2014 B2B Marketing keywords: Influence and Nurture (Our take on 2014 B2B marketing trends)

What better way to start a new year than to stay informed and prepare for future opportunities? B2B marketing arena makes no difference, on the contrary. It is already a fact that, with each passing year, marketing and social media are evolving faster and faster.

In the past few years, every shift that targeting, micro targeting, data, social or mobile brought to marketing drove to one important action – empowering the customer. While everyone disposes of more and more information sources, companies are focusing their strategies around building a strong reputation and gaining customer’s trust. This is why businesses tend to adopt a cross-channel approach and use social media, content marketing and Big Data in an integrated marketing and customer-centric way. With that in mind, we compiled some insightful B2B marketing trends that can contribute to your business’ success.

Content marketing is here to stay

B2B marketers will always look for a better way to engage with prospects. If, in the past years, B2B companies have been telling the same story, then it’s time to pull a new and a more attractive one this year. According to a survey conducted by Roper Public Affairs, 80 percent of business decision makers prefer to get their information from articles and not from advertisement. Providing your prospects with a high-quality content that helps them find better solutions or meet their challenges is the way to go.

Visual storytelling will rise

Using visual features is not only for B2C. Not anymore. B2B marketing will include visual information in their strategies. Not all prospects will take their time to read an interesting and insightful whitepaper, some of them might like a creative infographic. According to VFM Leonardo Inc., the visual-centric social networks experienced an exponential growth, as photos and video posts are getting higher engagement levels: videos attract 3 times more inbound links than plain text posts. Also, data gathered by RichRelevance shows that Pinterest users spend an average of $140 – $180 on orders generated by clicks on the site, meaning more than Facebook and Twitter generated average orders combined. If we were to extrapolate the above mentioned statistics, the number of people using almost entirely image-based sites like Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr or Buzzfeed is expecting to grow and companies should too. So, if there is a story to tell, you can draw it.

Make your marketing mobile-friendly

Pew Internet recently released its “Cell Phone Activities 2013” report with some interesting findings: 60% of cell phone owners use their device to access the internet, while 67% of mobile users say they’re more likely to buy from a mobile-friendly website (ref). This is not a big surprise. As I mentioned before, the B2B customer is plugged in more than ever. They are the ones that will change the B2B company’s way to market. More and more prospects will access your website and will learn about your brand from their mobile devices. Creating an attractive, mobile-friendly layout of your website is a must.

Social media is a priority

According to The Content Marketing Institute, 87% of B2B marketers will use social media platforms to distribute content in 2014. Companies should know that if they’re not using social media, they will lose customers. To build a good reputation, B2B companies will have to interact with future customers, answer their questions as soon as possible, do not ignore them.

The B2B marketing strategies never cease to evolve as customers become better informed and more demanding. In 2014, more than ever in the recent years, marketers will have to stop acting like salespersons and start nurturing lasting customer relationships.