In mid-October, Forrester will be hosting a big B2B marketing forum in Miami, and it’s worth taking a look at some of the big themes for the event. After all, the event – B2B Marketing 2016 – promises to bring together some of the biggest and most successful B2B marketers in the world, including Honeywell Aerospace and The Weather Company (and IBM Business). So what will they be talking about?
Theme #1: Prospects are self-educating themselves
One big trend is what Forrester refers to as “self-service marketing” – the notion that prospects are self-educating themselves about your products and services. That means they want to have as much choice as possible between different content formats and channels. They are literally picking and choosing where they want to learn more about how your products work, and how they integrate with their existing services.
That obviously has big implications for how you think about the typical B2B sales funnel. Instead of knowing where and how prospects are entering the funnel, it could be the case, as some suggest, that they are already diving in headfirst before you know they’re in there.
Theme #2: Passion is the new buzzword
Prospects still want to hear “stories” and be engaged in “conversations,” but they also want to see the emotion and passion that you bring to your product offerings. This means that customers no longer want to hear just facts, details and statistics, they also want to hear about things like your company’s vision for the industry and the type of mission that unites your team. Forrester refers to this as “pushing passion.”
This could be a clear sign that the traditional B2C marketing approach – based on emotions, passions and preferences – is making its way over to the B2B marketing industry. Look for B2B marketing to become even more “social” heading into 2017.
Theme #3: The line between physical and digital marketing is blurring
This is really a continuation of an existing trend – the blurring of the line between the physical and digital worlds. One key example of this is how companies are now doing a much better job of integrating social media campaigns into physical world events, such as trade shows and exhibitions. It’s not just that companies are using social media – think Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn – to promote events, it’s that they are using social media to engage participants once they’ve arrived.
Expect to see the same blurring of the line to continue in 2017. If anything, mobile is accelerating this trend, since mobile has turned out to be a key platform for B2B social media early adopters. Forrester refers to this as “leading the charge to customer obsession.”
So these 3 key trends – “self-service marketing,” the role of emotion and passion in helping companies tell stories and the blurring of the line between the physical and digital – are set to transform the B2B marketing landscape for the remainder of 2016 and into 2017. It will be interesting to see what specific recommendations and ideas come out of the Forrester B2B Marketing 2016 event.
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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.