Welcome to 2018! If it's anything like last year, we will see a continuation of major innovations and trends in the B2B marketplace. As marketers, we need to keep our fingers on the pulse of what's to come so we can better anticipate stakeholder and client needs.
Some trends we can expect this year are in their infancy, while other are broadening and reaching maturity. These trends include:
- Improving the customer experience remains a priority, if not "the" priority for most B2B companies.
- New(ish) tools like artificial intelligence and behavioral marketing applications will make strides in gaining traction and use in B2B operations.
- Privacy protection will be a major area of investment and compliance for global companies.
- And we can't forget about the importance of content marketing which continues to rank among the top 3 marketing initiatives for most organizations.
Content will be as important as ever, although content marketing is evolving and we can expect some changes in 2018 with the introduction of new channels and methods for reaching target audiences.
Here are some B2B marketing trends to keep an eye on in 2018:
It's Getting Personal: Customer-centric Marketing
Customer-centric marketing isn't a new concept; it's been around since the 60s with direct marketing, it's evolved over time due to the omnipresence of the internet, and the abundance of data and information that can be gathered and understood about customers as individuals.
As independent research and networking has grown, customers have become more connected and knowledgable about their available options, and are able to communicate their specific preferences (a la Amazon, Facebook, etc.), which has increased their general expectations of the buying experience as a whole. This applies to their behavior as consumers, but more importantly shapes the expectations and behaviors they exhibit as a B2B purchaser or buying influencer.
The 2018 marketing trend that will continue to grow: Personalization.
Data collected in 2017 by Gallup showed that:
"B2B customers with high customer engagement scores achieve 50% higher revenue/sales and 34% higher profitability".
Let's get them engaged! By integrating more customer-centric strategies into your marketing using personalization, persona-based content, and tools that specifically target your customer's unique needs, you will improve their engagement, increase the relevance of your brand, and deliver what the customer wants.
Personalization is the wrapper for a customer-centric package. It's no longer acceptable to give customers generic, ambiguous content in a one-size-fits-all method. They expect to receive content tailored to their specifications. For example, a petroleum economist would likely benefit from receiving an article about new production accounting regulations whereas the same content would be lost on a drilling engineer.
Personalization is much more than merely putting someone's name in the greeting of an automated email or having 'Welcome Bob' on the website when they return. It's the process of understanding who they are, what they do, how they came to your content, and why they consumer your information - and then ensuring you deliver more of the information they find useful and valuable so they keep coming back for more.
"Delivering personalized messages to specific audiences is the holy grail of marketing." Hubpost offers 59 additional reasons personalization is and should be a priority in your customer-centric strategy.
"Coming back for more" is the equivalent to engagement. Remember highly engaged B2B customers lead to 50% more sales/revenue and 34% higher profitability. The customer comes first. Make it easy for the customer to obtain and relate to your message and thereby your product or service. Don't just make the customer like you through entertaining marketing, but rather guide them to build a relationship with your brand so they naturally develop the opinion you're the right company to help them achieve their desired goals. This creates loyalty and repeat business.
When upper management has doubts about putting the customer first or investing in customer-centricity, remind them of what Pam Neely with Act-On summarized, "Remember when people were joking about 'amazon.org' because Bezos kept investing in making Amazon better and better and better, projects be damned? Most of the investors were pulling their hair out, but Bezos kept building his platform... kept building for the customer. Who's laughing now?"
Skynet is Coming: The Rise of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
If you have attended any marketing conferences recently, you have probably heard the buzz about artificial intelligence (AI). I recently attended the Sitecore Symposium 2017 where they introduced Cortex, a new machine learning tool for marketers embedded in their new Sitecore v9 application that helps with data analysis. Ai is everywhere and it's here to stay.
We already see AI in many of our experiences as a consumer via live-chat tools or bots. Applications like Intercom and Zendesk already give marketers the ability to communicate with their customers.
34% of marketing executives said AI is the marketing trend they feel least prepared for. Heavy investment in AI from companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, PwC and more are strong indicators that Artificial Intelligence will continue to grow.
But don't think about AI as some sci-fi movie where the machines rise up in some scheme for global domination. Think of AI as your wingman. Your best friend. Your go-to for navigating the complexities of analyzing customer data.
Put simply, there is not enough time to analyze the amount of data an organization can and will collect about customer behavior to provide meaningful insight for timely decision-making. The ability to quickly conduct data analysis, look for trends and correlations, and take action on a host of routine activities such as CTAs, keywords, budgets, competitive intelligence, messaging, ad creative, etc., will enable marketers to pivot quickly when needed or replicate activities with high ROI.
Using search engine advertising as an example, image how nice it will be to not only gain knowledge on how costumers respond to your more than fifteen ad variations, but to ALSO enable the platform to automatically create ads on your behalf that are continuously optimized in real-time - completely removing the manual process of changing out ad creative and analyzing trends. The time-savings and insights AI introduces for the marketer enables the right messaging, creative and channel mix to be reached faster thereby placing your content in front of your target audience at precisely the moment they want it.
Look Whose Watching: Privacy Protection
In 2017, Equifax incurred a data breach exposing sensitive information for 143 million American consumers. It's one of the largest cybersecurity attacks in U.S. history, AND Equifax is in the business of consumer credit reporting. Private information exposed... That's scary!
Needless to say. People are worried about their privacy.
It's vital for our customers to know that their information is sage with us. If companies do not begin prioritizing privacy initiatives, governments will.
For instance, the new law passed by the European Union called the General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR will have a major impact on what companies must do to protect customer information.
The GDPR begins in all 28 countries in Europe on May 25, 2018, and no, there will be no grace period. The law affects how businesses explain and obtain customer information strengthening and unifying data protection.
In a recent survey, Pricewaterhouse Coopers found that only 23% of respondents hadn't even begun taking steps to comply with GDPR. SmartInsights conducted a poll with over 200 respondents finding that only 6% are ready for GDPR.
How do regulations like GDPR affect marketers?
It's a game changer for managing data. Data-driven customer engagement has been a pillar of modern marketing for some time. GDPR is going to completely change what is considered acceptable usage and management of consumer data.
And don't think about sneaking around it. Violations can be punishable by up to 4% of a company's annual global revenue or almost $23 million whichever is greater. Yikes!
Here are some areas about GDPR to know when planning your marketing strategies:
- The regulation applies to any organization that processes EU consumer data, no matter where the company resides or where the servers that collect, store and process the data are located. Basically, any business worldwide.
- Personally Identifiable Information (PII) or sensitive personal information has been increased to include cookies, location data and device IDs. How many cookies has your CMS placed on a visitor?
- GDPR offers strict rules on how to obtain customer consent. An organization can collect the information only if a customer explicitly allows it. Think about how marketers collect customer data today, i.e. forms. The opt-out feature used so many times is no longer applicable.
- Intentions and objectives must be clear and specific in order to collect customer data. Marketers will need to rethink how they engage and retarget customers. Specific is the key. Generic age and gender fields as your only qualifier won't be allowed.
- EU residents can request their information be completely erased from a company's servers.
- The one of the biggest hits to an organization will be that GDPR does not allow your existing data to still be used after May 25, 2018. If you obtained customer data prior to this date and the collection method didn't comply with GDPR standards, you can no longer use it.
The breakdown above is fairly detailed, but it's merely to highlight the level at which privacy regulations can change a marketer's entire strategy over night.
It's time to get the team together and brainstorm new ideas for obtaining customer data. For example, think about turning the table and using privacy protection and data security as a value proposition for your company.
Still on Top: Content Marketing
Still at the top of it's game, content marketing.
The chart below illustrates which marketing activities 850 respondents found the most important in 2018.
As you can see, the top three are: artificial intelligence, big data and our good friend content marketing.
Content marketing, like customer-centric marketing, isn't a new concept. It's still a very important part of an inbound marketing strategy. So, it's no shocker that it's on this list of trends.
However, content marketing has shifted over the years from one content style, one content type to multiple styles with many different types to include social media posts, live videos, interactive pieces, etc. With 80% of organizations focused on building audiences, the vast number of options available to marketers is a welcome but challenging occurrence.
The most successful B2B companies in content marketing use 7 different content types on average across a range of media sources and channels. Diversity in communication is key.
Content teams are being assimilated with new skills. A team's skill set has grown beyond content churning to include:
- Graphic design, editing and illustration
- Audio editing and production skills
- Basic understanding of code such as HTML and HTTP requests
- Video production and editing
In addition, the typical marketer is expected to possess skills in the following areas as well:
- Branding and communication
- Advertising
- Analytics and reporting
- Campaign creation and execution
36% of B2B marketers say they are very committed to content marketing with 73% rating the success of their efforts as moderately to very successful.
The changing content landscape offers exciting new possibilities for reaching our audience with the right message at the right time, but we will need to be appropriately equipped to publish a variety of pieces using different mediums.
Conclusion
Keeping up to date with the latest marketing trends is good practice for staying ahead of the curve. As marketers, we need to keep our eyes on the horizon looking to the future to improve our strategies and tactics for better understanding customer behavior.
In 2018, the marketing landscape continues to evolve guided by the demand for higher-quality more personable experiences via tailored and targeted content, the rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning as tools for better data analysis, and the new content offerings available to marketers for reaching their target audience with the right piece of content at the right time.
Each of the trends described here add their own complexities to the coming year. Take the time to conduct additional research into each one to ensure you stay ahead of the game.