This is the 42nd in a series of business tips from industry leaders that Enterprise Times has interviewed.
Enterprise Times recently interviewed Jon Miller, CMO of Demandbase. He spoke about how Demandbase has changed since the acquisition of Engagio. He also revealed the five categories of data that Demandbase offers customers.
Miller is always inciteful as a recognised leader in the ABM and B2B marketing space. I asked him what challenges inflation and cost of living crisis will have on marketing in 2023. What steps should CMOS take to mitigate those? Miller replied,
Raise your prices!
“The first thought that comes to mind is it’s probably a pretty good time to think about raising your prices. If you can effectively raise prices in the tech business, that goes straight to your bottom line. It’s pure gross margin in most cases. You have some air cover for doing that in a high-inflation world.
“As budgets get cut, companies will probably see more pressure on retention. These things can go hand in hand. You’ve got to be really proactively focused on renewal and on making your existing customers successful because there will probably be more pressure there. But I think you can probably also raise the price on the ones you can renew again if you’re doing it right. If you’re just like, here’s a 50% discount to renew, that’s probably not a good situation.
Invest in advertising
“Then the other thought I have is somewhat self-serving, but I also think true. You will see companies cutting back on their advertising and marketing spend. This means we will be in a world where the competition for buyers’ attention is less than it has been. That creates an opportunity for companies that can invest in branding, advertising and reaching the customer.
“They’ll probably see greater effectiveness over the next 12 months than last year because of less competition for attention. That’s probably why all this research says companies that can invest during the downturn tend to emerge stronger.”
