Marketing Program Proliferation Hurts Customer Experience And Limits Business Growth

2026-05-04 · Source: Featured Blogs - Forrester · Field: Business & Management — Marketing, Branding & Advertising, Operations & Process Management · Depth: Intermediate, quick

Summary

The Forrester report, "Marketing Program Proliferation Hurts Customer Experience And Limits Business Growth," identifies that B2B marketing teams are launching an excessive number of programs, leading to increased noise rather than value for buyers. This proliferation stems from two decades of unadapted strategies, a failure to adjust to evolving buyer behaviors, and metrics that reward ineffective marketing and sales practices. Forrester advocates for marketing program orchestration, shifting from channel-specific execution to coordinated workflows, orchestrated audience segments, and updated metrics focused on revenue generation by meeting digital-native buyer needs. A downloadable "Marketing Program Orchestration Workflow Template" is provided to assist teams in mapping unified program plans, roles, and KPIs.

Key takeaway

For marketing professionals struggling with program overload, you should adopt a program orchestration approach. This means aligning your brand, communications, event, and field marketing teams to a single program plan for each audience segment. Focus on reducing redundant efforts and measuring actual revenue outcomes, rather than just marketing activities, to deliver more value to your buyers and drive business growth.

Key insights

Excessive marketing programs harm customer experience and business growth; orchestration aligns efforts to buyer needs.

Principles

• Shift from channel-specific to coordinated workflows.
• Align marketing subfunctions to single program plans.
• Measure revenue outcomes, not marketing activity.

Method

Map steps, inputs, outputs, roles, and KPIs to build unified program plans per audience segment, reducing subfunction overlap.

In practice

• Utilize the Marketing Program Orchestration Workflow Template.
• Coordinate brand, events, and field marketing teams.

Topics

• Marketing Program Proliferation
• Customer Experience
• Business Growth
• Marketing Program Orchestration
• Buyer Behavior

Best for: Marketing Professional, Consultant, Operations Professional

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Editorial summary, takeaway, and curation by AIssential. Original article published by Featured Blogs - Forrester.