What do you see when you look at the opportunities ahead in today’s marketing landscape? Did you plan your strategies accordingly? How about your budgets? According to a recent B2B International survey, marketers are optimistic about their growth prospects but face numerous challenges that could hold them back. Here’s a look at five tests that could hold B2B marketers back.

1. Building Market Share

Faced by 56 percent of organizations, inertia is one of the biggest barriers to growth today, meaning it is difficult to get people to switch from competing brands and suppliers. Market research can provide vital insights on how to break the loyalty to competitors, and the biggest triggers to drive brand switching.

2. Innovation

More than 54 percent of marketers say this is one of their biggest issues. For many brands, at least 30 percent of their products have been developed within the past five years. This puts significant pressure on businesses to constantly innovate to outperform competitors.

3. Retaining Customers

Just one negative customer experience could cost you a customer. That means marketers must aggressively remind the market why their product is the best choice. Nearly 50 percent of brands believe retaining customers is one of the biggest challenges in today’s highly competitive marketplace.

4. Improving Internal Processes

Businesses recognize that challenges are not only external. The top three trending topics expected to influence marketing strategies and practices over the next five years are digital transformation (91 percent), Big Data (85 percent) and the Internet of Things (70 percent). Keeping up with the latest technologies remains critical.

5. Countering the Competition

Keeping up with the competition impacts 49 percent of marketers today, with 38 percent saying they have a marketing strategy in place that focuses on competitor analysis. In addition, 41 percent believe competitor research would be among the most useful types of research studies to invest in within the next two years.

This article appears in the new July/August 2018 issue of Connect magazine published by NextPage, which can be found online here. If you would like a free print subscription to Connect, please click here.