Embracing the Shift: Predicting Marketing in 2024 and How Optimization Can Help

If you are a marketer, odds are, you are tired of hearing the expression “do more with less.” Let’s face it — expecting marketers to perform miracles with limited resources is a tall order, to say the least.

As we gear up for 2024, my only prediction and advice is to ditch impossible tasks and instead focus on doing more with what you have on hand. Operating under a scarcity mindset often leads to cutting equally across all parts of marketing, but this approach may prove counterproductive. For example, strategic tech investments like generative AI may increase your team’s productivity and are therefore well worth the spend.

Let’s designate 2024 as the year we transition our perspectives from scarcity to a focus on optimization.

With that in mind, here are four ways to optimize your marketing in 2024:

1. Leverage efficiency for growth

Hitting pipeline targets is more than just a numbers game; it’s about maximizing every opportunity at our disposal. To avoid burning through cash aimlessly, we need to measure the efficiency of our spending. Calculate the pipeline generated per sales and marketing headcount monthly and track the ratio over time.

Don’t just look at the return on investment—consider the return on effort and time. For instance, integrating a podcast into your marketing strategy requires a multi-year commitment with a prolonged payoff period, while holiday-themed content or campaigns have expiration dates. 

You can also leverage always-on content hubs to extend the shelf life of your high-quality content. In fact, research has found that offering live and on-demand events produces a 53% registrant-to-attendee conversion rate. Another way to operate more efficiently with the content you already have is by creating audience segments, which can be tailored to persona, role, industry, and more. With segments, you can deliver unique CTAs, content, or specific messaging to different audiences within the same webinars. 

2. Prioritize speed over perfection

In a market saturated with competitors, speed to market provides a genuine edge. A crucial factor for this involves evaluating the pace at which your team executes tasks. This entails empowering your team to prioritize urgency over perfection in some aspects of their work.

Customers crave easily digestible information, so why not streamline your content creation process? One way to prioritize speed is to leverage AI assistants to help develop better abstracts, subject lines and promotional copy. The ON24 feature, SmartText, can do just that with a few simple prompts – all within the platform. 

If you’d like to see how you can use AI across an entire marketing campaign, check out our free e-book, “Optimizing Engagement: How to Maximize Results Across the Campaign Lifecycle with AI.”

3. Embed agility into planning

Given the aftermath of a global pandemic and economic downturn, us marketers must brace ourselves for continuous change.

Implement contingencies and midpoint checks to ensure you can pivot when needed. Think beyond the immediate task and give your team the green light to improvise. A flexible strategy can turn a potential hiccup into a seamlessly integrated campaign.

For example, for in-person field events or tradeshows, record a digital version as an on-demand or simulive webinar that can serve as a fallback in case your in-person registration is low, engage no-shows and follow up with additional contacts in the buying committees from the accounts who do attend the physical version. 

4. Innovate through AI

Think about AI as a catalyst for innovation within your existing practices. Consider AI solutions to boost team productivity, automate workflows and explore emerging channels. No need for a complete tech overhaul, AI is a complement that will optimize what you already have in place. 

One way you can immediately use AI is to repurpose your existing content. With ON24’s AI-powered Analytics and Content Engine (ACE), you can now automatically turn digital events into transcripts, e-books, blogs and summaries, with the click of a button. Instead of spending time transcribing, you can focus on campaign optimization while AI does the work for you. 

As we approach 2024, let’s steer away from lofty predictions and focus on actionable resolutions. The key to success lies in changing our mindset from scarcity to optimization. Embrace efficiency, speed, agility, and innovation—they’re not just buzzwords; they’re your roadmap to a successful 2024.