often the first to be cut. It’s no surprise that one in five B2C marketers expect limited budget and headcount in 2024.
- Data deprecation prevents marketers from implementing personalization at scale. Fifty-three percent of global B2C marketing decision-makers acknowledge that it’s difficult to update their data strategy to adapt to data deprecation. Similarly, 47% struggle to introduce or enhance their AI capabilities. The evolution toward a cookieless world on top of consent management issues with zero- and first-party data make it even more challenging for marketers to capture data. In fact, four of the five top challenges that marketers indicate they’re facing are data-related!
- Generative AI (genAI) disrupts marketing teams faster than they can adapt. GenAI’s turbospeed acceleration will disrupt marketing functions by automating many tasks across planning and execution.
- Concern about environmental and social issues increases brand risk. Ensuring that brand and marketing communications support environmental, social, and corporate governance goals is among the top priorities for global marketers and is the number one priority for European marketers. Because of increasing consumer and employee scrutiny as well as stricter regulation, especially within the EU, brands struggle to differentiate on their sustainability efforts. An overwhelming majority of marketing decision-makers want to communicate more about their green initiatives but fear their customers will perceive their efforts as greenwashing.
Together with my colleagues Mike Proulx, Rusty Warner, Xiaofeng Wang, and Audrey Chee-Reed, we have analyzed Forrester’s Marketing Survey, 2024, and also interviewed CMOs to understand their priorities and challenges. In a brand-new report, we summarize the key B2C marketing priorities and challenges in 2024 and share best practices to stay focused in the months to come.
Clients can read the full report here and schedule an inquiry with us to discuss what it means for them.
