We’ve established that data is good news for your business, but it can bring its own set of challenges. With recent high-profile data breaches, customers are understandably more on edge. As B2B brands start to recognise the benefits of data-driven marketing, transparency has become crucial to ensuring both the company and its customers remain happy.

Yes, it’s that time already – we’re nearly at the end of 2019 and ready to chat about trends for next year. So, what’s in store for data-driven marketing in 2020? Here’s five key areas which we expect will see increased interest and growth next year.

What’s your way with numbers?

We’re living in the era of data-driven marketing. Data fuels our daily marketing activities, powers our achievements and drives our innovations. It’s clear to anyone in the B2B space right now that data is here to stay, and that data is a specialised skill. It’s not enough to gather numbers; the real work lies in selecting the right numbers, analysing them with insight and proposing useful solutions.

In a world of information overload, it’s more important than ever to be clever with the abundance of data we have at our fingertips. This is especially true if you’re devising or refreshing your content marketing strategy. If you don’t know who you’re talking to and what they’re looking for then really, what’s the point? Your message and sales aspirations are guaranteed to fall short of the mark.

What does data mean for your business?

The exponential growth of data-driven marketing in the B2B space has been powered by customer preferences for more personalised, tailored experiences, which can only be delivered through the use of targeted data. At the same time, new tools and technologies have arrived on the scene – making it much easier to not only gather data, but also, crucially, to analyse and draw meaningful conclusions from it.

Now is the time for businesses to pool relevant data in preparation for advanced data-driven campaigns later down the line. It’s also time to assemble a team of data-driven marketing experts. Whether that means investing in training or recruiting, it’s no longer a ‘nice to have’ resource. We’re at a critical point, here: B2B marketers that miss the data train today will surely regret being left behind tomorrow. 

We’ve created a brand-new guide to help B2B marketers get on track:

• Building a meaningful customer profile
• Context is everything
• Putting together a game plan
• Data is the future