One rule B2B marketers had to follow last year was flexibility. Many brands had to adjust their 2020 marketing mix spend, according to Nielsen’s 2021 Annual Marketing Report. For example, nearly a third of tech firms adjusted their spending.

This makes sense: the pandemic changed not only consumer habits, but also business priorities and budgets. Marketers had to do more with less or change tactics. But successful adaptation isn’t always easy. So, how can marketers stay agile while still impressing their target customers?

• Gaining control of measurement
• Reconsidering the potential of omnichannel
• Resisting the urge to stop marketing

Gaining control of measurement

For marketers, a lack of insight into how to revise tactics is a common roadblock. According to Nielsen, only 20% of large companies ($10M+ marketing budget) are confident in their marketing technology to measure ROI. Many campaigns may be underperforming without marketers’ knowledge. More troubling is the fact that even if they realize their strategies isn’t working, they don’t know which elements are failing. As a result, they may opt to scrap the entire strategy rather than make quick changes.

Advanced measurement tools that illuminate changing customer behaviors in real time and enable marketers to adjust their strategies along the way are also helpful. The pandemic accelerated the rate of change to the point where manually monitoring engagements could be overwhelming (if not impossible).

But old-school marketing techniques won’t cut it. In today’s digital world, marketers have ample data at their disposal, so they need tools that can synthesize what matters most to their brand and tactics. Marketers can confidently and quickly adjust their marketing mixes to ensure they address targets on the channels they are currently using and not wasting spend on those they are not.

Reconsidering the potential of omnichannel

Many marketers already strive to create a seamless brand persona across online and offline store experiences that guide customers from top to bottom of the funnel. Now is the time to align investments across platforms and focus on the customer experience across all touchpoints, not just the purchase point.

In order to achieve a holistic approach, marketers should update their activations at each stage of the customer journey. To achieve this goal, most marketers plan to increase spending on social media and search, according to Nielsen. Instead, marketers should allocate resources evenly across customer touchpoints, ensuring that each one contributes to the overall brand goal.

Resisting the urge to stop marketing

Marketers may be wary of investing in new initiatives due to uncertainty about change, but doing so could hinder short- and long-term business success. Consider: According to Nielsen’s long-term effect models, brands that stopped advertising in the second half of last year could lose up to 11% of revenue this year.

Marketers shouldn’t stop campaigning; they should use available resources to succeed. Again, dynamic measurement tools will be helpful. Budget is often the main impediment to marketing analytics and attribution adoption. But investing based on industry assumptions rather than true customer insights puts marketers at risk of wasting money. As the pandemic increases pressure on marketers to perform, measurement tools can help them allocate resources wisely and convince executives to fund more campaigns in the future.

Now is the time for B2B marketers to make a positive impact on customers. Marketers can now demonstrate why their product or service is more important than ever as companies navigate their new normal. With the right measurement and creative thinking, marketers can ensure their tactics align with specific business objectives.