People around the world are making resolutions for the year and preparing to make them successful. And B2B digital marketers are no different! In fact, they are one step ahead with their preparations for the year. They have already set themselves to embrace the digital marketing trends expected to rule the B2B world in 2018.
Digital marketers expect a transformation in 2018 and are bracing for it. Technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science, and Augmented Reality are expected to rise and become a pivot for digital marketing trends in 2018. These trends will drive how marketers interact with B2B buyers and enable them to offer a more personalized experience.
Indeed, 2018 is set to be a year when B2B digital marketers leverage these advanced trends in their marketing strategies to personalize B2B customers’ buying journey. This write-up sheds light on all those trends that would help the digital marketers of B2B gain a competitive edge for a successful year ahead.
So without much delay, let’s discuss the 7 not-to-miss B2B digital marketing trends in 2018.
1. Increased Personalization With Artificial Intelligence
Personalized marketing remained in focus for B2B marketers throughout 2017 and would continue to rise in 2018. Testing the website, segmenting B2B buyers, and ultimately offering an individualized experience to each customer would become the top marketing strategy. Artificial Intelligence (AI) would provide constant support by using customer data to personalize the experience for B2B buyers.
Be it one-to-one messaging for individual incentives, product recommendations with intelligent anticipation, quick & smart interaction with chatbots, or optimized sending frequency, AI will do the work for marketers.
2. Video Marketing For Higher Engagement
Fuelled by social media, video marketing has become a popular medium for content consumption. YouTube, with 42 million unique monthly viewers, and other video platforms offer better opportunities for marketers. Integrating videos into the B2B buyer journey is becoming the top trend for boosting engagement.
As 80% of users prioritize live videos over blog posts, exponential growth in the use of live videos (especially professional ones) is also on the cards. Mobile video consumption will also continue to soar and will play a crucial role in the mobile marketing strategy of digital B2B marketers in 2018.
3. Integration Of Augmented Reality With Social Media
Augmented Reality is not a new concept in social media. With face filters on Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram bringing AR to every phone screen, digital marketing is also seeing the integration of AR with social media. Integrating AR into social media ads and posts on these platforms would help B2B marketers achieve higher buyer engagement.
IKEA is already gearing up to use this ingenious technology to show how a particular furniture piece looks in a home before purchase. Many other brands would jump on the AR bandwagon, showcasing their lifelike products on social media to push B2B customers further down the sales funnel.
4. Hyperlocal Targeting For Mobile Users
According to a 2017 study by Junto, more than 18% of local searches made on mobile devices result in sales within 24 hours. Google Posts and Facebook Local, rolled out in 2017, enabled buyers to search on a more localized platform. This would exponentially increase the number of local searchers and buyers on a B2B site.
In 2018, eventually, the digital world of B2B would become hyperlocal. Marketers would pay more attention to utilizing the digital landscape to target and interact with the B2B buyers making local searches. In fact, big brands would also enter the local market to target the local searchers and buyers.
5. Machine Learning To Power Marketing Automation
Machine learning would take an upward swing in 2018 and power highly segmented marketing automation. Currently, 50.4% of companies are not using any type of segmented targeting for their audience. Machine learning can fuel marketing automation and start segmenting B2B buyers according to their buying behavior.
It would use the analytical process called ‘clustering’ to analyze, organize, and segment the data into small clusters. Furthermore, machine learning would enable marketing automation to analyze this customer data in real time, allowing it to instantly send a push notification with an ultra-relevant deal. Marketing automation, powered by machine learning, would offer personalization and make the buyer’s journey frictionless.
6. Big Data For Lifecycle Marketing
Lifecycle marketing is becoming a leading trend for personalization in B2B marketing. Companies that have used big data for personalized lifecycle marketing report 10% higher revenue. More organizations will use this powerful tool to boost their ROI this year. In 2018, big data, depicting customer behavior, would enable marketers to pitch relevant deals and offers to B2B buyers at the right moment in their buying journey.
It would enable personalization across all stages of the sales funnel, making it difficult for buyers to leave empty-handed. Marketers would analyze customer behavior data to identify their buying stage and send ultra-personalized deals and offers to close the sale.
7. Growth Of Voice Marketing
One trend that came to the fore in 2017 was voice search. It changed the way B2B buyers search on search engines and created a ruckus for marketers in the digital landscape. Google even stated that more than 50% of all search queries on the search engine giant would become voice queries by 2020. With just two years left until 2020, B2B marketers would start focusing more attention on voice queries in 2018.
These queries are not typical search queries; they have a more conversational tone. Keywords in content would shift from short-tail to long-tail keywords with a conversational tone. Marketers should prepare for voice queries by tweaking their content to rank higher.
So these are the top seven B2B digital marketing trends that B2B marketers cannot miss in 2018. A thorough read of these trends indicates that the year would be filled with brilliant opportunities for B2B marketers. They would gain ways to reach buyers and personalize the buying journey through various technological advancements.
Keeping watch on these trends and incorporating them into marketing strategy would move B2B buyers further down the sales funnel and help marketers boost conversions, lead generation, and, eventually, sales.
