As the technology available to marketers continues to grow at an unprecedented rate, it becomes more and more challenging for brands to identify which tactics they should be adopting.
Despite this challenge, marketers must remain up-to-date with the latest and greatest tech trends and tactics in the B2B space, and having combined our current insights, here are what we perceive to be the three latest B2B tech trends you should be watching.
Data
The abundance of available data has transformed the way that we, as marketers, can access and analyse customer information, and generate insights to formulate future decisions.
Despite having access to a staggering amount of information, however, the challenge for many marketers lies in gaining value from it. With data fuelling the marketing technologies that organisations are becoming heavily reliant on – CRM, marketing automation etc. – there has become a subsequent requirement for high quality data to drive accurate decision making. As a result, data-as-a-service (DaaS) has emerged as an alternative to static list purchases, with the capabilities to obtain, validate and input data into marketing automation platforms, meaning that marketers no longer have to buy these prospecting lists, which expire very quickly. DaaS additionally reduces email bounce-back rates, improves segmentation, and feeds a far more accurate sales and marketing data process, and as a B2B tech trend it is expected that DaaS will continue to develop, providing full integration with CEM, marketing automation and predictive analytics platforms.
Hyper-Targeting
Hyper-targeting, or extreme targeting, has emerged as one of the next big frontiers among B2B marketers. While the breadth of data makes personalisation a reality, hyper-targeting leverages analytics to deliver the right message,
at the right time, in the right place, but only to a very specific audience segment. Using data to better refine messaging is not a new concept, but its success in engaging audiences on a highly personal level has increased the availability of platforms offering hyper-targeted approaches.
Only last month, Google announced their plans to let marketers target ads to specific people who use their email addresses when they use the search engine, Gmail or YouTube. This tool called Customer Match, will enable specific ads to be targeted at a brand’s existing customers, with the opportunity to tailor messaging based on their purchase histories or additional information. In addition, marketers will be able to use a tool called “Similar Audiences”, allowing them to serve ads to users who exhibit similar behaviours to their existing customers.
Another B2B tech trend to watch is account-based marketing (ABM). ABM has become a popular approach to hyper-targeting, with marketers leveraging its ability to target their marketing (largely online advertising) to an account level, as opposed to a typical individual level. For larger companies in particular, there are often as many as seven people involved in a technology purchase, and account-based marketing enables you to reach all of these buyers, on the channels they are using regularly, through IP-based targeting.
Storytelling
Crafting engaging and compelling stories in this digital era requires a tactful approach, executed with social in mind. The best B2B brands have, and continue to adopt storytelling techniques, in order to elicit an emotional response from their audience and drive action. While storytelling has in fact been used by B2B brands for many years, slow adoption across the B2B landscape means we remain way behind our counterparts, and B2B marketers must tell their story by producing compelling and contextually relevant content, that engages their audience.
Case studies have always been a popular format for storytelling, but as B2B tech trends continue to power successful storytelling, marketers are beginning to leverage a range of tactics, from short-form videos, employee spotlights, client interviews and events to resonate and ultimately forge an emotional connection with their target audience. Additionally, digital storytelling is being leveraged by many marketers to create better interactivity to enhance both the messaging and user experience.
As B2B technology trends continue to evolve, marketers must keep up-to-date with the changes in the B2B space, ensuring their strategies are adapted accordingly. Our guide to the Changing B2B Marketing Landscape has been developed to help marketers make the most of the latest shifts in marketing, and plan and implement highly successful campaigns in a modern day environment.
