There are three important B2B marketing trends that, if properly harnessed by the sales and marketing team, can help to drive significant revenue growth at your company.
Trend #1: Video leads to positive ROI
Video has taken over the Internet. According to HubSpot, for example, video is the most thoroughly consumed piece of content on the Internet. That’s means that just about everywhere you look, video is winning, so it’s perhaps no surprise that video is also making an impact in the business world. Whereas video used to be a way just to drive brand awareness, it’s now become a way to drive return on investment (ROI). Video is now a key component of any successful content marketing strategy.
According to the Firebrand Group, 85 percent of marketers have seen positive ROI from video. And that’s on top of all the “soft” benefits of video – like customer loyalty and brand awareness. There are several obvious use cases for video. One of these is creating product videos for the products you sell. But you can also create “how-to” and “explainer” videos for the Internet audience – these are phenomenally popular, and can often be leveraged as part of a very effective content marketing strategy.
Trend #2: Social media is an important new content distribution channel
Traditionally, the two most important ways for B2B companies to distribute content was via their own website or via email. But now new research indicates that social media is quickly catching up. In fact, a new study asked B2B buyers where they preferred to receive their content. 28 percent said email, 26 percent said website and 27 percent said social media.
The solution here is to build up your social presence to be able to deliver this content that’s demanded by your audience. At the very least, a Facebook page or Twitter account can be used to crank out content on a regular basis. Or, you could use a social media vendor solution from a company like Agorapulse, which offers a way for agencies, small brands and large businesses to manage their social media presence. At the end of the day, you have to go where your customers are – no matter how effective your outbound marketing efforts are, you can’t expect that they will be clicking on your website or signing up for your email newsletters.
Trend #3: Personalized content matters for B2B buyers
According to a recent Demand Gen report, 69 percent of B2B buyers say they are most influenced by the aspect of a company’s website content that speaks directly to their own needs. In other words, if the content on your website is geared only to a generic buyer, and not for a specific industry, vertical or niche, then you are potentially losing out on some very motivated buyers.
The solution, of course, is to create specialized content for specific industries. This is where it really pays off to know as much about your customer as possible. You can design
email newsletters with industry news, create webinars that are geared specifically to a target audience, update and customize product videos, and created dedicated blog content.
Even as more B2B buyers move to mobile, it’s easy to see how these trends will persist. In the case of video, for example, it can be argued that the popularity of mobile is what is driving the popularity of video. It’s easily the most popular form of content for mobile devices.
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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.