Trends & Technologies for B2B Growth in 2024
Recently, LinkedIn hosted a webinar focused on the trends and technologies for B2B growth in 2024. Three leaders from major brands shared their insights on the tools, skills and strategies for digital marketing practitioners to ensure their organization's growth and competitiveness.
It is widely acknowledged that the B2B segment is evolving at a slower pace than the B2C segment. This is attributed to the fact that B2B marketing focuses on accounts, with the aim of maintaining long-term relationships with other companies. In addition, the B2B user journey tends to be longer, and it takes time to fully understand the steps that prospects take, so that sales can create more closed opportunities in their CRM.
In contrast, B2C requires constant attention. The buyer's decision process is often short and emotional, and it requires efficient handling of prospects across multiple channels, while keeping up with trends and anticipating future behavior. Competition is fierce and buyers are less loyal in today's market.
Skillset
Communication & Collaboration - emphasizing teamwork in a post-pandemic era where collaboration is essential for effective idea generation. Recognizing that testing ideas in real-life scenarios through trial and error is an integral part of the marketing process.
Marketing & sales collaboration - nothing new, is it? It's a broad topic that has been emphasized ever since marketing became a valuable player in the revenue cycle of companies. Ensuring that marketing and sales work together is critical to maximizing the value of the leads and prospects that are collected. Combining insights from both departments is the most valuable asset within a company's revenue cycle.
Keeping up with the latest marketing trends - there is a lot going on in digital marketing these days, but the ability to filter out the clutter and keep up with marketing trends by following news from key industry insiders such as Martech.org, Hubspot Blog or podcasts such as Humans of Martech or RevOps FM.
Financial Skills - Marketing should be able to demonstrate its value to the CEO/CMO, so being able to show how marketing efforts have contributed to the sales pipeline is very important these days. In addition, storytelling and the ability to present all this insight in an interesting, easily consumable way is also important.
Marketing Channels
This is where the B2B sector may need to take a cue from the B2C sector. What is sure to capture the attention of audiences these days is short and accessible content in the form of TikTok shorts and audio-only forms such as podcasts or 'audio shorts'. As the webinar was held on LinkedIn, which seems to be the most important social platform for business these days, the following tools are worth mentioning:
- LinkedIn Connected TV - in the streaming TV (CTV) space, the importance of commercials is only going to grow these days. There is already movement in this area from key players in the market such as Netflix and SkyShowtime.
- LinkedIn Live - the ability to host events and broadcast live video on your LinkedIn profile.
Quality content is key. Regardless of the channel we use, it's important to ensure that our information is always of the highest quality and answers any questions users may have on a given topic.
Technology and Data
- AI - nothing changes in 2024, of course, but given the post-2023 AI hype and the plethora of 'AI tools' that have emerged in the past year, marketers should be more responsible in deciding when and how AI tools contribute to marketing campaigns. Nevertheless, timely engineering will be a valuable skill, although a new profession of AI mentor may have emerged, who can become the key person in every organization to help them efficiently embrace the AI transformation.
- Data & Analytics - I don't think this comes as a surprise. In today's digital landscape, we are inundated with data from numerous channels. The ability to have a complete view of every stage of our funnel is key to understanding the buying intent of our prospects. Having tools and teams that can handle data effectively and in a timely manner is a cornerstone of revenue growth for any business.
Conclusions
In summary, for companies looking to grow, it is vital to ensure that teams and employees grow with them. This should lead to a working environment where employees are brand advocates on platforms such as LinkedIn.
Healthy workplace dynamics are key to employees proactively promoting the company's vision.
Acceptance of building empowered teams that generate creative ideas through collaboration is essential. This collaboration should serve as a solid foundation for managers to harness the full potential of each individual employee, enabling them to vet ideas and build robust strategies that will drive the company's success.
Keeping abreast of trends in AI, marketing and data analytics remains essential. The ongoing shift to Web 3.0 emphasizes the need for more personalized, easily consumable, yet high-quality content. Short-form video, brand influencers and podcasts are the latest trends to consider when developing content marketing strategies. Not forgetting the importance of prioritizing data privacy policies and improving the efficiency of first-party data sourcing. Reducing reliance on third-party data tools from the outset is essential to building and maintaining customer loyalty.
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