Top Trends to Expect In B2B Marketing In 2021

Digital Transformations

A digital transformation was already underway for most companies, but COVID caused many to quickly take the leap and go digital. E-commerce used to be thought of as a place for only purchasing low ticket items like t-shirts and coffee mugs. Now, businesses have no issue making big purchases online.

With this change, buyers are now in more of a self-serve environment and actually prefer it. They can make decisions and purchases and do all necessary research on their own time and at their convenience.

So what’s the takeaway? Major changes in business operations, remote work, and digital workflows have taken place. There is no “going back to normal”. Most of these changes will be permanent and continue to influence purchases this year. Businesses might’ve dragged their feet a bit with adopting digital, but now the majority of them realize that digital is the way to go.

B2B Budgets Shift

Revenue and spending outlook is positive. 80% of businesses in North America and Europe report that they expect their spending on tech will remain the same. Although we may face slightly less demand, there’s still outstanding potential for those who fully understand and address their buyers’ needs.

Automation Continues

To no surprise, we will continue to see the rise of automation and AI. Now, we will see it start playing a bigger role in marketing and sales with 57% of sales leaders plan to spend more on automation and AI. As things have switched to be more digital, it’s gotten noisier. The need for a personalized experience, improved customer segmentation, and predictive journeys keeps skyrocketing.

Search Intent Redefines the Marketing Funnel

80% of brands have brand metric lifts for intent-based targeting rather than demographic-based targeting. What does this mean for your marketing and messaging? It means you have to constantly think about how you’re bringing value and personalization to every step of the user’s journey. Search intent is growing more and more with the popularity of voice assistants like Siri and Alexa. So what does that mean for your company? Here are just a couple of ideas:

Think about what questions and queries people are searching for before purchasing such as product demos, reviews, and product FAQs. Be the one who provides those for them.

Speak your audience’s language by being real and strategic. Use clear and concise sentences and write the way that people talk. It’s amazing what will happen for your marketing when you take the time to make things more personalized and human.

Increased Data Privacy and Limited Availability

When it comes to paid ads, language, and search query insights are everything to marketers. It’s how we can determine the ad itself, targeting, and get the most bang for our buck. But things are changing… With privacy becoming more and more of a concern, Google has begun limiting search data for ads. They will stop showing search queries that triggered an ad but lack “significant” data. This limitation can result in a user clicking an ad and the advertising spending money for the click without knowing the target keyword that triggered it.

Maybe it’s a good time to first point out that all of our data is ethically sourced and in compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation and California Consumer Privacy Act. Now, when it comes to the search engine giant’s latest update, our data is unlikely to be affected. That’s because how we collect data is a bit different…

Rather than relying on a search query, we are tracking and analyzing the content of a webpage. Take “email marketing” as an example topic. There are plenty of ways to measure intent for email marketing whether it’s review-based sites, white papers, e-books, or software sites… and we observe all of it.