B2B marketing trends to grow small business

B2B marketing strategies have changed tremendously over the past few years and continue to evolve in step with digital marketing technology. Out of these relentless changes in technology, several new B2B marketing trends have emerged and others continue to show surprising strength.

Current B2B Marketing Trends for Small Business

Here’s a list of six B2B marketing trends that all small business owners should consider. Each can have a significant impact on your revenue growth and customer retention.

1. Account-Based Marketing

Many B2B organizations are now adopting account-based marketing strategies to offer an unparalleled customer engagement that is both authentic and responsive. While the traditional B2B marketing strategies focus more on building broad awareness for its audience, account-based marketing works on the concept of targeting value accounts with appropriate bespoke messaging. As account-based marketing strategy treats each customer account individually and updates buyers with seller’s efficient and highly relevant propositions. It ultimately helps companies to land bigger accounts and improve their customer retention.

2. Virtual and Augmented Reality

Many B2B companies are investing in technologies which embrace virtual and augmented reality to engage with their audience. The immersive and emotional experience of virtual and augmented reality is proven to attract customer attention towards various brands. (The chart below illustrates the huge spending across various industries.)

With the help of artificial intelligence, marketers can predict specific target accounts and develop customized strategies for improved customer engagement. Virtual and augmented reality can also be used to conduct futuristic webinars where B2B marketing companies can add customers to a virtual product simulation and address customer queries based on a one-to-one interaction between the marketers and the viewers.

value of virtual and augmented reality in marketingSource: Statista, Augmented and Virtual Reality Spending by Business Segment

 

3. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing has evolved rapidly over the past few years. Its recent global value of influencer marketing on Instagram has been estimated as a whopping 1.07 billion US Dollars. In B2B marketing, partnering with an influencer offers more than just Instagram product placement, as it builds various opportunities for receiving expert recommendations, creating parallel marketing strategies with other brands, and investing in client studies. An affiliation with a suitable industry influencer enhances the credibility and exposure of B2B companies.

4. Social Media Marketing

Studies report that social media presence has a strong impact on brand value. With 77% of the total USA population having a profile on one of the social-media network, social-media platforms are the most commonly and widely used channels by B2B marketers for engaging numerous customers.

As social-media users are on the constant look-out for leisure and resourceful content on social-media, networks like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn have proved to be useful for B2B companies for influencing readers by posting high quality and focused content. Recently the addition of new features on LinkedIn has made it a bigger platform for indirect marketing. By involving the management team on LinkedIn, B2B companies can also put themselves under a bigger spotlight by showcasing the expertise of their key players. 

5. Multimedia Content Creation

While text-based content holds a significant importance in B2B marketing, multimedia content with interactive format acts as the visual face of content marketing. Visual content like videos and animations are quite useful for B2B companies in improving their brands by connecting with the audience through visuals that are relatable as well as informational. Another trending feature of multimedia marketing which has gained popularity recently is a “Live Video.” In Live Video, the product is demonstrated live on social media and the business is able to instantly answer the queries of its customers.

6. Email Marketing

This is one of the oldest and proven tools of marketing used by B2B companies all over the world. Email marketing is the most reliable way to keep customers aware of your brand. It also helps the marketers evaluate the response of its customers. With the use of email marketing software, B2B companies can not only manage their subscribers efficiently, but they also collect advanced customer information, analyze customer behavior, schedule content pushes, and build additional revenue streams by circulating premium content.

Conclusion

These marketing trends, when combined properly with marketing campaigns, are already proven to be beneficial for B2B companies in our ever-changing business environment. With a little thought and planning, each can be implemented in nearly any small business.

Granted, concepts such as account-based marketing and virtual or augmented reality need larger investments. Yet B2B companies aiming for remarkable revenue growth with smaller investments can simply upgrade and expand upon their existing marketing techniques such as email marketing and content marketing.

Our guest author Anna Clarke is the owner of online writing company 15 Writers. She is a successful entrepreneur with over 20 years’ experience in both freelancing and academic writing industries, specializing in Business, Economics, Finance, Marketing and Management.

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