7 Game Changing B2B Digital Marketing Trends in 2021

Impact of COVID on B2B Marketing

Owing to the ongoing pandemic, B2B marketing has seen dramatic shift in recent times – from aggressive marketing involving face-to-face meeting, concluded deals, linear transactions to digital but subtle marketing requiring lot of research and thought process, as the B2B sales funnel elongates and complicates.

Even the buying process has become quite difficult. As reported by Gartner, 77% of B2B buyers faced lot of challenges while buying.

“As hard as it has become to sell in today’s world, it has become that much more difficult to buy. The single biggest challenge of selling today is not selling, it is actually our customers’ struggle to buy,” states Brent Adamson, Distinguished VP, Advisory, Gartner.

The reason behind this is the conflicts arising out of different perceptions built on the basis of extensive research on the commodity by the group of buyers, and the increasing emergence of options in terms of products, services, and of course the sellers.

So as we start realizing that a major part of 2020 has already sailed through our lives, we need to deck ourselves up for what 2021 holds for us, and accordingly start planning our B2B marketing strategies.

It’s time, we need to look for B2B marketing trends that are likely to rule in 2021.

Trend #1: Not Being a Pushy Seller

2020 has really been a year full of uncertainties led by the global pandemic, with everybody toing and froing at every level. In a scenario where people are already dealing with a multitude of challenges, the marketers need to be compassionate in their approach. The customers will turn their deaf ear to anything that will sound pushy to them, as they have already had been managing at their wit’s end.

Playing soft soap being compassionate, carrying the intention of educating for their good and not simply selling, is definitely going to be the right marketing approach for the year to come.

Trend #2: Adopting an Account Based Marketing Model

Owing to the buyers’ difficult journey, they would certainly prefer what approached to them with a personal touch, and that’s where the account based marketing (ABM) model comes into play.

ABM is about determining and targeting the most probable prospect accounts, and concentrating the marketing efforts around them by offering custom-tailored solutions at a very personal level. Instead of marketing to the wider circle, it requires the marketers to reduce the radius to the individual account size circle.

ABM thus, does not just generate revenue but builds relations.

2021, will see more B2B firms adopting ABM approach for assured long-term returns.

Trend #3: Going Visual for Quality Human Interaction

Visuals speak better than words as they deliver the messages more effectively, and when they are personalized, they definitely draw attention. Therefore, investing in more interactive content can be more promising for B2B marketers in future.

The best part about interactive marketing is that the right messages are delivered and right perceptions are built, which is very crucial for B2B marketers.

“Interactive content helps do that, providing an original content experience that has more meat to it than a curated blog post. Once you bring interactivity to it, you can bring more utility to it,” says Scott Brinker, Founder and Editor of ChiefMartec.

Video marketing is all set to dominate the next year.

Read: Why Should You Market with Videos

Trend #4: Going Virtual for Real Life Experiences

To market well, you need to be compelling and to compel, you need to provide realistic experiences to the prospective customers, and Virtual Reality does just that. The technology will be getting widely adopted by more and more B2B marketers.

So, be it for giving a demo of the product or service, or organizing a live event or even a webinar, virtual reality will be a key brand differentiator, and a trending marketing tool enabling the marketers to draw heads towards them, by generating the experiences to remember.

What can a better example than the virtual trade show organized by Cisco recently? The show was a big hit as it gave a very realistic look of the product, coming up with an immersive product catalog and getting the people a wonderful privilege to a “virtual walk around”.

Trend #5: Artificial Intelligence for Intelligent B2B Marketing

The advent of Artificial Intelligence is soon to be seen in B2B marketing, just like it is seen in B2C marketing.

In 2021, the technology will be redefining the B2B marketing process by enabling the marketers to engage people not only with mere chatbots, but by other smarter methods too, like – data extraction and conclusive analysis for predictive marketing, hyper-personalization of campaigns, marketing with AI-driven devices, and lot more.

Trend #6: Growing Prevalence of Predictive Analytics

The pandemic has shaken every aspect of life, by disrupting global economy through various industries and sectors. As normalcy floats on the waters of uncertainty, leading to vulnerability of the buyers’ behaviour, B2B marketers will be working on their marketing strategies to deal with such an intense dynamic environment; and this can be possible only with – Predictive analytics.

Extracting and analyzing the historical data to predict the buyer’s needs and behaviour, and building a data-driven strategy and a mathematical model accordingly, to give a way to the upcoming trends is how predictive analysis will be performed in the times to come.

Predicting about what will happen next, will be guiding the marketing actions for favourable outcomes.

According to a source, the global predictive analysis market is expected to reach approximately $10.95 billion by 2022.

Read: Role of Predictive Analysis in Reviving Businesses During the Times of Uncertainty

Trend #7: Boosted Security-Based Marketing

Yes, the future marketing is going to be about hyper personalization, whether it is for B2C marketing or for B2B marketing, but not at the cost of security.

Owing to the uncertainties led by the pandemic, the consumers don’t trust businesses as easily, leading them to work in this direction.

Too much personalization may land the security on a vulnerable platform, and this will be enough to lose trust of the people. In approaching times, the marketers will be required to strike a balance between meeting the expectations with hyper-personalization, and maintaining security of information.

It’s Time to Start Following What Will Be Trending Soon!

Strategic thinking, assessing the scenarios, evaluating all that has been done so far, optimizing operations, and keeping a track of the upcoming game changing trends is what you should be start doing as a B2B marketer. Leveraging some smart marketing techniques, you can identify, reach, and engage your prospective customers better, in the coming year.

Keeping a close watch on what’s going to be trending in near future, the digital marketing team at Tarika Tech is all set with smart strategies to enable businesses grow substantially.

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