B2B Marketing Trends In 2016 Focus On Content Marketing Strategies For Promotion
Although the B2B market is smaller than the consumer market, the B2B market has a lot of money to spend. For those who provide products and services to this market, the latest B2B marketing trends in 2016 provide many opportunities for businesses to increase their revenues.
Mobile Marketing Watch reported that the biggest B2B marketing trend in 2016 will be an increase in content marketing. In a report released by eMarketer, the report said that content marketing will increase because it delivers results for brands.
“No matter the reason, content marketing delivers results, especially when it comes to the more traditional end goal: generating leads to feed the sales funnel. In a July 2015 Ascend2 study of B2B marketing professionals, 43 percent of respondents asserted that content marketing was one of the most effective tactics for lead generation.”
Marketing budgets will increase in 2016, and it will help businesses gain more leads. The report said that increasing the number of business leads was only the beginning though.
“Over the same period, other performance metrics gained ground, including sales conversions (from 78 percent in 2014 to 86 percent in 2015) and quality of leads (66 percent to 72 percent). Also interesting was the share of B2B marketers who considered cost savings and marketing ROI as a performance metric: In both 2014 and 2015, roughly 45 percent used savings as a way to measure the success of content marketing.”
Wondering what the B2B #marketing trends for 2016 will be? https://t.co/cjw86ND2LW pic.twitter.com/DIPvMd325U
— Microsoft Business (@MSFTBusinessUK) January 8, 2016
As previously reported in Inquisitr, one of the biggest marketing trends for 2016 is mobile marketing. With five times as many mobile phones as computers, mobile offers a huge opportunity for marketers to grow their businesses by adapting to the technology, creating mobile apps, and building websites that are friendly to the mobile web.
Business 2 Community recommended four different B2B marketing trends to watch in 2016. One of the strategies recommended is cross channel marketing. For those who market with content, this strategy will prove to be a win-win. As an example, what this means is that sending out a press release simply isn’t enough. Companies that leverage other marketing techniques like webinars and blog posts have a better chance of spreading their message.
Customer-centric or relationship marketing is more crucial than ever. With the impersonal nature of the internet, it’s a little more difficult to establish credibility and reputation than that of a brick and mortar business. Businesses that take the time to build a relationship with potential customers have a better chance of making the sale.
In 2016, more content marketing means less of a return on your investment: The Top B2B Marketing Trends For 2016 https://t.co/nH8oDTn5nI
— Sabin Roth Mktg (@SabinRothMktg) January 12, 2016
For most internet users, the internet is a long walk around to finding the content they want. B2B marketers have a unique opportunity here because they can make it easier for their business customers to find what they are looking for by using retargeting. The process for creating an effective B2B marketing strategy is actually a three-step process.
The first step is for businesses to develop relevant business personas that fully describe their business customers. Understanding the decision-making process and the organizational behaviors of customers is crucial to building relevant personas.
Next, the marketing and messages need to be built off these personas so the marketing message reaches the businesses being targeted. Once the message reaches the business customer, the data received from the connection needs to be analyzed to create future marketing messages that are effective.
Other B2B marketing trends to consider are the evolving technology and finding the right people to handle that technology as it will be crucial to B2B marketing success. People will drive the marketing, not the technology. As marketing moves in a more interactive direction, it will allow businesses to build a greater connection with their business customers.
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