Marketing may vary depending on if you are Marketing to businesses or directly to consumers. That’s why an entirely different marketing method — B2B marketing — exists.

Marketing effectively is not an easy task. Between creative demands, budget limits, and channel decisions, marketers have to shuffle a lot of information to make the right decisions. The best determinant of effective marketing, however, is your audience. Your promotions and advertisements are likely to fall on deaf ears, if you are not targeting the right audience. You might as well not be marketing at all.

Listed below are a few B2B marketing trends for 2021 and beyond.

1. Content Marketing

Content is still a growth area for marketers. According to research, 49% companies are planning to increase their budget this year. Furthermore, most of the successful marketing organizations have a documented marketing strategy while very few of the least successful organizations have one.

Content is the core of B2B marketing as it can be used to attract, engage and convert customers. Giving more importance to content that is helpful vs “salesey” , personalised vs generic is the key for content marketing success in 2021.

2. Chatbots and Conversational Selling

By 2022, 70% of white-collar workers are expected to interact with conversational platforms on a daily basis.

Chatbots are being used by B2B marketers to provide basic support, filter content, gain contact information and nurture leads without using much human involvement. Chatbots can not only be used for brand websites or via email, they can also be used for B2B on Facebook messenger too. Chatbots and AI integration opens up opportunities for automated personalisation at scale.

3. CX (Customer Experience)

Customer experience has always been a very important aspect when it comes to marketing. It was a trending topic in 2020 and that trend continues in 2021 as well. B2B brands seek to differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive online market . Research revealed that personalized customer experiences ranked among the top three factors that drive sales for business buyers and 90% of B2B executives cite CX as a very important factor to achieving their organizations’ strategic priorities. Additionally, research found that “more than 80% of business purchasers want consumer-level customer experience, less than 30% of B2B customers say suppliers provide excellent customer experience.” That gap simply spells opportunity for B2B brands that want to capitalize and differentiate from competitors who are only paying executive lip service to CX.

4. Visual Content

Visual content like images and videos play a major part in creating a more engaging experience. They not only inform B2B buyers about solutions, but also connect on a more visual and emotional level. Studies show that more than half of the buyers would like to see more video content from the business they support. Cisco predicts that videos will represent 80% of all Internet traffic in 2021.

5. ABM

The popularity of Account Based Marketing has been growing rapidly. 92% of B2B companies feel ABM is essential part of a company’s B2B marketing strategy.

When it comes to customer acquisition, there is often a disconnect in B2B organizations between sales and marketing. ABM is the best solution for that as it brings sales and marketing together. ABM also allows B2B marketers to get more personalized and specific, enabling them to better connect and engage with their target customers.

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