Everybody loves to talk about the sales funnel and how to best align marketing efforts with a prospect’s journey from the wide rim of awareness to the narrow neck where deals are closed. But what happens after the prospect exits the funnel and becomes a customer?

In today’s hyper-competitive business landscape, a positive customer experience can often play a critical role in retaining existing customers – even more than price or product features. In fact, new research by Koyne Marketing reveals that 90% of business leaders surveyed believe customer marketing is important to the success of their businesses and slightly more (93%) agree that it will become even more important over the next year.

So whether it’s called customer marketing, retention marketing, or customer success marketing, companies that sell to business customers need to spend more on marketing activities that drive retention, loyalty, and customer advocacy.

Here 8 key takeaways from Koyne’s 2017 State of Customer Marketing Report: