The significant changes in the world have influenced how business-to-business (B2B) organizations handle marketing. As such, you must re-evaluate your processes, tactics, and strategies to remain competitive and relevant in this fast-paced business world.
As a start, B2B marketers need to keep up with the latest B2B marketing trends to grow their organizations and strive. This article enumerates the top five B2B marketing trends to expect in 2023.
Table of Contents
Adoption Of Generative AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) has many applications in the marketing industry, including personalizing customer experience and data analytics. As AI continues to improve at a fantastic rate, it’s expected to play more critical roles in marketing this 2023 and in the coming years.
One promising application of AI is B2B content marketing. B2B marketers are under increased pressure to produce targeted, high-quality content that provides real value to their users while standing out.
As such, technologies like generative AI are becoming mainstream. These tools use AI to generate text and improve content creation. That said, the world is yet to be ready to entirely turn over content production to an AI since plagiarism and content spinning are significant issues that can drop your SEO ranking. These tools allow content marketers to boost personalization and accelerate the creation with considerable tweaking.
B2B Buyers Demand Self-Service
A report revealed that 100% of buyers want a self-service feature for their buying journey. It’s true for B2B buyers, who want to control how they move through the buying journey and find only the best organizations to partner with.
Thus, consider how well you do on this part. Can a B2B buyer experience a demo or free trial on their own? Do they have access to a knowledge base to introduce them to your products without talking to a sales rep?
Regardless, B2B marketers must meet their buyers’ expectations in 2023 and equip them to move through the sales funnel independently.
Social Media Continues To Be A Critical Platform To Establish Transparency And Trust
Transparency and trust are some of the main elements of any good B2B relationship. More than 90% of clients would stay loyal to a company that offers complete transparency. And transparency equates to trust, which can make or break your B2B organization. After all, trust is one of the main reasons why buyers choose one business over another.
To fully showcase transparency and trust, B2B companies continue leveraging social media to become transparent about who they are, what they offer, and how they do it, ultimately building awareness and trust. Moreover, B2B marketers include transparency and trust when producing and sharing content on their social accounts.
Furthermore, there’s an increased focus on sharing client stories, testimonials, real-time customer feedback, and case studies. B2B brands are also working on providing regular updates about company performance, allowing clients to see their workplace culture and values.
The Adoption Of B2B Influencers
Influencer marketing is a hit in the business-to-customer (B2C) industry. However, in 2023, expect more influencers to accept marketing requests from B2B brands.
Influencers are a modern and powerful version of traditional word-of-mouth marketing. Leveraging their existing audience, partnering with an influencer can help B2B brands reach a wide range of audiences, from owners of small-time businesses to managers of large corporations.
Statistics show that over 70% of B2B marketers planned to invest more in influencer marketing last year and expect to continue this year. Moreover, the average budget allocated for influencer marketing is increasing yearly, making influencers a significant partner for increasing B2B marketing success and sales.
Video Is Still On The Rise
For years, experts have been saying that video is on the rise, and they continue to be right. The video has a significant surge every year.
Video is a great way to capture awareness as users’ attention spans continue to decrease due to the readily available content. A report revealed that more than 85% of users are likelier to buy or invest in a product or service after watching a well-made, informative video.
As such, B2B marketers are more likely to leverage this type of content in their marketing agenda. Statistics show that video was top of their budget priority for content, with almost 70% of marketers saying it was a key priority in 2022. This 2023, the number jumped to 9% more which means nearly 80% of marketers now focus on video as their top priority for content marketing.
Takeaway
B2B marketing is an ever-changing landscape. What has worked in the past may no longer be effective today or evolve tomorrow. Plus, innovations and technologies introduce new conveniences and challenges that B2B marketers must face head-on.
As such, you always want to be prepared and ready to adapt to the shifting environment of B2B marketing. And hopefully, this article has helped you get started on the right foot.