Forward thinking for 2012

With so many profound changes last year, such as the phenomenal growth of digital, how can B2B marketers prepare for even speedier progressions set to happen in 2012? Gemma Huckle investigates

It has been a tough, uncertain year for B2B marketers and new challenges and struggles certainly lay ahead for them as the Euro zone crisis continues to play out. But it’s not all negative. Exciting developments in the digital, mobile, social media and CRM marketing spheres look set to happen this year.

The following industry leaders share their anticipations and offer some practical pointers, to inspire B2B marketers and prove that hard times shouldn’t dampen spirits and enthusiasm in 2012.

Social butterfly


Scot McKee, managing director, Birddog
“Despite the possibilities for social and digital brands, fear and corporate governance are still preventing adoption of social business practices. In 2012, audiences will really start to control the online conversations in social spaces. Participate yourself and step outside the corporate wall and sign up. You can monitor the customer conversation and build your own level of influence. Change your content strategy by using more creative, engaging, distributable content – think video, infographics, audio and/or seek user-generated content.”

Critical CRM


Graham Forsyth, marketing manager, Exact
“The acquisition of Radian6 by Salesforce in March, was a high profile move to integrate a key monitoring platform into a core business system. This demonstrates the importance of managing CRM platforms to create a single source of truth. Marketers have an abundance of tools designed to give valuable insight on their audience, but these tools are often disconnected from the core business system, making vital information redundant to the rest of the business. Store this real-time information centrally and make it available to the rest of
the business.”

Press play


Derek Morgans, head of digital, The Communications Agency
“Statistics released in the recent ‘Video State of the Industry’ survey by Adap.TV and Digiday, highlights that advertisers will spend 47 per cent more year-on-year on internet-delivered video content; in many cases the very same content they have been buying against on TV for years. Video advertising has a strong and healthy future – the brands and media agencies that evolve their buying models the fastest will be in the strongest position to take advantage of this movement.”

Pandamonium


John Cheney, CEO, Workbooks
“Google’s new Panda search algorithm is designed to improve the quality of content delivered to users. But it also punishes those who try to deceive Google Search by manipulating links and content. As a consequence, 2012 will be a big year for digital and SEO agencies, as they will need to justify their worth by using more sophisticated analytics to measure and prove results. SEO agencies need to be smarter and demonstrate the real ROI from their SEO efforts. The only way of doing so is by tracking and intelligently analysing campaign outcomes from launch through to offline sales.”

Get smart with smartphones


Andrew Nicholson, head of online at Sodexo Prestige and B2B Marketing’s 2011 B2B marketer of the year
“With more business users living an online life on their mobile devices, and HTML5 providing the derigueur programming language of choice for smartphones and tablets, B2B marketers are going to have to get their heads around presenting their mobile content in rich, engaging and interactive HTML5 – or risk losing out to their fast-paced B2C counterparts. There’s an opportunity here for us to engage with our prospects while remaining on the cutting edge of technology.”

Think social SEO


Gifford Morley-Fletcher, head of SEO and social media, MVF Global
“Search has evolved a lot during 2011. The goalposts have moved and this year marketers need to move with them and think social SEO – search and social media closely integrated and working together. Now that Google has entered the social game with Google Plus, there has been a visible jump in the influence of social platforms on search results and it’s time to incorporate them into your content strategy. Don’t stop what you’re doing, but in 2012 think how you can do it socially as well.”

Up in the clouds


Simon Carter, marketing director, Fujitsu UK & Ireland
“In 2012, cloud-based technologies will help  marketers better manage our overall strategy, gain deeper insights into our customers and give us the flexibility we so desperately need in uncertain economic times. It is also a challenge too as it removes the barriers of entry in many markets, with much reduced set-up costs and vastly increased speed to market for any new entrant with a good idea, a will and a way.”

Retail therapy


Michael Chuma, associate director of product management, global B2B, Digital River
“Business buyers will expect the B2B sites they purchase from to evolve and mirror the capabilities of B2C shopping experiences. Buyers will demand that businesses provide them with the ability to easily order 24/7, offer personalised shopper content, deliver targeted offers and merchandise landing pages. With the addition of multi-channel integrations, improved order processing and continuous customer lifetime optimisation procedures, a resurgence in how businesses communicate, interact, and service their business buyers will be the norm.”

Dig deeper


Dennis Dayman, chief security and privacy officer, Eloqua
“The growing trend that will continue into 2012 is marketers are realising they cannot simply ‘batch and blast’ everyone in their database. Marketers now have a better understanding of prospects’ wants and needs, and are analysing their online behaviour and initial opt-in preferences. Overall, we also see that brands will continue to dig deeper into the sources of data they collect. Simply selecting a list vendor for cost considerations is dwindling and data quality is now of paramount importance.”

Balancing act


Adam Sharp, managing director, CleverTouch
“Anyone that saw the BBC interview with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg could not have failed to notice the probing around the company’s plans to build revenues and a valuation while at the same time managing the privacy of the users’ personal information. Clearly it is a delicate balancing act between revenue and reputation. This is a trend that is going to continue. IBM recently commissioned a survey of 1700 global CMOs, and as well as the perennial issues such as marketing ROI and the move from transactional to relationship marketing, the big issue for many was corporate governance, eprivacy and reputation management.”

Become a superstar company this year


Hanne Tuomisto-Inch, industry head of B2B, Google
“Allocate 10 per cent of your budget to testing. New tactics and channels are emerging all the time, and provide a great opportunity to be more impactful, leapfrog the competition and drive lower cost-per-acquisitions. You need to move early, have flexibility in your budgets
and a testing mentality in your organisation.

It’s also important to develop an engaging and shareable content strategy – over 70 per cent of the B2B buying cycle is completed before speaking to a sales rep.

I would recommend creating content for the early stages of the buying cycle, in multiple different forms (video, whitepaper, infographic, tweets etc) and platforms (desktop, mobile, tablet) that is easy to share.
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James Champ, planning director, 
The Communications Agency


“Twenty twelve is time to modernise the email. Let’s turn the middle section of the email into a selector tool. That means the content will actually have to be interesting, and quite often, especially for B2B companies, it isn’t. If we cut out the middle message we’ll have to focus our communication skills much more on the prospect destination. It gives us more scope for creativity, and more opportunity to close the sale. In a squeezed economy, that’s got to be the future.” 

Wesley Lynch, managing director 
Realm Digital 
”I strongly believe that 2012 will be the year of the tablet. This might be an obvious prediction, but not one to be ignored. The market is still growing, and at a rapid rate. As a result of this, marketers need to consider the effect that this will have on how their corporate brand is presented. With tablets resulting in hugely reduced printing costs for businesses, it may well be that marketers will be focusing all efforts towards creating tablet and portable device-friendly documentation.”

Guy O’Brien, head of paid search, I Spy Marketing


“I believe that ‘digital’ investment will grow in 2012, with B2B marketers looking to deliver content in more engaging ways and on multiple platforms that help their brand stand out. Event marketing, email and direct mail are tried and tested routes that consistently deliver results from a lead generation and sales point-of-view. However, with the growth and sophistication of mobile, app and tablet based channels to reach a business audience, the smart brands will take the opportunity to deliver bespoke messaging that utilises the channels fully to create awareness, engagement and drive ROI.”

Duncan Parry, co-founder, Steak


“It’s time for B2B marketers to borrow their B2C colleagues’ tools. Falls in consumer spending have pushed B2C marketers to raise their game and maximise their brand offering. Tactics increasingly being adopted include retargeting, audience-based display buys, detailed phone tracking, mobile search and cross-channel reporting. While many of the companies selling these solutions might not be actively targeting B2B marketers as they struggle to deal with B2C demand, these tools and tactics offer real opportunities for B2B marketers able to translate them into business-focused practice.”

Justin Cooke, CEO, 
Fortune Cookie



“Twenty twelve will be a coming of age for digital media and technology – firmly establishing itself as the most important sector in driving global economic growth. We will see the consumerisation of B2B as the enterprise realises that their customers are consumers too. Digital media channels will mature as social media marketing becomes more commoditised and absorbed into the overall digital mix.”

Geoff Parker, client services director, 
Click Consult


“The biggest development that has happened to date in the digital marketing industry was the cookie law issue we saw in May last year. The legislation has been delayed by 12 months to be implemented in the UK by May 2012. If this legislation is implemented it will seriously affect how digital marketers report on performance and how users interact online. This change will seriously impact on the digital marketing industry and how we do things.”

Nigel Arthur, MD, 
ExactTarget


“One of the key changes that we saw in 2011 was the evolution of the smartphone, and this certainly looks set to be a continuing marketing trend in 2012. B2B marketers are already likely be working with mobile marketing as a key factor in their plans, but as we go into next year, they should continue focusing on their mobile commerce strategy. Mobile applications, mobile payment and location-based services are all key trends that B2B marketers should also look to incorporate in their campaigns, if they aren’t already doing so.”

Jonny Rosemont, head of social media, 
DBD Media


“Now that social media is becoming more accountable thanks to improved understanding and metrics, it will rise up the agenda for B2B marketers. Their social media strategies will need to be intelligent – data collection, management and analysis will be central to achieving objectives. It’s crucial that social media becomes incorporated into standard business practice. The silo of social media into a separate unit or department will need to cease.”

Simon Morris, director, marketing EMEA, Adobe


“Social media marketing has certainly been the buzzword of 2011; however, budgets have been slow to shift to social with marketers struggling to prove its ROI in the boardroom. Tools are now available which enable marketers to measure their social media activity and tie this back to business impact. The result? More brands and businesses committing budget to social media marketing in 2012 and marketers producing more informed and effective social media campaigns.”

Martin Smith, head of UK marketing, Neolane


“There’s increasing interest from senior executives on investing in marketing automation to move from labour intensive, segmented campaigns towards creating one-to-one real time relevant prospect conversations. More mature customers can extend from single channel one-to-one relationships to cross-channel relationships, where regardless of whether the conversation is over email, via the call centre or even social, it’s a joined experience for the customer, and joined up intelligence for the lead management process. As the leads progress to sales, so automation keeps tabs on the process, allowing return on marketing investment to be proven and effective processes to be repeated.”

Casey Williams, marketing manager, 
Powwownow


“One of the biggest shakeups within marketing, and certainly online marketing over the next year will be the changes that Google has recently made to their algorithm. Now Google has finally implemented their ‘Authorship Markup’ code, which will undoubtedly have effect on ranking, and consequently potential profit. Combined with increasingly popular ‘plus one’ feature, the search giant is most defiantly moving away from favouring pages stacked full of links; instead appreciating quality, not quantity.”

Malcolm Duckett, CEO, 
Magiq


“The growth of e-commerce will continue to fuel the volume and value of online visitor behavioural data in 2012, and this data will be used to enhance the visitor experience, with an ever more personalised level of interaction. The clever marketer will be translating this data into valuable information and better targeting, transferring this knowledge into tangible business benefits. Competing for the consumer will be driven by measurement, but most importantly action, based on this analysis.”

Jonathan Rowley, CRM director, 
Avanade


“This year has seen a lot of hype around social CRM, and this will only increase in 2012. I don’t think that this should be viewed as a new or scary prospect for marketers – in reality the business challenges haven’t changed. Social CRM is creating headaches for many companies as customers can complain faster and louder than ever before; and they expect immediate and personal attention. A trend we’re seeing, for both our B2B and B2C customers, is the need to have an IT system and processes in place that create internal alignment across historically disparate business units.”

Rik Barwick, MD, 
Creativitea


“The obvious technology that will change marketers’ landscape is the smartphone. I think we’ll see this developing more and more in marketing next year as smartphone usage becomes far more widespread. Social seems to be a bit bloated now with so many social networks available with the big three being dominant. So, I think we should keep an eye out for more technology coming in to break the barriers from print to digital with the use of Augmented Reality, QR Codes and NFC becoming more available.”

 

 

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