B2B marketing is becoming increasingly important. A number of trends and techniques have now become established that will be and are already important in 2018 and beyond.
Let's take a look at the modern marketing techniques of 2018 together.
The trends in B2B marketing for 2018 and beyond
Although parts of 2018 have already passed, further trends are emerging that will remain valid in B2B marketing beyond the end of the year.
This is reflected in the fact that more and more companies are relying on these marketing techniques and implementing them in their internal processes.
The 7 most important marketing techniques in B2B marketing in 2018 are:
- Focusing on the buyer persona
- Influencers for building trust
- Personal contacts and personal presence with the customer
- Effective design of the customer journey
- Interdisciplinary teams for success
- Using big data effectively
- Content marketing remains the trump card
Focus on the people behind the companies
Many companies and the people within them make the mistake of seeing their B2B marketing partners as companies. This mistake makes it very difficult to establish and use the various contact options that are common in normal B2C marketing.
Many of these measures can be transferred in a targeted manner and, above all, without any problems if the focus is placed more on the individual people and decision-makers in the targeted companies.
The buyer persona must therefore be brought into focus. This is sometimes time-consuming, as it first has to be determined, but can then have a lasting influence on B2B marketing.
Because the main task now is to convince the key people of your own advantages and your own product or company.
The tools for this are more than familiar from B2C marketing and can be easily transferred. Building trust and strengthening your own brand in a targeted manner can have a lasting impact on the decisions of this group of people and benefit your own company.
Building trust through influencers
Trust in the brand and the products also plays an important role in B2B marketing. As with end customers, this trust can be built up in a targeted manner through influencers.
However, the selection of suitable influencers is much more challenging in B2B marketing, as these influencers generally need to be well-known and have a corresponding standing in the business world.
This usually also means that such influencers are significantly more expensive for the company and must therefore be used in a very targeted manner.
It is therefore important to focus on influencers who underline the professionalism of the company and who are believed in the quality of the advertised product based on their judgment.
The search for a suitable brand ambassador can be crucial for successful B2B marketing, but it can also tie up a lot of resources.
Personal presence strengthens brand awareness
Although sales are increasingly shifting to the online world in many industries, personal contacts and personal identification still play an important role in the B2B segment.
For this reason, you should not shy away from personal contact for successful B2B marketing, but actually seek it out.
Be active at the important trade fairs and meetings in your industry and make sure that your responsible employees are present.
This may only make a small difference at first and hardly pay off.
But the more often you show your presence and the more familiar the faces of your employees become to your B2B contacts, the more drive such a business relationship develops on a personal level.
Through the personal and human component, you create trust in your own product and your own company and can take B2B marketing to a whole new level.
Because personal contact has become rare in the online world and is still particularly valued by decision-makers in companies.
The customer journey in the focus of attention
Having already dealt with the buyer persona at the beginning, the aim in B2B marketing is to convince them of the benefits of your company in a targeted manner and encourage them to make a purchase decision.
The differences between B2C and B2B marketing are rather marginal here.
The aim is to accompany the buyer persona on their way to a purchase decision during the customer journey and to influence the customer at all touchpoints wherever possible. Important points of contact include:
- The search results on Google
- Online and offline advertisements
- Blog articles and content
- Newsletters
- Social media channels
- Trade fairs and events
Ideally, the customer is convinced and targeted at every touchpoint of the customer journey.
However, this is much more difficult in B2B marketing, as customers often react differently and need to be motivated differently than in B2C marketing.
For this reason, it is important to focus on a few touchpoints of the customer journey and to reinforce these for B2B marketing in particular.
Interdisciplinary teams for marketing success
In B2B marketing, it depends not least on successfully addressing the customer and business partner
Many people in marketing, however, are too caught up in their own world and are often distrusted due to their vocabulary and tasks.
For this reason, it is important in B2B marketing that the language of the customer is spoken at their decision-making level.
Interdisciplinary teams for B2B marketing offer the opportunity to bring more flexibility and adaptability to marketing and to meet the wishes and needs of customers even more effectively.
All areas of the company can be called upon here to provide targeted impetus and set the tone.
The use of big data is becoming increasingly important
Big data is more than just a buzzword.
In the B2B segment in particular, the available data about the customer and their business relationships play an important role.
As a company, it is not only important to collect this data, but also to process it efficiently and subsequently use it.
This not only requires the corresponding programs, but also the workflow of your own employees must be adapted to the use of the data.
This means that the processed data can be used in B2B marketing to develop targeted persuasion strategies or to adapt your own products and their presentation to the preferences of a potential business partner.
Content marketing as a pillar of B2B marketing
Content marketing means, above all, convincing the customer with sound expertise and satisfying their hunger for information.
In B2B business in particular, the purchasing process is often characterized by a long information-gathering phase.
Most companies now find out about potential suppliers and their products online.
The better your own online presence and the more control you have over the various data, the more effectively companies can position and present themselves in B2B marketing.
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