B2B marketing strategy
Considering that 76% of B2B marketers have a formal marketing plan, what B2B marketing trends can you integrate into your digital marketing strategy?
B2B marketing strategy: You can spot trends and beat your rivals by being aware of the direction that B2B industries are taking their marketing approaches. Our B2B marketing trends list the key tactics you should think about implementing in the upcoming months to increase sales and conversions.
We’ve taken a look at the B2B Marketing Mix Report from Sagefrog Marketing Group to see what the state of B2B marketing currently is. We believe that highlighting some of the key trends will make your marketing strategy more effective.
Most organizations have a plan
When it comes to B2B organizations, 76% say they have a formal marketing plan, which helps shape and give direction to their marketing activities. However, this means that nearly a quarter (24%) still don’t have their formal plan in place. This may lead to lost opportunities and disjointed marketing initiatives.
The majority of B2B companies (56%) combine in-house and outsourced expertise to deliver their marketing plans, allowing them to leverage others’ expertise and invest in external resources when needed.
At the moment, 38% of companies only use internal resources to carry out their marketing strategies. While this is excellent if they have the means, it may indicate that they are overstretching their teams or depending too heavily on inexperience.
Email is a popular tactic
Email stands out among the other marketing strategies that B2B companies have employed. The majority of respondents (84%) have adopted email marketing as a tactic because of its high return on investment.
Not just for business-to-business transactions, email can play a crucial role in the nurturing process by enabling you to send pertinent information at the ideal time in the buyer’s journey. For 84% of B2B marketers, this is true.
Customers are more likely to convert when they receive targeted email communications that foster trust. Email enhances customer lifetime value by keeping current customers interested.
75% of B2B marketers use social media and social media advertising in addition to email marketing as part of their overall strategy. Even though social media is primarily thought of as a B2C strategy, B2B businesses can also benefit from using the appropriate content and platforms, with retargeting serving to keep visitors interested in your website.
Not surprisingly, SEO (60%) and blogging/content marketing (69%) also ranked highly. Just as with email, blogs can help cultivate trust and help convert leads, while optimizing them for search will also help bring more low-cost, high-quality, organic traffic to websites.
Budgets for marketing are staying the same.
The good news is that marketing budgets are increasing. A quarter of marketers are working with a 15% or higher increase next year. That’s great news considering the wealth of free and paid digital media options available for B2B marketing.
The next major financial commitments
With 56% of the marketing budget going toward it, digital marketing is the area where B2B companies spend the most money. The fact that this year’s top expense is the same as last year’s and that traditional methods are frequently abandoned indicates that digital marketing is quickly taking the place of traditional marketing.
Even though digital marketing is excellent at sending leads to your website, you still need to provide the best experience for those leads to become conversions. This is probably the reason 51% of respondents said they are spending money on developing websites. This is typically an expensive area, but since people have higher expectations and search engines rank sites based on speed, among other factors, it is probably an investment that will pay off.
B2B marketing goals
In terms of marketing objectives for B2B organizations in 2021, the top one probably won’t come as a surprise. Companies utilize marketing to increase sales leads.
Converting leads into customers is objective number 2, recognizing that lead nurturing is a complex journey with a number of micro- and macro-environmental factors at play.
Where do leads come from?
If you want to increase conversions from leads, it pays to understand where those leads come from in the first place. According to 65% of the B2B respondents, the top source of sales and marketing leads is referrals, showing the value in word-of-mouth marketing and developing good relationships with current customers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, when looking at the least successful tactics for bringing in leads, PR (9%), print advertising (3%) and direct mail (3%) are at the bottom of the list. This suggests that face-to-face and digital experiences are definitely the way forward for B2B industries.
ABM is a big trend
Looking at new strategies for both marketing and sales, ABM is at the top of the pile. With high customer expectations in personalization, paired with ABM tools like LinkedIn InMail, which lets you specifically target key accounts and personnel, this doesn’t really come as a big surprise. It also shows that while you are doing business with other companies, it is important to remember that you’re still dealing with people.
The second most popular strategy for companies is rich-content video marketing. Just as with B2C marketing, video offers great engagement for B2B companies and can help with social media marketing efforts, as well as engage people more on websites and via emails.
In terms of the most popular content types for B2B organizations, webinars are right up there, with demos also being popular, both of which are very different from what B2C audiences would expect.
B2B marketing trends
Finally, these findings show where B2B marketing is likely headed, giving you the opportunity to shape your B2B digital marketing strategy. Some of the most important aspects to bear in mind are the focus on personalization and account-based marketing. Failing to offer the same level of personalization as your competitors can set you apart for all the wrong reasons.
Similarly, with so many companies making use of email as part of their marketing efforts, you need to ensure that your email marketing strategy is strong. Optimize your emails for conversion, segment your audience, and make sure every send is visible in recipients’ inboxes.
Finally, take a look at how you are gaining leads and ensure your goals reflect this. You can use data and these benchmarks to create a documented marketing plan based on past and current performance.
