10 b2b Marketing Trends To Watch in 2019 PDF
10 b2b Marketing Trends To Watch in 2019 PDF
Table of Contents
Foreword From the CMO 3
Introduction 4
Personalization 5
Video 9
Chatbots 11
Account-Based Marketing 13
Customer Intelligence 15
WRITING AND CONCEPTUALIZATION
Tactile Marketing 17
Christine Otsuka
Experience-Driven Content 19
COPY EDITING
Erin Cleland
Voice Search 21
Influencer Marketing 23
DESIGN
Quentin Zancanaro Conclusion 25
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10 B2B Marketing Trends to Watch in 2019
Introduction
No matter what industry you’re in or role you have, we we should be exploring that maybe we aren’t, or if there are
all share a universal interest in trends. As marketers, things not yet on our radar that perhaps should be.
we look to Google Trends to understand what keywords
and search terms are most popular; we look for trend- As we plan for the year ahead, we asked 200 B2B marketers to
ing hashtags and conversations on social to inform the share their top three trends for 2019 in their own words. In the
content we put out; and we put “Trends” sessions on our pursuit of real, raw, unfiltered answers, we asked marketers an
agendas at conferences because we know they’ll draw open-ended question, rather than have them select from a list
an audience. We’ve tapped into this almost universal de- of our creation. So what strategies, tactics, and technology will
sire to understand what the masses are doing. they be exploring in the year to come? While personalization
as a theme weaved its way through many of our top trends, a
It’s human nature. Trends help us validate our own ef- return to data and old-school approaches was not far behind.
forts and choices. They allow us to say, “Oh yes, that’s Read on to learn what your peers had to say.
right, I agree,” and feel good about the work we are doing.
But they also help us understand if there are new things
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10 B2B Marketing Trends to Watch in 2019
Personalization
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1 Personalization
JK Sparks
Lifecycle Marketing Manager,
BombBomb
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10 B2B Marketing Trends to Watch in 2019
Artificial
Intelligence
and Intent
Data
Marketers had a lot to say about artificial intelligence. It’s
been regarded as a way to cut down on marketers’ tasks
and free up time to be more strategic. It’s also a means to
personalize at scale. Coupled with intent data, marketers
will be able to more accurately serve up the right content at
the right time to their prospective customers and website
visitors. In this case, data and technology continue to usher
in a new norm for marketers.
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2 Artificial Intelligence
and Intent Data
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10 B2B Marketing Trends to Watch in 2019
Video
Video has taken up residency on marketers’ trends
lists for several years now. For 2019, however, the
moving-picture medium comes with a few caveats.
While in the past, simply using video as a medium
was enough to check the “I’m doing this trend” box, in
2019, educational video content gets shorter, snappi-
er, and serial in nature. Heralded for being “shareable,”
video is also the format du jour for social media ad-
vertising and high perceived engagement. Across the
board though, video is widely praised for its ability to
build authenticity and human-to-human connection,
whether that’s in content marketing, brand building,
or personalized sales outreach.
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3 Video
“I see live video continue to grow in popularity and ef- 72 percent of people would
fectiveness. Your clients and prospects are looking for
choose video over text to
authenticity. They want to build a relationship with your
people, not just your company. Live videos capture that 72% learn about a product or
authenticity. It’s harder to be somebody you’re not be-
hind the cold lens of your iPhone or Mevo.” service.
Abbey Kanellakis
Practice Growth Manager, - The State of Video Marketing 2018
Rea and Associates
Weighing In
“I know this has been on the list for years, but how many
people reading this have an amazing video person on | Chris Savage, Wistia
staff? When that is over 85 percent, I’ll shut up about it.
Video adds personality and context that are difficult to Video is consistently on everybody’s top trends list, so we asked
replicate in written form.” Chris Savage, Co-Founder and CEO of Wistia, what aspect of this
popular medium B2B marketers should be zeroing in on. “For 2019,
Chris Moody marketers should be thinking about how they can empower more
Head of Global Content Marketing, people on their teams to take risks with video. The organizations
Cheetah Digital we see using video well have figured out how to make it ongoing
and how to recognize when the emotional push of a video will
help drive the business forward.”
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10 B2B Marketing Trends to Watch in 2019
Chatbots
Not just for support functions, chatbots take
charge in 2019 in two huge ways. First, as a
means to distribute content—think Facebook
Messenger bots. And second, as an extension of
our sales development team engaging prospects
as they visit our site’s pages in an “I can’t believe
that’s not a person” exchange. Our teams can’t
be everywhere, but chatbots will help us try.
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4 Chatbots
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10 B2B Marketing Trends to Watch in 2019
Account-Based
Marketing
It’s been on the rise for a while and shows no sign
of slowing down in the year ahead. Businesses who
have not yet adopted an account-based model will be
trying it in 2019, and those who have will be looking
to expand their efforts. The return is huge when done
right and the success stories alone will persuade those
who have not yet dipped their toes in the ABM pool.
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5 Account-Based
Marketing
“When you are in a niche or low-interest business you 87 percent of B2B marketers
need to reach your ideal customers, they won’t come
have agreed ABM delivers a
and find you. ABM enables you to spend your budget
and time efficiently, cutting out waste. And content that 87% higher ROI than other mar-
you produce can be repurposed for general marketing
purposes.” keting activities.
Douglas Voeten
Head of Global Marketing,
Atradius Collections - ITSMA Research
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10 B2B Marketing Trends to Watch in 2019
Customer
Intelligence
What do we really know about our customers? Market-
ing is only as good as the data we have and can ac-
cess. And if knowing our customers pre- and post-sale
is the key to getting and keeping business and creating
marketing content and campaigns that work, then cus-
tomer intelligence is the foundation for effective mar-
keting. Using a customer relationship management
system is a given these days, but going deeper into
data collection, integrating our tools across the busi-
ness so we have one holistic view, and surfacing that
data across teams with Slack integrations is the next
thing we’ll see in 2019.
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6 Customer
Intelligence
“We expect that the term ‘Customer Intelligence’ will Only 23 percent of companies
gain in popularity in 2019. I can’t count how many pre-
are able to generate real-time
sentations I’ve seen of the Deloitte MarTech Landscape
of 5,000+ players. The competition is fierce out there, for 23% insights with customer data.
both B2B and B2C companies. Brands need to step up
their game when it comes to an understanding of who
their customers are regarding drives, decision-making
behavior, challenges, and lifestyles. This information is
the key to creating more relevant communication that’s - SAS’s Maximizing Moments of Truth White Paper
more likely to resonate with the audience.”
Janelle de Weerd
Digital Marketing Manager,
Crobox
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Tactile
Marketing
What’s old is new again. Direct mail has seen a re-
surgence. And it’s no surprise given the growing
adoption of account-based marketing and em-
phasis on personalization. As it becomes increas-
ingly more difficult to stand out from the crowd
(and crowded inboxes), marketers search for new
ways to capture their prospects’ and customers’
attention and engage them to a meaningful de-
gree. Direct or tactile marketing—so long as it’s
personalized—is the route they’re taking.
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7 Tactile
Marketing
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10 B2B Marketing Trends to Watch in 2019
Experience-
Driven
Content
We put a lot of effort into getting someone’s at-
tention. But once we have it, how do we keep it?
We need to do more to engage our audiences, and
one of the ways we can do this is through experi-
ence-driven content. Yes, to some this means in-
teractive content like quizzes and assessments,
but interactive pages and infographics, Flipbooks
laced with multimedia, and content that puts ex-
perience at the forefront are what B2B marketers
will be exploring in 2019.
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8 Experience-Driven
Content
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10 B2B Marketing Trends to Watch in 2019
Voice
Search
With the recent popularity of voice assistants and our
reliance on voice search, marketers will optimize for
this new element of SEO. How do we ensure our prod-
ucts, services, and businesses are what’s spouted by
Google Homes and Amazon Alexas when our would-
be prospects ask? We need to get in front of this one,
marketers, and 2019 will be the year to do it.
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9 Voice
Search
“Devices with voice are becoming routine. Since voice is By 2020, 50 percent of
grabbed by the descriptive section of Google, it’s import-
all searches will be voice
ant to update your website to allow for conversational
and relevant speaking so when content is grabbed by 50% searches.
voice devices, it’s accurate and timely, succinct, and
easy to understand and follow.”
- Comscore
Devon L Kirk
Director of Marketing Operations,
GetPayroll
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Influencer
Marketing
We don’t typically think influencer marketing
applies to B2B brands, but it does. We just think
of it in different ways—partnering on an ebook or
webinar, guest blogging, or engaging industry in-
fluencers in your video content or events. In 2019,
working with others will be par for the course. One
of our survey respondents referred to this type of
approach as “collaborative marketing,” and perhaps
that’s just the angle B2B influencer marketing needs
to shed the cringeworthy image of The Bachelor
contestants pushing sugary hair gummies via their
Instagram accounts from our minds. Whatever we
call it, leveraging other people’s networks to reach a
wider audience is a trend to watch in 2019.
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10 B2B Marketing Trends to Watch in 2019
10 Influencer
Marketing
“There is nothing better than word of mouth, and influenc- Weighing In | Jay Baer, Convince & Convert
er marketing brings forward someone besides a brand
spokesperson to state the value of solutions and skills With influencer marketing making waves in both B2C and B2B marketing
our brand offers.” departments, we asked Jay Baer, Founder of Convince & Convert and author
of six books including Talk Triggers: The Complete Guide to Creating Custom-
Brandi Seich ers with Word of Mouth, for his take on this trend. “The key to spreading your
Global Marketing Director, story with influencers isn’t the influencers, it’s the story. Before embark-
DHL ing on an influencer marketing program, every company (and especially
B2B brands) needs to determine what makes them worthy of conversation.
Recognize that competency doesn’t create conversations. Every business
must commit to doing something different that compels conversation. I call
that a Talk Trigger. And you need one. Otherwise, your influencer marketing
program is just a complicated, expensive, time-consuming ad campaign.”
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Personalization. ABM.
Experience-driven content.
AI and intent data.
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