Top 10 B2B Marketing Trends In A COVID World
Author: Abhay Reddy
COVID19 pandemic has resulted in a shift in how B2B companies market to their customers. Lets explore some of the changes and the trends for this year.
In-person meetings that sales relied on has diminished significantly, and so has marketing’s ability to generate leads from physical events such as Tradeshows and Industry events. Even CES 2021 was virtual this year with much less fanfare. The forecast is that most physical events will not return till end of year — even with a vaccine rollout. Remember that a single conference was linked to as many as 300,000 COVID cases (source) and most companies will continue to exercise caution.
With all the shutdown’s, most company employees are WFH (Work From Home). This trend is here to stay even beyond a COVID world, so some of the tactics such as telemarketing (by phone), sending gifts, radio ads, in-person meetings will continue to be less effective.
Digital marketing was already on an upward trajectory prior to the pandemic, but its adoption has now exploded even among some of the most traditional companies. Digital marketing is here to stay (at the increased spend levels) as most companies have realized its impact and cost effectiveness. This does not mean that physical events will go away completely, but rather the mix of tactics employed will include a much larger share of digital campaigns. Below are some key B2B marketing trends in 2021
1. Personalization: In the absence of physical in-person meetings, personalization has become even more important as a way to engage customers, and to stand out. This includes not just personalized emails or web, but also remarketing outside the network to help guide customers through their buying journey. The first conversation with the customer has to be an informed one with the sales rep having access to all the content that the customer had consumed. Research: 72% of business buyers expect vendors to personalize engagement to their needs [source]
2. ABM (Account Based Marketing): ABM is an extremely effective tactic that treats key accounts as a market of one. It allows marketing to focus on specific large companies that account for a large share of the revenue. The ABM Approach involves understanding the key pain points and opportunities within each account and tailoring the messages to match them. Refer to my article here. Research: 69% respondents said that their account-based efforts have met or exceeded expectations [source]
3. Self Actualization: In other words, customers get to choose how they want to engage with you. Ex: e-commerce, evaluation, chat, email or sales rep. Most B2B companies rely only on sales folks to complete a transaction. With the rise of millennials in the B2B decision making process, the buying behavior has also shifted. Customers now increasingly prefer to research, evaluate and pilot before they talk to a sales rep. The contrast is more sharp for lower valued items such as consumables. Larger more complex products do need sales interaction from an early stage, but expect to interact with an informed customer. Research : 70% of millennials are involved in making B2B purchase decisions [Source]; 69% expect Amazon-like buying experiences [Source]
4. Thought Leadership and Word of Mouth: Referrals from customers, and ability to engage with prospects at a thought leadership level will continue to be at the core of B2B marketing. Referrals can be achieved by having a robust product, great customer service, and prodding them with rewards and referral benefits. Thought leadership involves developing content that matches customers needs, creating a network (ex: in LinkedIn), and having conversations at a much higher level than just features or benefits. Research: 64% of marketing professionals said word of mouth marketing was more effective than “traditional” marketing. [Source]
5. Webinars and Virtual Events: These tactics have come and gone out of trend in the past, but they are most definitely in-trend at the moment given that physical travel is now limited. As more B2B companies rely on these tactics (as a natural successor to physical events) it can lead to an overload effect; so think about how you can do different (unique, to stand out), and cater to customer’s reduced attention spans. Think of content that customers are actively researching/need, and evaluate newer formats such as micro webinar series. Research: Attention span has dropped to eight seconds — shrinking nearly 25% in just a few years [Source]
6. Organic/Inbound/Chat. Leads generated through inbound activities (drawing customers to a brand or product) have one of the highest conversion rates and CLV (Customer Lifetime Value). Content and SEO are an integral part of driving relevant traffic to the website.
There have been an influx of chat platforms from live chat to AI based chat bots. My suggestion for B2B companies is to incorporate live chat (with a real person) as much as possible, and then augment with AI bots. Chat bots make more sense when you have an influx of inquiries on a daily basis, but if the volumes are reasonable, then there is no substitute for chatting with a real person. It helps increase customer satisfaction, and reduces the lead times from a MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) to an opportunity.
7. PPC campaigns (SEM): 78% of B2B buyers start with a Google search, and 70% of those prospective buyers return to search 2–3 more times. Its always best practice to augment SEO with SEM in-order to capture the relevant traffic based on intent. Pay Per Click tactics such as SEM, Facebook, Linkedin are quite effective in terms of both conversions, and budget control (given that you only pay when an Ad is clicked)
8. Prospecting (AI and Intent): Allows companies to market beyond their exiting database in a targeted manner. There are many external databases that maintain a detailed map of B2B customer information (company, phone, email, org, interests). Leverage such platforms (ex: ZoomInfo, Bombora, Metadata.io, Demandbase) to target prospects by intent and behavior. You can also leverage 3rd party agencies to do the same.
9. Data Analytics: Test and learn is one of the key principals of Demand Generation. It is important to track customer journey from the first touch; all the way to a closed-won or e-commerce sale. Data can be captured on multiple platforms, but aggregating them into a visualization platform will give you a clear picture of what content and campaigns are working. Leverage AI based tools to generate deeper insights.
10. Dynamic Micro Content: Many organizations focus on volume vs quality. They end up with lot of content with short shelf lives that cannot be reused. This is fine for a new product launch or specific cases. but the preferred approach is to create base content (templatized) that can be quickly updated. The content can then be broken up into smaller chunks for use across multiple channels. Content is king, but so is presenting the right content at the right time. Content can now be created dynamically based on customers prior actions, so short format in-the-moment content is preferred.
Refer to website for more information: demandsimplified.marketing
