The Latest B2B Tech Trends to Watch
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.
The Top 10 Changes in B2B PR Over the Last Decade
The driver behind effective PR remains the same as it did 10, 20 even 30 years ago: strong messaging and quality writing. So what exactly has changed in PR from then to now? Well, just about everything. Here are our top 10 changes in B2B PR from the last decade.
Get Your Guide to the Changing B2B Marketing Landscape.
1. Increased Channels.
One of the biggest changes in B2B PR is in fact the balance of power. While still influential, the media no longer controls everything, and the vast majority of B2B brands have adopted both owned media channels and paid media tactics within their strategy, providing a platform for conveying their own messages. In other words, cutting out the middle man. Despite this, earned media is still incredibly valuable, as there is no replacement for third party endorsement of your brand and products or services.
On the flipside, the pendulum continues to swing towards consumers. While owned media has enabled B2B marketers to create their own channels of communication, coupled with the fact that digital content is so easy to distribute, there has been a subsequent increase in the opportunities. This has subsequently shifted the power to consumers as they are faced with increasing choices.
2. Measurement.
Back in 2005, PR professionals were just beginning to realise the importance of measuring PR against business outcomes. More specifically, PR measurement had begun to venture beyond the volume of press clippings, and towards the impact that the campaign had on the audience’s perception, market share and ultimately sales. Fast forward ten years, and PR measurement is still very much a trend. We’ve just dug deeper, and drilled down on the data, analytics and insight from both campaigns and the market, helping to make informed future decisions.
3. Storytelling.
In recent years, there has been a huge shift in the way marketers and PR professionals communicate with their target audiences, and one of the biggest changes in B2B PR is the number of companies adopting a storytelling approach within their communications. The art of brand storytelling combines messaging and narrative, to create engagement and inspire the audience to take action, ultimately by positioning a product or service as a solution to their problems. While B2C brands have been leveraging storytelling techniques for years, it is much newer in B2B, in fact, it is only really been since B2B brands such as GE began using storytelling to connect with audiences on both a personal and human level, that it became acknowledged as an important tactic for B2B marketers.
4. Social Media.
Can you imagine a world without Twitter? Well, less than a decade ago Twitter didn’t exist. Like it or loathe it, it goes without saying that social media has changed the face of PR, with LinkedIn, Twitter, even Facebook, providing a platform for companies to engage with their audiences directly, while building awareness and establishing credibility and trust amongst existing and potential customers. Specifically, social media provides a way for brands to get people talking, encourage the sharing of posts and increase WOM marketing. As if that wasn’t enough, social media now provides hyper-targeting tools, serving up relevant content based on users demographics.
5. Achieving More With Less.
Following the recession, marketers and PR professionals alike were faced with smaller budgets and had to make decisions on where to focus their energy, and ultimately their marketing spend. Today, the advent of new technologies and platforms, coupled with the changing B2B buying journey, has meant that there are significantly more opportunities available to marketers, and these marketers must subsequently allocate smaller budgets per channel, across a range of tactics and platforms.
6. Integration.
Perhaps the biggest change in B2B PR is that the lines between PR and SEO, advertising, digital marketing etc., are increasingly blurring. PR no longer works in isolation, and with online and offline marketing tactics becoming more and more integrated, marketers must effectively deliver consistent strategy and messaging across a range of mediums. It is vital that while PR professionals should retain their core skills, they must also adapt to these changes.
7. Increased pressure on journalists.
As marketers are faced with increasing channel options, journalists are subsequently put under increasing pressure. Whether we accept it or not, the decline in print readership and advertising has severely impacted the B2B magazine model, and while many have retained some power and remain profitable, many of the most successful publications have had no choice but to transition towards digital. Despite once owning the must-have information, publications, and even more specifically journalists now face huge competition, largely from owned media channels. With declining readerships, less control, smaller editorial teams and heavy competition from an array of digital options, including programmatic media buying, journalists must adapt with digital, if they are to remain relevant and influential.
8. Real-time.
Another change in B2B PR, is that PR has become a real-time business. While social media played a part in transforming the way the industry views PR, the internet as a whole has transformed the art of public relations. With news breaking as it happens, PR pros must be prepared to respond instantly. New-cycles are no longer measured in days, but in minutes and hours, and ‘newsjacking’ has been widely adopted as a tactic for providing comment or opinion at a critical moment of media interest, in-turn raising awareness and often changing perception. B2B PR professionals must be able to operate in a real-time environment, via a multitude of channels, while communicating with both target audiences and industry influencers.
9. Space vs. Attention.
Just over 10 years ago, marketers and PR professionals were still largely fighting for space; column inches, advertising etc. Today, these same marketers and PR professionals are fighting for attention. The proliferation of digital channels, and subsequent overload of information has lent way to shrinking attention spans. Marketers must now be able to stand out from the noise, capture their audience’s attention in a matter of seconds, and provide quality and engaging communications. Video, as an example, is the fastest growing medium for B2B communications, and has become a highly effective way for brands to convey their key messages.
10. Content Marketing.
Content is integral to almost all marketing communications tactics, PR included, as its purpose is to increase visibility and drive action. Content is no longer optional, it is a necessity, playing a vital role in nurturing prospects into sales-ready leads. Additionally, from a PR perspective, content isn’t just about development, it’s also about distribution. With the advent of owned media, content helps deliver long-term growth, increase search engine ranking and develop a brand’s position as a thought leader.
21 Marketing Tips and Takeaways from Inbound 2015
Boston; home of Fenway Park, the Freedom Trail, too many Dunkin Donut’s to count and HubSpot’s annual Inbound Conference. Having returned from Inbound 2015, we’re happy to say it didn’t disappoint. With inspirational keynotes and speeches from the likes of Seth Godin, Brene Brown and Aziz Ansari, it’s safe to say we laughed a lot, thought a lot and ultimately learned a lot. Having combed our notes from over 26 hours of learning, 5.5 hours of keynotes and endless queueing, here are our key marketing tips and takeaways from Inbound 2015.
1. “Design for ideal customers, NOT just any customers.” Avoid designing content or landing pages for the masses, and instead focus specifically on the people who really matter. Oli Gardener, founder of Unbounce, reinforced the importance of designing with only your ideal customers in mind. At the end of the day, you can’t please everyone, so don’t even try.
2. “Weak content WON’T cut it.” Nobody owes you their time and attention, and you are not entitled to it. How do you overcome this? Write content that not only moves an audience, but more specifically moves a human being.
3. “Passion doesn’t always follow the brand guidelines.” Copyblogger’s Sonia Simone discussed how, as marketers, we sometimes have to look beyond brand guidelines, in order to produce content that resonates with our audience and moves people to take action.
4. “Take every opportunity to understand a customers’ pain points.” If you don’t get it, you can’t make content that resonates with them. Take every opportunity to learn about your customers, and use this insight to build buyer personas around them. This will guide your communications.
5. “Don’t always follow the buzz.” This is something we constantly tell our clients’, after all what works for B2C won’t necessarily work for B2B, and what works for IT won’t necessarily work for electronics. And vice versa. Again, Sonia Simone reinforced that your chosen tactics and platforms should come down to your industry, and where exactly your audience are. If Snapchat or Instagram aren’t a great fit, don’t use them.
6. “Negative statements are more powerful than positive statements.” Talking about the psychology of the audience, Oli Gardener discussed how the use of negative statements on forms and pop ups can actually increase conversions. Take an in-app game upsell for instance, we are more likely to click ‘keep going’ over ‘give up’.
7. “Remove distractions to increase conversion rates on a landing page.” Keep it simple, and keep the attention ratio as 1:1. That means only include 1 thing on a page.
8. “Not everything a marketer does will work.” Remember, you can’t be successful 100% of the time, so experiment with your marketing. See what works, and what doesn’t, and use this insight to formulate future decisions.
9. “Headlines are read 5x more than body copy.” Headlines are significantly important, and play a huge role in enticing potential customers’, increasing share-ability and growing your audience. Never underestimate the power of the headline, and ensure they are optimised for your audience.
10. “Provide enough curiosity to entice a click.” HubSpot’s Kieran Flanagan, discusses how marketers should adopt the curiosity gap mind-set. Don’t be too vague or too specific.
11. “Search is still no.1 priority.” Search is imperative, as this audience is actively seeking you out. They are a willing audience, and will be searching for a solution to something that you do. With that in mind, rank well for the terms that your audience will be asking.
12. “Without content you do not exist.” Jason Falls again reinforces the fact that content is ultimately what makes you visible, so don’t underestimate its power and influence.
13. “There is no easy button.” Nothing worth having comes easy, so invest time, experiment with techniques and learn what works and what doesn’t.
14. “Aim to get swiped right.” Aziz Ansari’s keynote discussed how availability and options in the digital era are unlimited, and the principle applies to everything from the dating scene to grocery shopping to B2B purchases. We all have the ability to swipe right (Tinder speak for saying you are attracted to someone), and with increasing options, as B2B marketers we need to up our game, and provide a great user experience that gets swiped right.
15. “Don’t de-humanise the relationship between your brand and your audience.” Talking about his recent book ‘Modern Romance’, Aziz Ansari discusses how the advent of dating apps, and technology in general, makes it easy for us to de-humanise people. As marketers, we need to avoid this. While there are no swipe left options, many marketers are at risk of de-humanising their audience through the use of technology. Keep your communications personal and relevant.
16. “Segmentation, Segmentation, Segmentation!” Email marketing has evolved massively, and unfortunately bulk distribution no longer cuts it. Results come from sending the right message to the right people at the right time, and only once you’ve mastered that will you see real success from your campaigns.
17. “If it’s not your problem, make it your problem.” Todd Rowe, MD Google Global Sales, discussed how often companies fall because of their very narrow approach. Take Google Translate for example: they created a solution to their user’s problem. You want growth? Instead of running into a wall and going the other way, perhaps breaking the wall is a better long-term solution.
18. “In order to grow, you need to let yourself be vulnerable.” In a keynote that was nothing less than inspirational and moving, Research Professor Brene Brown, opened up about vulnerability and communication. Behind true success is failure, and in order to rise you need to let yourself be vulnerable, face risk, learn from it and embrace it. Don’t shy away from making decisions on the risk that they may not succeed.
19. “Content marketing should focus on mobile first.” Will Critchlow talked about the future of search, and stressed that we are now in an era where people search more on mobile than any other device. He further reinforced that you don’t necessarily need to start building things differently, rather expand and “build different things.”
20. “Forget about being first in the inbox.” Discussing the ‘seven reasons even your mom would ignore your email’, Tom Monoghan highlighted how sending your email on a Tuesday is no longer a good idea. Everyone now sends on a Tuesday. Forget about being first in the inbox, there is no such thing! He also reinforced the truth we’ve all been running from. If they’re not opening your emails, drop them. When they don’t open, stop sending. Oh, that hurt…
21. “If you want to rank high – your content needs to be 10 times better than the content occupying that first page spot!” Jonathan Gettle reinforced how every piece of content you produce should answer a search query, and predicts that in the future, SEO will be all about in-app optimisation.
While we’re working on taking this all on board, it would be great to hear your thoughts on what you believe are the biggest changes in B2B Marketing. You may also find our guide to the Changing B2B Marketing Landscape to be insightful.
LinkedIn Launches Tool to Measure Users’ Professional Brand
Users with a high Social Selling Index are 51% more likely to meet their sales targets
LinkedIn has released a data-driven score tool called Social Selling Index (SSI), which enables companies to measure how successful they are at promoting their brand on the site, and how effective they are at engaging other members.
LinkedIn’s SSI monitors users’ activity across four categories; professional brand, finding people, engaging with insights and building relationships, in order to generate a score out of 100, which members can use to compare with their network and industry, and measure progress over time.
The social network claims that sales people with a high Social Selling Index are 51% more likely to meet their targets. and further hope that this recent development will encourage users to better use its platform in order to reach the many users involved in the B2B decision making process.
Kevin Scott, head of LinkedIn Sales Solutions, EMEA said: “The use of social media for business development and sales is not a new phenomenon, and ‘social selling’ is becoming well established. However, this is the first time professionals have had access to a data-driven tool that looks at a broad range of factors to help them identify areas where they can improve over time and, ultimately, be more successful growing their businesses on LinkedIn.”
Previously only available to paying LinkedIn users, the tool has now been rolled out across its 380 million users.
5 Things B2B Buyers Want from Your Content
Every savvy marketer knows that content marketing has become a crucial element in nurturing prospects into sales-ready leads, but it’s not often that, as marketers, we get pure insight from the B2B buyers themselves, as to what they value and ultimately want from content.
Fortunately for us, CMI have recently interviewed over 100 business and IT executives across various industries, to understand their buying journey and the resources they consult to guide their purchasing decisions.
Here are the five things B2B buyers want from your content (remember, you won’t get a second shot)…
#1 Clearly emphasise the impact of your solution on their business
More specifically, emphasise anything that can help to build the business case for change. Dependant on the urgency of your solution to a business, you may well be competing with other projects for limited resources in the buyer’s organisation, and getting the buyer on side may not be the final hurdle. In these instances, your content should help the buyer convince the decision-makers of their company, of the importance of your solution, helping them to communicate the ROI of fixing the problem that your solution addresses.
Successfully achieving this will position yourself as a valuable resource, making your organisation the go-to brand for if and when the buyer makes a purchase. There are several ways your content can help to achieve this:
- Make it clear how the problem has a greater impact than you might initially think
- Emphasise the opportunity ROI, by explaining how fixing this problem enables the business to save costs or mitigate risk
- Make comparisons to what it will be like using new business systems, processes and user experiences with the existing ones.
- Weigh the positives and negatives of fixing the problem versus doing nothing.
- Provide proof of the value of your solution, through the use of case studies.
#2 Less isn’t just more, it’s necessary…
It’s likely you will only have a potential customer’s attention for 3-7 seconds (roughly 90 words), and if in this time your website fails to convince the buyer that your solutions meets their needs, your company will be eliminated from consideration. Ensure the short-form messages on your homepage and product pages are worthy of convincing buyers to invest more time researching your solution.
Unfortunately, to achieve this you must know for certain what it is they’re looking for in the first place. Consider interviewing your audience to generate the following insights:
- What are they looking for in a solution and vendor, and what criteria do they use to make comparisons?
- Why is each criterion important, and what impact does it have on their business?
- How do buyers evaluate the criterion among vendors?
- How do buyers decide which vendor to select?
#3 In-depth product info will help determine the short-list
Convincing a buyer that your solution is worth consideration through the short-form messages on your site, is only the first step. Without robust marketing materials that helps the buyer understand the breadth & depth of the product or service, and your capabilities as a company, you are unlikely to make it on the short-list. To be persuasive, your content must explain how you meet each criterion, why you do it better than your competitors, and how you back up your claims with proof points. It’s important not to overwhelm potential customers, however, so consider layering your content so that they can drill down on each criterion as and when they choose:
- Criteria overview: On your product page, consider opening with a brief value proposition, followed by a list of the buyer’s criteria that your solution addresses.
- Criterion ‘how’ page: Consider linking each criterion to its own dedicated page that explains exactly how your product/service meets the criterion, as well as why your approach is better than the competitions.
- Criterion proof points: You should always try and back up each claim using industry research, product metrics and customer proof points i.e. benefits and ROI.
- Provide further depth: In addition, you should provide an in-depth explanation with technical details, of how your offering meets their criterion. This is a great time to place your content behind a registration wall, in order to generate quality leads!
- Accommodate information preferences: Finally, you should provide content in different formats and lengths to accommodate content preferences and time constraints.
#4 Detailed, but relevant, case studies
Case studies must go beyond stating the benefits, and provide details that will give the buyer a sense of whether your solution is applicable to their business using the resources available to them.
When you interview buyers to uncover insights about how they make their purchasing decisions, you should be able to capture a significant amount of the information required to produce more helpful, detailed case studies. You should try and get answers to the following questions:
- What were their key business goals or priorities?
- What was preventing them from achieving these goals?
- What triggered them to do something about the problem?
- What did they expect to change after implementing the solution?
- What people, business processes, systems and technologies were affected?
- What time and resources did they have for getting this done?
- What were some of the major challenges they had to overcome?
- How and why did they choose the vendor they did?
- What tangible and intangible benefits and ROI did they see?
#5 Help to sell your solution to internal stakeholders
It’s important that your content helps the buyer market the idea of your solution to the top tiers of the organisation, as well as persuading them why there’s a need for it. Contextualising messages at each level (industry, company, department and individual), can help marketing add tremendous value to the sales process. When tailoring your content to each level, consider:
- Industry: Explain how your solution adds value to industry-specific business processes, channels and customer segments.
- Company: Reinforce exactly how your solution and the problem it solves is linked to a broader business objective, and how you can help achieve it.
- Department: Address specific priorities, concerns and requirements of each department that is affected by the problem.
- Individual: Appeal to an individuals’ intellect and emotion, by explaining how solving the problem will help the individual’s professional life.
If you'd like any help implementing an effective content marketing strategy, give us a call on +44 (0)1243 531123, or send us over an email to mike@napier.co.uk.
Experiencing the other side of Napier: Life as a Napier Intern
Time really does fly when you’re having fun! I can’t believe I’ve now been interning one day a week at Napier for over four months! In my time here, I’ve been helping the Napier team with several little (and sometimes big) tasks, and it’s been really insightful to have spent some of my time here helping Aimee, the business development executive. Business development is completely different from what I have previously done whilst working at Napier, and having come from a solid PR background, it’s been great to see the other side of Napier and develop an understanding of the process of how Napier targets potential clients and markets itself, as well as the clients.
Whilst working with Aimee I have spent a lot of time researching interesting blog ideas and new target companies, as well as updating content for Napier and actually writing some of the content which is very fun – as I do like writing. I’ve learnt that business development (or biz dev as we say) is something that I would definitely consider pursuing.
My university studies are going well. I have now finished the first term of my third and final year and have received my grades back for the first term modules. I’m happy and am on track to get a 2:1 or even a 1st class if I really push myself.
I have also now started, very slowly, to write my dissertation. For someone who likes writing – 10,000 words on a topic of my choice is shockingly hard to do. Being somewhat of a perfectionist it makes it a particularly hard to finish one section and move on to the next. And one thing I’m really not looking forward to do is paying for the printing of two copies once I eventually finish it! (I am a student after all!)
Although it does help and keep me on track having a supportive team asking me how I’m doing each week, and how much work I’ve done on my dissertation. I find it especially helpful knowing Napier has two employees, Diana and Cara, who have graduated from exactly the same course as me.
My time here has flown by, even though I only come in once a week, but I’m really looking forward to spending my final month working on some great campaigns for Napier!
Returning to Napier for round 2…
Hi, I’m Chloe Attwood, now a third year student at Southampton Solent University studying BA (Hons) Public Relations and Communication. During the very long summer break us PR students get, we are required to complete 2 two week industry placements. I knew I wanted to work at a B2B PR agency and when Mike Maynard, managing director of Napier, offered me a chance to work for them I was thrilled.
I first joined Napier back in May, which scarily seems not that long ago! I was at Napier for a total of six weeks doing everything from writing tip sheets to editing videos and using SEO tools to measure the successfulness of key words on client’s websites. I loved working in a B2B agency, it was everything I expected busy, a little stressful and a lot of work, but everything about that appealed to me.
When my six weeks came to an end at Napier, I completed two other PR internships over the long university summer break. It was really good for me to do internships, it kept me busy and I really would recommend other students do it, even if it’s just to clarify that you’re doing the right course and the industry is the one you want to spend the rest of your life in.
I was offered the chance to come back to Napier when my six weeks was up on a one day a week basis, which of course I accepted. Now I’m back just one day a week helping out doing things such as writing blog posts, organising events and writing material for the Napier insider. If you haven’t already guessed – I like to write.
So now instead of being at Napier full time, I’m here just one day a week. I really did miss the team and the working environment, it’s so different from being a student to say the least. One thing I haven’t missed though, are the dreaded trains!
Being at Napier has not only given me real PR experience but it’s also confirmed that working in a B2B environment is what I want to do.
So let’s bring on next month’s adventures…
Napier Grows the Team with Two New Hires
Napier continues to expand its team by appointing Mike Flower as senior account manager and Chloe Attwood as a PR intern. Both Mike and Chloe join Napier at a time of growth for the company, which has won four new clients in the IT and Electronics industries since the beginning of the year.
Mike brings considerable technology PR and marketing experience to Napier, having held a number of positions in the industry, including working at global PR agency Edelman, running an international marcom business in Finland, and a variety of roles at B2B technology publishers. Mike will provide strategic direction and campaign execution for a range of technology accounts, as well as supporting the team with his technical writing skills.
Chloe, who is currently studying towards a Public Relations degree at Southampton Solent University, will work on a range of projects including content generation, business development and video production.
Welcome to the team Mike and Chloe!