Companies that participate in Business-to-Business sales will notice that changes are arising in how to market your products or services to clients. It is important that you clean out any old practices and replace them with what the current trends that indicate will be the new norm. Here are 5 B2B marketing trends to start incorporating into your advertising plans:  

1. Data-Driven Marketing

Data is always important when making informed decisions, but reports are not always brought to marketing meetings. This is changing in 2023. Successful marketing involves research and numbers as well as creativity and uniqueness. Using tools like Google Analytics to track and collect data from your website, Google Ads, PPC ads, email surveys, social media, and other digital marketing avenues helps inform what areas your marketing team needs to focus on. Going into meetings with reports and findings can create better connection between your design and sales time. It can also save time during meetings because the data will guide the conversation so your marketing team can create item truly tailor for you target market. 

2. A Rise in Video Content 

Long-form video such as tutorials, essays on industry topics, or webinars are becoming popular amongst b2b communications. They are a great way to show off your topical knowledge and build your industry authority. Going live through video platforms, such as YouTube helps foster community and allows you target audience to know that there are real people behind your company. You can answer any questions clients have about your product or service and discover knowledge from other experts in your industry. Short-form videos are good for business quick tips, sneak peaks, and announcements. These are good to post on social media to quickly grab the attention of your audience. They also do not take too much time out of your day, which is important for busy business owners and employees. 

3. Dark Social Prevention 

Dark social refers to when people share website links through email, SMS, and private messages on social media. These links do not have tracking codes automatically appended, so it is not possible to know how the website visitor found the content. As a result, it hard to measure attribution which can make hard to know which platform needs marketing attention or is effective. It can also make it difficult to educate your buyers about your product or service. B2B buyers like to research and self-discover before contacting a sales agent. They want to learn, compare, and review product options well before speaking to sales. You want marketing to drive funnel conversions through smart use and encouraging of direct contact instead of platform avenues. 

4. AI Utilization 

While AI technologies are controversial in terms of art creation and body copy creation, there are other ways to use AI tech that are timesaving.

• Personalized shopping creates recommendation engines through which you can engage better with your customers. 

• Virtual assistants and chatbots help improve the user experience while shopping online. 

• AI can help reduce the possibility of credit card frauds taking place.

• On Instagram, AI considers your likes and the accounts you follow to determine what posts you are shown on your explore tab. 

• Facebook AI is used along with a tool called DeepText.  It can understand conversations and can be used to translate posts from different languages automatically.

• AI can deliver highly targeted and personalized ads with the help of behavioral analysis, and pattern recognition, etc. It also helps with retargeting audiences.

• AI chatbots can effectively resolve customer issues, respond to simple inquiries, improve customer service, and provide 24/7 support on your website and social media. 

5. Lead Nurturing 

The process of engaging potential customers and helping them become a sale requires nurturing, especially if you are in an area where the economy is in a tight spot. Drip marketing campaigns in the form of sending out automated emails over the course of several weeks or months is one way to nurture a potential client relationship. With business clients being every busy it is important to stay in contact with potential client to close the sale. When the sale is done, you are still not finished. Add them to your email list and offering deals or notifying them about sales will help them keep your company top of mind for other product and services. 

 Create an effective B2B marketing plan with us today. Call 248.528.3600