Predictions and trends for partner marketing in 2024
New year, new marketing trends and predictions. ✨
The Knack team has been monitoring the ever-changing marketing space closely, and based on all our research and conversations with our clients and other thought-leaders, we’ve put together four predictions and trends we expect to have an impact on channel marketers and their programs in 2024.
Here is our list:
1) Content is still king, but only if it's helpful
The use of content in business-to-business (B2B) marketing (or any marketing, for that matter) isn’t going anywhere, but there will likely be a shift in how that content is crafted. With the addition of AI content tools, crafting assets has become easier than ever, but if you’ve played with these content tools, you know they’re far from perfect just yet and the outputs often fall flat. In fact, Forrester predicts that generic AI-generated content will worsen the purchase experience for 70% of B2B buyers, while at the same time, three out of four marketers are using generative AI tools to aid in content creation according to the Content Marketing Institute.
There’s so much content out there already, and 2024 will bring more. Lots more. Customers are no longer going to consume content just because it’s placed in front of them, especially in the B2B space that’s loaded with eBook offers, emails, sales outreach, blogs, and social posts. In order to stand out, content will need to be personalized. No, we’re not talking about merge fields in emails or tossing a prospects company logo on a templated piece of collateral. Buyers are looking for content that addresses them specifically as people and professionals rather than by their name populated in an email sent by an automation tool.
Content, especially created for partner programs, should leave buyers feeling as if what they consumed was created for them and directly solves a need. Marketers really need to spend time immersing themselves in the day-to-day operations of their buyer and craft content that, instead of highlighting specific products or features, highlights how their solution will help solve the issues that keep their customer up at night—and back it up with data. Content that caters to the actual needs of B2B buyers and uses data that they can’t get from anywhere else (think market research, product data, customer surveys, etc.) will be what stands out in the growing crowd.
2) AI is a tool, not a solution
Raise your hand if you succumbed to the AI-generated headshot apps in 2023.
In all seriousness, 2023 was a landmark year for artificial intelligence. Since the release of ChatGPT, it seems that almost every B2B tech company either has a stance on AI or some kind of AI-powered offering, especially in the marketing sector. AI content tools are making it easier than ever to produce and publish content at record speeds.
But AI is just that, a tool, and should be used as such. If you’ve done any experimentation with the current AI tools out there, you likely know that the outputs aren’t anywhere near close to perfect. While it may be tempting to speed up your content production by having a bot take on the brunt of the work, it won’t get you very far in the world of B2B marketing.
In November of 2023, Google released an SEO-related update aimed at keeping search engine results pages as useful to searchers as possible known as the helpful content update. This algorithm change prioritizes content created with a specific audience in mind and shows expertise on the topic, among some other factors that strive to determine if the content is truly helpful for Google’s users. With 85.1% of marketers sharing that they are using AI to help them craft content, it's important to understand the strengths and weaknesses of these tools so that their use does not have a negative impact on your marketing goals.
AI is an excellent way to cut research time, help unify disjointed writing, and ultimately help marketers become more efficient and reduce their time to market. For channel marketers in particular, AI can help you create unified messages and make sense of two organizations worth of data for the public and turn generic messages into something more tailored for more targeted audiences.
Anything more than that, you may run into trouble without that human touch due to occasionally unreliable data, made up statistics, and content that sounds cold and machine made—for now. AI is constantly evolving, and Knack is watching it closely.
3) Marketers are doing more with less and multiplying their impact through partner channels
Most organizations remain a bit conservative when it comes to marketing spend. Gartner reports that in 2023, budgets stalled around 9.1% of total revenue, coming in slightly below where they did in 2022 (9.5%). As we roll into 2024, the outlook looks similar to what we were facing at this time last year. Economic and geopolitical unrest affecting the market is causing more caution when it comes to spending for businesses of all sizes. A safe prediction as we look ahead is that marketing budgets will remain roughly the same; however, with the cost of inflation, the same numbers may translate to less tactical and resource spending.
Regardless of budget amount, there’s increased pressure on marketers to show direct ROI for every dollar spent, especially in the B2B space. As internet activity gets harder to track, and the buyer’s journey becomes more self-service, attribution can be a challenge without the right operational systems in place. For partner marketing programs, this exercise can be even more difficult with the combination of two or more teams’ operational processes. Without the right agency partner in place to help, the true path that a lead takes on the road to your joint solution is often harder to parse.
But despite this added complexity, the market knows that partner marketing programs, when executed correctly, perform, and they perform well. Expect teams to lean into their partners for marketing development funds (MDF) to help them close lead gaps caused by budget allocation and/or cuts. Beyond the perks of MDF, there’s often cost savings associated with joint value props that will help marketers do more with less because more than one organization is splitting program spend for the same amount of return. It’s a win-win for organizations that have their operational processes in place and/or an agency partner like Knack to help them determine their ROI.
4) Rules and regulations are reshaping demand generation
Ding dong, the cookie is dead. Yes, for real this time.
There’s been rumblings for years that the era of the third-party cookie is ending, but we now have confirmation from Google that this is in fact true for Chrome users. By the end of 2024, all Chrome users will have cookies disabled, and we expect other browsers to follow suit.
At the same time, starting February 1st, Google and Yahoo will begin to enforce new requirements for bulk email sends (more than 5,000 messages in one day) with the goal of reducing spam for their users. Last October, Google shared the new requirements which included email authentication, the ability for users to easily unsubscribe, and a clear spam rate threshold.
While these changes are ultimately a good thing for users and the internet, they require marketers to adjust their playbooks, shifting away from traditional demand generation tactics. Google has outlined easy guidance for email marketing that marketers can use to make sure they’re in compliance for bulk email sending. And for the death of the cookie, there are plenty of other ways to capture data. First-party data is a great place to start, as it's obtained from your own systems—which could look like list sharing for partner marketing teams.
One thing is clear, 2024 has a lot in store
These are just a few callouts that we at Knack feel will affect how B2B marketers, especially in the channel, craft their marketing strategies. While change can be scary, embracing it will help create better user experiences for customers in all markets. We’re excited to see what this year holds for marketing, the channel, and beyond!
Do you agree with our list? Are there any predictions or trends that you think we missed? We’d love to hear them. Join the conversation on our social media channels (scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the links!) or connect with us directly.