With just over a month to go before the New Year, business authors, analysts and executives have been busy churning out their predictions for 2017. If you’re confused by the growing array of technologies, platforms and channels that now comprise the marketing technology stack, these three predictions can help you make sense of the big picture of how technology is impacting the world of B2B marketing.
#1: We’ll hear more about artificial intelligence as a B2B marketing tool
Already, three major technology companies – IBM, Salesforce and Microsoft – have released AI-powered solutions for large enterprises. The offerings from Salesforce (Einstein) and Microsoft (Dynamics 365) are perhaps the most interesting because they hint at the way that AI can be used to drive more effective marketing strategies.
It’s about more than just finding the needle in the haystack, either. It’s about creating entirely new types of customer experiences, in which computers and algorithms are used to create personalized and customized experiences. Chris Golec, founder and CEO of Demandbase, refers to this as the “B2B business concierge.” It’s a way to create an improved buyer’s journey, in which every step and every interaction can be personalized and customized. You can think of this like a hotel concierge, who is waiting and ready to help you with just the right content at just the right time.
#2: Influencer marketing will cross over into B2B marketing in 2017
Influencer marketing continues to be a staple of many B2C brands, and now it looks like it could cross over in a big way to B2B brands. At its core, influencer marketing means that brands no longer need to market to a mass audience – they only need to market to the “influentials” (measured in terms of social or professional status), and these influencers will then help to drive the purchasing behaviors of others.
Josh Steimle, author of “Chief Marketing Officers at Work,” predicts that business authors, podcasters, speakers and top executives will be the influencers that everyone wants to engage. For companies looking to sell very large or very sophisticated products, these influencers could be an important way to explain the product in a way that will make it more attractive to a wider audience.
#3: Predictive analytics will become even more powerful in 2017
Big Data is one of those buzzwords that seems like it can’t get any bigger. However, as the amount of data in the business world continues to grow exponentially, there’s still plenty of data out there that companies aren’t fully leveraging. For that reason, a growing number of companies are turning to predictive analytics solutions from vendors like Mintigo.
While companies may do a great job of analyzing conventional customer data, they may not be as well-equipped to analyze all of the other data that goes into the purchasing decision. For example, as Harriet Green of IBM’s Watson Internet of Things division suggests, there’s still room to analyze data with regard to social sentiment, micro trends, weather, domestic and international events, and economic news. In other words, a buyer is making a decision based on a lot of factors that current predictive models may not be taking into account.
The goal, of course, is to predict what the buyer will do next. In order to do that, you have to take into account the many external factors that impact the purchase decision. The more factors you are able to analyze, the more powerful your predictive engine becomes.
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Dane
Dane Cobain is a published author, freelance writer, book blogger, poet and (occasional) musician from High Wycombe, UK. Before going freelance, he worked as a social media marker, now specialising in writing about publishing, technology and marketing.