Marketing trends keep changing every year. Especially in the B2B space, growing competition and the technological advancements accompanied with varied needs of customers, marketers cannot just stick to any particular strategy and ignore the other trends.
While email marketing and content marketing continue to retain its supremacy even in 2020, there are other trends like analytics, data visualization, programmatic advertising, etc., that are looking more promising and are sure to leave an impact in this year. Hence B2B marketers need to pay attention to these evolving trends and at the same time strongly hold onto revamping their existing marketing strategies as well.
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Here are the top five B2B Marketing Trends in 2020:
1. Content Marketing Will Be Vital in Lead Generation
“Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives revenue.” – Andrew Devis
B2B marketers are aware of how important content marketing is for their business promotions and awareness. It is through quality content that marketers can engage the right set of audiences and generate leads that are likely to convert and bring in more business opportunities. That is why, as per the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), around 91% of B2B marketers make use of content to reach potential customers. Hence even in 2020, content marketing is going to be key for B2B companies across various industries and verticals.
People consume content in different formats. However, going forward in 2020, video channels will prove more effective. That is why more marketers are coming forward to invest in content marketing, with 41% marketers planning to add Facebook Video and 45% YouTube Videos to their B2B marketing strategies in 2020. However, equally important will be digital content in generating leads as audiences are preferring long-form content of over 1000 words besides video content.
Below is the changing content marketing trend:
2. Uptake of Programmatic Advertising to Grow
Programmatic advertising is one of the emerging trends in digital advertising that’s been growing rapidly. This automation process makes online bidding to purchase and sell ad spots, more streamlined, and efficient. Unlike the traditional ad buying process, programmatic advertising uses analytics data to help digital marketers make the right bid. In this method, algorithms and computers help marketers in ad buying, optimization, and placement. It uses real-time data to segment the best audience so that advertisers target the right audience with their ad campaigns. Here, marketers can create personalized advertisements as per individual customer interests, behaviors, and needs on the basis of insights derived from multiple online platforms.
Experts consider programmatic advertising as the future of digital marketing and advertising. Even the Internet giant, Google, aims to spend 60% of its digital advertising budget by the end of 2020 on programmatic advertising. Considering the potential and the growing inclination towards this new trend in digital advertising, it is predicted that in the coming years, programmatic advertising will be all over the ad space. However, to take the leap from traditional techniques to automation, marketers would need to have the right knowledge and the willingness to revamp their ad purchasing method.
3. Email Marketing to Continue As Preferred Tool
“Email marketing has an ability many channels don’t: creating value, personal touches – at scale.” – David Newman
Email marketing is not just a relic of the past, unlike many other traditional practices. Even in the age of social media and other digital channels, email marketing continues to be one of the preferred channels of business communication for 83% of marketers. Emails have proven to generate more revenue than any other marketing tool. Even in 2020, emails will continue to rule the marketing space with its wider reach, high engagement rate, and increased revenue generation potential.
Moreover, with technological advancements, email marketing has transformed into an automated process that improves marketing efficiency and helps businesses save quite a lot of their budget. With advanced functionalities like email automation, scheduling, personalization, and availability of targeted and quality email lists, B2B email marketing is sure to hold onto its superiority in the next few years and beyond. Here is the list of top email marketing trends that ruled in 2019:
4. Growing Importance of Data Visualization and Analytics
Companies in the field of data analytics have already started to work on how they can make more digital data accessible to marketers through data visualization and analytics. Today, every business understands the need to have the correct data for the success of marketing campaigns. Through advanced tools and capabilities like data analytics and visualization, marketers can make the best use of the available customer data on multiple platforms. These data can be used to understand customer needs; map their buying journey, and personalize communication for increased conversion.
As technology advances, marketers are learning to make the right use of the vast amount of data through data and analytics capabilities. Tools like Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics are being further advanced, and new features are being introduced to address the varied data needs of modern B2B marketers. To extract pools of data from various sources, tools like Google Data Studio and others are extensively used to turn campaigns into lead generating machines. Marketers who will embrace this trend in 2020 will reap the benefits for sure.
5. Increased Investment on Social Media Channels
Hootsuite and We Are Social reveals, there are 3.48 billion users on social media, which is 9% more than the last year. As social media use continues to grow, it is becoming one of the vital digital communication channels for businesses today. However, many B2B companies consider social media irrelevant for their industry, and that is where they end up losing a broader market reach, global exposure, and brand awareness opportunities.
In spite of the misconceptions, the adoption of social media strategies is likely to grow in 2020 as well. However, it is crucial to choose the right social media channel that suits your business and where your targeted audiences are most likely to be found. LinkedIn is one such ideal platform for B2B marketers as the platform has more than 590 million active users who are professionals, decision-makers, opinion leaders, influencers, and executives. Also, channels like Facebook, Twitter, Slideshare, and Instagram are equally relevant and suitable for B2B marketing campaigns. With increasing users and followers on social networking sites, business opportunities are widespread.
