By online marketing, b2b buying trends
Due to budget limitations, marketing teams were hastening their digital transformations and working hard to provide a return on their digital marketing shortened budgets in 2020, while also addressing customer retention methods.
Now, in the second half of this year, and looking ahead to 2022, we see how B2B organizations are focusing on customer acquisition and growth; we must learn to develop our business even under these conditions of budget limitations, economic pressure, and digital transformation with marketing as a key connector role of the digital enterprise.
In this article, we will consider:
- How Covid-19 has Affected Digital Marketing
- B2B Buying Trends by Channel by 2023
- Business Growth Challenges for 2022
As the "new normal" is here to stay, and based on last year's shift in client channel choices, the journey will be enhanced even further this year. In the digital marketing area, leadership, customers, and the technology segment took center stage.
Also, the CMO role was evolving into Chief Connecting Officer, which meant being a cross-functional partner in the company or enterprise, cooperating more and more within the other departments, and assuming responsibility for more than just marketing.
In 2022, Business to Business Marketing will become more responsible, with three major marketing priorities over the following 12 months, such as generating more leads, enhancing customer happiness, and growing brand awareness in order to close more sales.
We've seen a lot of ROI from social media this year, and channels like Facebook and Instagram are increasingly becoming crucial in the B2B market; LinkedIn had around 80% of all B2B leads last year.
This year's most important avenues were social media, SEO, and ABM.
In 2022, most digital marketing bets are placed on Social Media, SEO, Account-Based Marketing, and Content Marketing/ Inbound Methodologies when it comes to how a firm may integrate marketing trends in planning for 2022 strategies. Since ROI is a key component for the B2B marketing leader and for B2B leadership in general, we need to consider PPC - Paid Ads, ABM, and even inbound with a focus on SEO for marketing accountability.
B2B Buying Trends by Channel
by 2023
According to B2B procurement experts, by 2023, online sales will account for 59% of total sales, while salesperson interactions will account for only 24%.
As customer channel pandemic preferences continue to have an impact on our day-to-day digital marketing efforts, and as our world escapes from lockdowns, marketers are shifting away from pure client retention strategies and toward customer acquisition and growth plans.
As marketers, we must be mindful of and retain our customers in the digital environment while captivating their interest, especially in the cookie-less era starting next year with Google Analytics 4 around the corner.
Online presence accounts for around 60% of sales, while direct involvement of B2B salespeople will decline even further narrowing down to assisting only 24% of B2B purchases by 2023.
The shifts are based not only on what we see in the market but also on what we see in our own experience of the digital space. Mobile marketing, analytics, multi-channel marketing, hubs, and social analytics are mature technologies that will be around for a long time.
Since the Great Recession, 2021 has been the most challenging year for the marketing budget.
B2B Digital Marketing Challenges for 2022
The most prevalent marketing difficulties next year will be generating traffic, leads, and revenue, as well as showing ROI for marketing operations.
The greatest difficulty, however, is a lack of resources:
- a lack of people - acquiring and retaining top talent;
- a lack of efficiency - beyond marketing automation;
- a lack of speed - how we get marketing done; and
- a lack of the correct tools - decreasing tool bloat cost.
Lack of people - hiring and keeping top talent
In the United States, over 4.3 million people have quit their jobs this year, and the digital marketing segment has not been spared. The toughest positions to fill are Digital Marketing Managers, Marketing Automation specialists, SEO specialists, and UI/UX, Designers.
Some strategies to overcome people’s resources constraints are gig workers, hiring on and off-shore agencies, and direct hiring 1099 contractors for specific skill sets. Gartner reported that in 2021, 29% of work is outsourced, and this number is up year by year.
Efficiency: Beyond Marketing Automation
When we think of marketing automation, we always think of automation tools like HubSpot, Eloqua, and other technologies out there, but other ways required fewer resources and less budget: on-demand webinars, advertising automation tools, automating the process of when and where ads are placed and so on.
Some studies suggest that 63% of people prefer messaging with chatbots to communicate with brands over traditional methods, email or live chat. Looking at technologies with chatbot funnels and using them throughout your digital marketing efforts is another way to engage with your audiences. AI content creation, referral automation, and marketing automation tools are several options, and these tools will do the work for your team in an automated way and they’re going to reap the rewards of doing more with less.
Speed and agile marketing
Most marketing teams are being asked to do more with less, and while that may be possible when it comes to the Google Auction System and ad ranking in PPC campaigns, it's not always the case. One way to overcome this is by implementing agile marketing into your organization. Agile is quite common in software development, however, it has not been commonly adopted by marketing organizations globally.
We need to increase the speed of our projects, especially when our budgets are lower. And by being able to test things, we should adopt the Concept of Failing Fast, Fail Small, Fail Often.
For Martech tools, chiefmartec.com advised that in 2011 were 150 tools available, and from 2019 to 2020, there was a growth of 13,6%, with 8000 Martech technology solutions. This is a 5,233% growth rate over 9 years.
B2B downsized marketing budgets remain an obstacle
According to Gartner, Marketing Budgets were cut in half from 11% in 2020 to 6,4% in 2021. Most CMOs report that digital marketing accounts for 72% of the total budget, while Martech accounts for 26,6% of budgets, PPC and Paid Media accounted for 25,1% of budgets and Labour accounted for 25% of marketing budgets.
If you would like to know more about Digital Marketing Trends in 2022, be sure to check out our video, here
Keep good management for all the campaigns you plan
Over time, keeping the plans, you developed at the beginning of the year becomes challenging. However, it would help if you did not deviate from the strategy you have created so that you can overcome all the critical situations that may occur and that may affect digital communication. If you have started PPC campaigns, do everything possible to keep them with optimal results. Good management of all campaigns will ensure you tailored results.
If you need help with your PPC Strategy, need a PPC Marketing services agency, or a Certified Google Ads Consulting company, you can connect with one of our senior PPC consultants to help guide you on how to leverage PPC in your strategy this year and how to optimize your media spend.
No matter how you slice it, creating successful B2B marketing takes considerable time and effort, which is why many firms choose to work with a top digital marketing agency. Contact us today to learn how we can help you overcome these growth challenges, and strategize and implement the marketing budget for 2022.
