What technologies should B2B marketers pay close attention to? It’s a question that often means considering how the B2C space is currently leveraging technologies, as many will be deployable across B2B marketing campaigns.
The number of new technologies that will have an impact on all B2B marketers can be bewildering, but three in particular standout as having the potential to be the most disruptive: beacons, wearables and the internet of things (IoT).
David Isaacson, senior strategist at Omobono, says: “New technologies with the ability to interrupt behaviours are the perfect mechanic to reach and engage audiences, catching them off-guard with targeted marketing materials. We must redefine the value proposition and be clear what we are offering to ensure the interruption is something of genuine value.”
Dan Kirby, CEO at Techdept, agrees: “There is a paradigm shift in marketing – as the world moves to become more and more digital, a ‘third industrial revolution’. This is being seen more in the B2C space, but will equally apply to B2B – the smart B2B marketers will start preparing now. You know how Amazon anticipates what you’d like, recommends products to you, then delivers them seamlessly at a great price? That’s how B2B sales will become – easier to spend money.”
For the B2B sector beacons, wearable devices and the IoT present a number of key opportunities to develop closer commercial relationships with customers and partners in the supply chain. Beacons and the IoT offer new rich data environments within which wearable devices can pull and push information to and from the B2B marketer.
Live environments
Within the B2B marketing sector, events offer an insight into how beacon technologies could disrupt how marketers connect with their customers. Beacon technology has recently had its profile raised thanks to Apple with its branded iBeacon tech. In essence, beacons allow messages to be sent to any smartphone that has Bluetooth Low Energy built in. Until now, GPS and wi-fi have been used to pinpoint the location of a phone.
Beacons are much more accurate and are able to deliver targeted messages to individual handsets.
For B2B marketers, beacons in an events setting offer a new communications option. Delegates walking past a stand could be contacted with relevant sales messages delivered by beacon technology. Delegates will also be able to gain product and service information before making personal contact with a sales representative, taking the pressure off attendees to instantly engage with the businesses at the event.
B2B marketers can leverage beacon technology to deliver what has been called the ‘age of context’ where smartphone-equipped customers can be directly targeted. Vendors such as Estimote, Swirl and Loopd all offer marketers the chance to make more personal connections.
Innovative uses of this technology include Grolsch, which included beacons in beer bottle caps that unlocked a movie, Nivea promoting child safety with proximity alerts on beach locations, Virgin Atlantic using beacons to prepare boarding passes and American Airlines using beacons to communicate seat updates.
Howard Simms, co-founder and director of mobile app developer Apadmi said: “iBeacons can prove highly useful for B2B marketers in various settings. At events and exhibitions, for example, iBeacon technology can allow marketers to track and analyse the footfall of delegates and even help attract and direct people to specific stands. Event organisers are able to analyse delegate flows around the exhibition, share information with exhibitors, and gain insight into which exhibits have been the most popular – all valuable insights for a marketer.”
Beacon technology then transforms an event environment or any other space where information needs to be communicated in a live environment where B2B marketers can speak directly to individuals via their smartphones. This level of intimacy is clear in the B2C space, but is also fast developing its reach for B2B marketers.
Wrist-to-wrist marketing
At first glance wearable technologies may not have a clear practical implication for B2B marketers, but with research by Canalys stating an estimated 17 million wearable devices will be shipped this year alone, B2B marketers can’t ignore how wearables could impact their campaigns.
In its Tech Trends 2014 report Deloitte stated: “The primary goal of wearables is to enable users to take real-world actions by providing relevant, contextual information precisely at the point of decision-making. Wearables shine in scenarios where using a laptop, phone, tablet, or other conventional device may not be appropriate as well as in making use of the data gathered by sensors.”
More than any other technology, wearables have the potential to transform marketing. Initially this may be within the B2C space, but B2B will quickly follow.
The last year has seen a number of wearable devices launched onto the market: The Samsung Gear range, Motorola 360, LG’s G watch, Will.i.am’s Puls and next year will see the Apple Watch become available. All of these will require the B2B space to master what has been dubbed ‘glanceable marketing’ to reach the users of these technologies.
“Many wearable technologies are focused on improving some aspect of an individual’s life – whether it is for health and fitness, focus and concentration, productivity or job satisfaction,” commented Nigel Beighton, UK CTO of Rackspace. “The big step change for both individuals and businesses is being able to analyse the raw data and understand the wider context surrounding the data, such as the weather location, posture, temperature and mood of the individual. By focusing on the data as well as the devices, wearable technologies can provide meaningful insights that can be used to improve performance and satisfaction. Essentially wearable tech and big data go hand-in-hand.”
Even more so than the smartphone, wearable technologies look set to disrupt B2B marketing.
Jennifer McAuley, innovation manager at Engage Production, said: “The start-up, MC10, is pushing the boundaries of wearable technology, and the results could have a far-reaching effect throughout businesses and the service industries. They make tiny, thin, unobtrusive, conformable, wearable electronics called ‘bio stamps’ that currently allow us to know what is going on inside our own bodies. In a workspace environment these wearables could potentially be adapted to provide avenues towards instant personal recognition, with people joining up to the ecosystem of the internet of things, thus creating a ripple effect of customisation potential.”
Wearable technology can of course go further than the wrist. The much hyped Google Glass and alternatives including Sony’s SmartEyeglass, ReconJet, Epiphany Eyewear and even the resurgence of virtual reality with Oculus Rift, all has perhaps more of a future in the business space than across the consumer environment unless these wearables can achieve mass-market appeal. Here, the B2B marketer has a massive opportunity to augment and extend their products and services using these technologies.
For B2B marketers wearable technology is ideal within what can often be a narrow user base of customers characterised by some B2B relationships. Here when a customer has adopted these wearable devices, it offers the perfect marketing channel for specialist messages and customer support. Expect to see many companies that now develop smartphone apps to extend their product features to also develop apps for wearables as well.
Connected devices
By the end of this decade Cisco estimates there will be 50 billion devices connected to the internet, which equates to an estimated $14 trillion revenue opportunity.
This environment of connected devices is often referred to as the IoT, where even mundane devices are made intelligent by connecting them to the internet and to other devices. McKinsey describes a situation where: “More objects are becoming embedded with sensors and gaining the ability to communicate. The resulting information networks promise to create new business models, improve business processes, and reduce costs and risks.”
B2B marketers looking for the next technology trend often highlight the potential the IoT could offer them. Dan Rogers, VP EMEA marketing at Salesforce, outlines one example: “There’s a company called New England Biolabs (NEB). Those guys produce enzymes for researchers to test and experiment on. What they did was install freezers in the research department. Those freezers have tablets associated with them that require the scientist to authenticate before they take anything out. When they authenticate they describe what enzymes they are taking out and what sort of work they are doing.
“The scientists benefit as, when enzymes are running low it can be automatically replenished. It connects to the inventory system. It suggests combinations of enzymes other scientists are using. NEB benefits because it now has a one-to-one connection with the researcher it never had before. It’s a powerful example of a connected device. As the price of silicon chips goes down, there will be more and more connected devices that will be part of a marketers repertoire.”
Deborah Hanamaura, Metia’s director of marketing, adds: “The real opportunity with the IoT in B2B is with applications that improve productivity, simplify customer feedback, and increase operational efficiency. Too many people default to smart watches and heart rate monitors when they think of the IoT – but really, it is simply device-to-device communication, which has limitless potential in the B2B space. There are obvious implications for manufacturing, workplace safety, process tracking, and smart workplaces.”
However, the real power of the IoT is its ability to collect masses of data. B2B marketers like their B2C counterparts need data and customer insight to refine their marketing messages. With the IoT, every device potentially becomes a data collection platform. The insight that this information could then deliver to marketers could be unprecedented.
James Murray, marketing manager at HH Global, says: “B2B marketers should be able to capitalise on the additional marketing intelligence at their fingertips. There should be increasingly consolidated goals for sales and marketing and a clearer workflow in place. Meanwhile, physical marketing technologies such as beacons and wearable technology will continue to offer an indirect benefit to many B2B organisations.”
B2B marketing will be about connecting customer experiences no matter where they are. It is telling, for instance, that Google purchased Nest Labs, a company whose mission is to develop the fully automated home. Apply this to the B2B space and marketers quickly realise their customers take on a multifaceted persona that marketing messages must support and leverage.
Looking across the fence to the B2C sector, B2B marketers need to pay close attention to the technology trends that are reshaping how consumers interact with the brands they covet. And if there is one fundamental component that comes out of all this technological development is that data will become even more important than it is now. The masses of marketing data that will flow from technologies like beacons, wearables and the IoT will deliver rich information sources all B2B marketers can benefit from.
