In October, Econsultancy released its new B2B Digital Trends Report, which outlines some of the major priorities facing B2B marketers as they revamp and re-tool for 2017. Here are four of the top priorities:
Priority #1: Content Optimization
Organizations are creating so much content these days – especially for social media and content marketing campaigns – that it can sometimes seem overwhelming. Which of this content is actually driving results and conversions, and which is not? That’s why B2B marketers are increasingly focused on ways to optimize all this content, such as via new vendor offerings that enable them to track how that content is performing over time. Once they are able to track performance, they will be in a better position to customize and personalize it for optimal efficiency.
Priority #2: Data-Driven Marketing
Big Data is perhaps one of the biggest buzzwords in business, so it’s perhaps no surprise that marketers are also looking at how they can use this data to boost their overall performance. The core idea here is that data has the potential to make marketers smarter about what they do. For example, the data might show that there is an emerging niche for their product that they’ve never considered before. Or, the data might show that there are certain customer needs that are not yet being addressed effectively.
Priority #3: Customer Experience Strategy
B2B marketers are also placing more emphasis than ever before on designing a great customer experience. Basically, this means that the entire customer journey – from the point where they first hear about you to the final sale – is now ready to be optimized. But in order to do that, there needs to be a strategy to guide the decision-making process, and this strategy needs to be shared with the entire marketing team. It’s important to be able to identify specific parts of the customer journey that are leading to bottlenecks in the overall sales process.
Priority #4: Optimization of Multiple Touch Points
Just a few years ago, the number of customer touch points was relatively small. But there has been an explosion of new digital channels and platforms. And that has brands scrambling to figure out how they can be present across multiple touch points in a way that really adds value. For some brands, it may mean doubling down on some channels and forgetting about others. For other companies, it may mean pushing harder into certain areas – such as mobile – that show the greatest potential moving forward.
In general, as Econsultancy points out, many of the priorities in the B2B world echo those in the B2C world, with a slight 12-to-24 month lag. So for an even longer look ahead at what might happen in the B2B world, keep your eye on trends in the B2C world. But it’s clear that a few big ideas – such as optimizing content and using Big Data to create a better customer experience – will continue to be embraced as we head into 2017.
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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.