We’ve had many ‘years’ of mobile and social. But as 2013 draws to a close, Alex Blyth leaves the obvious behind and reveals where your focus should lie in 2014
The longed-for economic recovery, a football World Cup in Brazil, a new Doctor Who – there is plenty to look forward to in 2014. But what of the B2B marketing world? What are the major trends that will be shaping B2B marketing in the next 12 months?
For most of the past decade, ask anyone for their predictions of the trend for the following year and the answer would have been ‘mobile’ or ‘social media’. Those are now well-established elements in the B2B marketing mix. They continue to evolve, but here we look beyond those, to the next major trends on the horizon.
1. Marketing with a soul
I’ll move on to marketing channels and techniques later, but let’s begin with the messages that B2B marketers will be developing. Brian Millar, head of strategy, Sense Worldwide, a strategy and innovation consultancy that works with PepsiCo, Nike, and Samsung among many others, believes in 2014 B2B marketers will begin to replicate the sort of purpose-driven messaging we have seen in consumer marketing in recent years.
“When Dove campaigned for real beauty it made other cosmetic brands look shallow and exploitative,” he explains. “Proctor and Gamble CMO Jim Stengel made it the number one priority of every brand in his portfolio. The result: inspiring purposes transformed the fortunes of P&G brands like Old Spice and Always. Now B2B marketers are waking up to the power of purpose-driven marketing.”
He continues: “IBM has pioneered this purpose-driven B2B marketing with its ‘Smarter planet’ positioning. It transformed perceptions of the company from a trusted IT vendor to consultant selling joined-up thinking, on a mission to ensure our world becomes more intelligent, and serves us better. KPMG and DS Smith have also done good work in this area.”
2. Taming the big data beast
Big data was definitely the buzzword of 2013. Thankfully in 2014 it will move from cutting-edge idea to must-have technique. “Data isn’t just for geeks, it’s for everyone,” says Catherine Gluckstein, president of SumAll.
She should know: her company’s software allows SMEs to collate and view information from multiple data sources including Facebook, Twitter, PayPal, Shopify and Google Analytics, and in the past 18 months it has gained more than 80,000 customers and is growing at a rate of 20 per cent a month.
She continues: “Accessing data isn’t prohibitive anymore. Large companies such as Amazon and Target have known about the value of data for years; 2014 will be the year data goes mainstream for SMBs. By having the ability to bring together all your data from all your sources under one roof and to then integrate that data, marketers can see clearly and quickly what is, and is not, working for their company and can make changes accordingly.”
Anthony Wilkey, regional director, account management group at SmartFocus agrees. “As we move into 2014, B2B marketers will, if they are to compete, need to deliver increasingly personalised, real-time customer interactions across email, mobile, social, web and offline channels. To do that they will first need to know who their customers are, and that means making use of big data.”
He adds: “Marketers will increasingly be using technologies that look at the individual preferences and behaviours of large numbers of online customers and delivering targeted recommendations across all channels. Using this approach, businesses will be able to move beyond traditional segmentation-based marketing into personalised one-to-one marketing that boosts conversion rates, customer satisfaction and loyalty.”
3. Content is dead; long live applications
In the past two to three years the emergence of data analysis tools, twinned with social media and marketing automation platforms, has given further impetus to the drive towards content marketing. B2B marketers have been frantically producing blog posts, whitepapers, reports, case studies, and so on. 2014 is the year in which their emphasis will begin to shift away from this text-based linear content and towards interactive applications, which require navigation by the customer.
Gavin Finn, president and CEO of Kaon Interactive, points to a free app from GE that allows salespeople and customers to interact with 3D versions of the newest products from GE Measurement & Control via their mobile devices.
“Since the 3D models are built from photographs of actual products, users get to see exactly what products look like from all angles, while also being able to zoom, spin or measure them,” he explains. “Users can explore compartments, sub-components or options, while reviewing key product features and advantages. Models may also include animations that explain how products work.”
He adds: “Interactive marketing applications are the most effective vehicles for transferring product knowledge to customers because our brains are wired to remember more when we are involved in the learning process in a multi-sensory manner, rather than being the passive recipient of a presentation.”
Indeed, this will be the focus for Elissa Fink, CMO at software provider Tableau Software in 2014. She says: “We want to help our 13,500 customers to feel empowered. Whether that’s through online training, local market events or reading about peers’ experiences, we want people to go on the journey with us. A marketing campaign should not be a one-way communication of a message but a way to spark an idea and ignite a conversation.”
4. We’re all marketers now
Three decades ago the challenge for B2B marketers was to be recognised as more than an adjunct of the sales department. In the intervening period the marketing department has become a department of professionals, with some CMOs even occupying a seat on the board.
Today, marketing has become so accepted that in 2014 we will see some companies begin to use crowdsourcing techniques to make marketing the preserve not only of those professionals, but of everyone right across the company.
“Marketing is of course a specialist discipline, especially within B2B,” explains Simon Hill, MD, Wazoku. “It works best when a business has trained marketers devising strategies and implementing tactics. But a marketing idea, a spark of inspiration, can come from anywhere in a business and the generation of those ideas can be a real source of support for beleaguered marketing teams.”
He continues: “More than ever, 2014 will be the year of the crowd. Tapping into the creative minds of staff all over a company can be a money-saver and generate amazing ideas for the marketing team. The rise of social networks means that many people within a business are much better connected with their peers and industry than ever before. This means they are also better informed and have more insight in to what is going on and how things could be improved.”
Just as all employees can source ideas through their personal social media channels, so they can spread a company’s message, and this is an area Scott Allen, marketing director at Colt Technology Services expects to be focusing on in 2014. “When pushing out information, organisations need to realise their employees can be a key part of their marketing strategy,” he says.
He continues: “At Colt we are empowering our employees to engage and communicate company and broader industry topics. We call it ‘listen in’ and ‘speak out’. We are ensuring they feel comfortable about what they should and should not use their social media channels for and what is best practice. This has already proved successful this year.”
5. Show me the money
For too long now marketers have become caught up in their own departmental metrics. Too many marketers have measured success by ad recognition figures, mailshot response rates, or more latterly by email click-throughs and social media likes. “In 2013 we saw the beginning of a trend to measure marketers against business metrics,” reports Wynn White, VP of marketing at Birst. “This trend will continue to grow in importance in 2014.”
He continues: “What used to be measured in marketing, like the number of marketing qualified leads, will become broader and span across multiple business units to things like the percentage of revenue attributed to marketing programmes. Moreover, it is no longer the case that only CFOs will look at these financial metrics. In 2014, CMOs will also need to understand and take action in improving metrics such as lead-to-cash ratio or sales close rates.”
Marketing in 2014 is more quantifiable than ever before, and it is also a more important part of the corporate strategy of B2B firms than ever before. These two factors are making the results that marketers achieve more transparent and more important than ever before.
Those marketers who can show their boardroom colleagues improved business performance resulting from marketing investment will be likely to gain further investment. Those who cannot will be likely to face some difficult questions.
