Planning for the Future: The Rise of the Agile Marketer

The world of B2B marketing changed forever during the Covid-19 pandemic, when marketing shifted from in-person events, face-to-face meetings, and direct mail to offices to digital channels. Buyers have embraced a more online buying journey and have not looked back. There has also been a generational shift, with most decision makers now coming from the digital-native Millennial and Gen Z generations; these buyers have always been comfortable transacting online and researching solutions on social, video, and via peer networks.

Marketers must be even more agile when planning marketing campaigns to address the new buying journey.

Planning for future marketing success

Digital Customer Journeys — Forrester notes that, as a large percentage of B2B buying moves online, many customers will want a more “self-service” journey.¹ This requires major marketing orchestration and support, from website management to demand generation to customer experience optimization. AI will only turbo-charge this trend, requiring B2B marketers to move quickly to build the systems, data foundation, and agility needed to deliver personalized, AI-powered, self-service customer journeys at scale.

Sales and Marketing Alignment — Many aspects of supporting and optimizing a digital customer journey suit marketing more than sales. Gartner states, “The likelihood of strong commercial growth increases with sales and marketing alignment. A Gartner survey of 632 B2B buyers from August through September 2024 found that B2B buyers are completing purchases through different channels, underscoring the need for a less siloed approach.”² Rather than simply handing leads off to the sales team, marketing is becoming more deeply intertwined with sales and sharing more goals. This requires a more scientific approach to marketing, including an increase in the use of data, targeting, measurement, and analytics.

Shifting Tactics and Technologies — Evolving buyer preferences also impact how marketers approach customers and prospects. Marketers are testing a more complex marketing mix that includes social media, CTV, self-service platforms, events, email, search, display, and more. At the same time, AI is turning many marketing processes upside-down, as it is used to create content more efficiently, analyze data, and predict outcomes. Team members must be agile, using new data and technologies while embracing new strategies and tactics.  

Our survey finds that most marketers who have embraced change in the past year focused on measurable, revenue-oriented work, including driving revenue growth, improving customer acquisition rates, and supporting sales with qualified leads and insights.

Marketers taking on new responsibilities are also working on enhancing brand awareness and managing, optimizing, and adopting marketing technology.

We found that these agile marketers who embrace new responsibilities aren’t just working harder, they’re working smarter with sharper tactics. They are nearly twice as likely to use AI as others (42% vs 24%), and they are more likely to use it to personalize campaigns, analyze performance, and save time. Agile marketers are also connected to other teams and focused on driving sales. They are more likely to support sales with qualified leads and insights (54% vs. 39%), showing the importance of aligning with sales to drive revenue. They also manage complex martech stacks and drive cross-functional alignment.

Marketers with new responsibilities tend to be at companies and organizations that are more likely to be thriving, and these are the marketers who show us the way to success. In addition to revenue and pipeline growth, agile marketers have a notably stronger outlook on the future. In fact, 97% express a positive outlook on their marketing success, with 59% feeling extremely positive. These marketers aren’t just adapting—they’re energized and ready to lead. The best of these marketers will build teams with specific data, analytics, and content strategy skills, who can also adapt and take on new responsibilities.

B2B marketers are showing their ability to act as key players at companies experiencing revenue growth, which is something to lean into as we move into the future. Rather than creating a marketing strategy based on highly predictable events, agile B2B marketers can manage volatility and future unknowns using testing, data, technology, and analytics.

For any B2B marketer looking for encouragement to expand their scope, embrace data and AI, and test new tactics, this research certainly points to opportunities rather than risks. As long as these actions are aligned with company growth goals and sales efforts, growing marketing’s scope seems to be a winning ingredient in growth organizations.