The pandemic brought immense changes in all aspects of business and in almost all industries of the world. And B2B marketing was no exception in the process. Moreover, it was one of the business branches that was hit the most back in 2020. Budgets were cut, processes reevaluated and we all had to get used to a whole new world.
? Read Creating a Marketing Strategy that Works: Benefits, Steps, Tools
Despite that, we witnessed the birth of a “new normal” which had a taste of what we we knew very well, but also a huge influx of innovations. Some of them appeared just because people were trying to handle their regular tasks the best way considering the situation (necessity is the mother of innovation, right?). But some also came as an upgrade to the existing practices and continued to develop after the pandemic despite going back to “normal”.
In this blog we’ll cover 4 trends in B2B marketing in 2022, in the post-covid era. Hopefully this will give you a clearer idea of where to invest your efforts.
Let’s dig in!
Hyper-personalisation
Personalisation has one clear and important role – it helps your business stand out from the crowd. With the growth of B2B businesses every day, the competition is getting bigger from day to day. Therefore it’s crucial to work out a customer journey that will reflect your uniqueness.
When you start personalizing your brand, it’s important that you’re using the language of your target persona. In this way you’re sure to catch their attention and connect with them on a more personal level. Instead of hiding behind your company name and logo, creating a more meaningful connection with your target audience is the way to survive.
Some of the things you can do to hyper-personalize your business are:
- personalize customer experience across all of your channels
- deliver location-based content using geo-targeting
- make sure all your touchpoints are personalized
- educate and inform your whole company on this process – everybody has to be on board
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Machine Learning and Marketing Automation
With an increase of data privacy regulations it became necessary to find alternative ways to learn more about your customers. In that sense, leveraging machine learning became essential for many companies. The effect? Personalized experiences, increased efficiency and a greater accuracy of marketing campaigns. Doesn’t sound bad at all, right?
According to Gartner, one of the top AI initiatives for businesses by 2030 will be machine learning. It is already mainly present in marketing automation, web analytics and CRM.
Branded Content
Erik Huberman, founder/CEO of Hawke Media who made it onto Forbes 30 Under 30 list thinks that the most important thing we saw in B2B marketing in 2022 was the use of branded content to help drive conversion and retention.
Nowadays, consumers hold companies to a higher standard and demand authenticity. In this case, branded content became a useful tool for “humanizing” your brand and establishing long term relationships with your customers.
Huberman states that companies were able to move the needle drastically in many ways by creating content that engaged their audience above and beyond a purchase decision.
Read How to Find Branded Content Ideas by Analyzing Your Competitors With Determ
LIVE Collaborations Between Thought Leaders
Mandy McEwen, founder/CEO of Mod Girl Marketing and top B2B marketer according to Linkedin highlighted leveraging live collaborations between thought leaders as a B2B marketing trend that worked extremely well in 2022.
As an example, McEwen suggests hosting a live summit with some of your industry’s top experts, hosting a live webinar where you co-host with another industry leader where you can both provide value to attendees and build up your brand awareness at the same time.
Read 9 Marketing Assets that Every Company Should Have
According to 2021 Linkedin-Edelman B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report showed that thought leadership remains critical to customer engagement. Despite that, it’s harder than ever to break through the noise. The pandemic, despite contributing a lot to the digitalization, has also brought a ton of low-quality content that’s causing confusion. Therefore, it’s incredibly important to engage in different collaborations with top-notch professionals – this is how you build your brand strength.
Read Trend Analysis Made Simple: 3 Examples to Help You Get Started
To Sum Up
With the marketing industry being fast-paced and consumers’ behavior ever-changing, it’ll be interesting to see which of these trends will stick in the upcoming year and which ones are yet to emerge. What we do know for sure is that the only constant in B2B marketing is change.
