Major Trends in Business to Business Marketing - Report Example

Introduction: Business-to-business (B2B) marketing involves marketing efforts that create awareness about a product in the eyes of prospective customers—government organizations, companies etcetera, that make use of the offering while creating their own products or to sell the purchased products to other businesses. B2B marketing, as compared to business-to-consumer marketing, is less visible and therefore, is less attention-grabbing. B2B products are of a variety of categories including raw material, component parts, tools, capital goods and services, and each calls for a different marketing approach. The trend in B2B marketing, similar to B2C marketing, is that of developing relationships with clients. Yet, there are still some customers who are not interested in anything more than a business transaction. Through relationship building, not only does a company develop a large and loyal clientele’ but also, reduces the cost of attracting new customers to buy your product (Biemans 2010). B2B marketing communication is done through various means, which fall in either of the two categories: one-to-one or mass media. But the message delivered through these mediums should be consistent and well-coordinated to avoid any contradiction or ambiguities. The message should be as clear as possible because in B2B marketing, unlike in B2C marketing, the clients are few but constitute a large amount of monetary worth. Hence, each account is very important for the success of the B2B firm. Thanks to globalization, B2B market — like any other market — faces fast-changing trends in marketing. One day something is a hit with customers, and a month later a better way to reach customers would come into play. Personal selling, advertising, PR, webinars, direct marketing, social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.), and the like are the various ways B2B marketers connect with their audience. In the 21st century, the Internet has made waves in possibly every field, including the field of business. Through this trend, B2B marketers, today, enjoy an interactive, global customer reach at low costs. Internet marketing takes the form of e-marketing, webcasting and podcasting. E-marketing or website marketing is a form of B2B marketing which is not restricted to flow of information to customers, but also results in a flow of information from and about the customer to the B2B marketer — in other words, it is interactive. Webinars include recorded videos, comprising of sales messages, which are sent to potential clients to obtain feedback (Biemans 2010). Trends in B2B Marketing: The top B2B marketing trends include social media, content marketing, database marketing, virtual events, marketing automation, installed base marketing and green marketing. Social media and content marketing constitute a large potion of B2B marketing for companies and plan on increasing with every passing day, especially because of the low cost, high search-visibility, two-way communication and differentiating factor. Also, green marketing is an existing trend that is still going on with great enthusiasm as companies, as well as customers, are becoming more and more concerned about the environment and therefore, employing processes that — for instance, produce reduced amounts of waste — are being adopted by every ambitious and intelligent B2B marketer. Print media has already faced a drastic decline and, in no time, B2B marketer efforts are expected to shift completely towards online marketing tactics (Brice 2009). This era is all about content marketing and this is the biggest trend that B2B marketing has faced in this century. Content marketing is communicating with prospective clients in an attempt to guide them by giving valuable information, but not selling your product to them in the process. Through this, prospective customers are made loyal customers, who incorporate the information received — through content marketing efforts of the business — in their buying decisions. Customers today do not pay much heed to the traditional marketing tactics as the advertising clutter, that surrounds them 24/7, is driving them into modes where they completely phase out when exposed to most marketing efforts. Content marketing, owing to its effectiveness, is being used by many successful organizations, including big and small names, worldwide (Junta 42 2010). Content marketing is everywhere, but not many people are confident about it because they feel unsure about the effectiveness of the content they are producing to attract customers. With time, and education, marketers would develop an understanding of how to create engaging and informative content. It is also important to note that successful content marketing does not imply indulging in high-budgeted marketing efforts, rather, it is solely about the content and how honest and informative it is. According to a survey, 90% of B2B marketers employ content marketing today, in an attempt to achieve growth in their business (Longhurst 2010). Content marketing takes various forms, with social media (minus blogs) being the most popular one. Other forms include articles, e-newsletters, webinars, videos, blogs, etc. Amidst high usage rate of content marketing in the B2B market, doubts about its effectiveness prevail largely. The chart below displays the confidence gap that exists in individual content marketing tactics (Longhurst 2010). The rate of adopting content marketing by B2B marketers is on the rise, and the best ones allocate around 30% of their marketing budget on it, whereas less effective ones spend only 18% of their budget on content marketing. It is, however, not necessary — as mentioned earlier — that you spend enormous amounts of money on content marketing: A good content does not require huge sums of money, but calls for an excellently written and well-researched content that reflects passion and is important to prospective clients. Yet, marketers find it difficult to do so, with different challenges being faced by each one of them, as presented next (Longhurst 2010). Critical Analysis—With Respect to the U.K B2B Market: TopLine Communications, a London-based PR and social media agency, conducted a poll of 102 UK marketing directors on LinkedIn that concluded that half of them did not have a proper social media strategy. The M.D.s described their approach as basic (thirty four percent), non-existent (seventeen percent), good (thirty three percent) and pioneering (fourteen percent). According to the Director PR at TopLine Communications, the trend towards social media has started, because today—unlike previously—companies have at least taken a step forward towards it. Even if they don’t truly believe in its effectiveness yet, they know it is the need of the day. The trend, hence, shall continue to dominate the B2B marketing environment. Also, B2B marketers in UK, similar to those in other parts of the world, are unsure about the right social networks and platforms to adopt, amid the plethora of social media platforms. According to another survey of 450-plus UK based B2B marketers, fifty six percent of the participants believe they will increase their social media efforts while thirty percent of them had plans on spending more on spreading sound knowledge to marketers to reduce their doubts and infuse confidence in them to bring about better quality marketing through social media (U Talk Marketing 2010). Circle Research, along with the Association of B2B Agencies (ABBA) as well as the Institute of Direct Marketing (IDM), has developed a regular B2B marketing survey that encompasses views of marketing professionals from some of the largest industrial firms in UK. The findings reveal that, in the midst of economic downturn, a large majority of the B2B companies’ surveyed, plan to either increase their marketing budgets or keep it unchanged. Also, they exhibited a desire to opt for marketing tactics that were less costly, yet more effective — that is, social media and content marketing. The findings also showed the desire to continue with going green, which is more appropriately known as green marketing. In UK, according to the survey, it turns out that traditional media such as print ads, trade events, direct mail et al., are declining but will not become extinct immediately — if at all. The survey also found that social media and online marketing communications were the most popular ones among the respondents, whereas, sales tools and event marketing were rated as the most popular tactic and least popular were direct mail and market research (Circle research n.d.). Conclusion: B2B marketing is following the trend of building relationships with clients through various communication tactics, both offline and (majorly) online. The trend of the former marketing communication tactics, such as print ads, is declining with time, whilst the latter is growing at a fast pace — especially because of its high customer reach at much lower prices than that of the offline media tactics. Social media, content marketing and green marketing are among the top B2B marketing trends of this era and are expected to flourish with time. Content marketing, owing to its low cost and effectiveness, is the ‘in’ thing all over the world and majority of the companies have adopted it. However, doubts about its effectiveness are existent in the society, along with problems in developing good enough content. With time, though, it is expected to get better as content marketing is not only the present, but also the future, as it is here to stay. Also, it is generally expected that print media will eventually die, but some surveys in the U.K conclude that it would never die out completely, though the budget spent on print media will decline further. Finally, in the midst of tough economy, majority of B2B companies do not plan to cut down their marketing budgets as they are well aware of its effectiveness. References: Biemans, W. G., 2010. Business to business marketing: A value-driven approach. McGraw-Hill. Brice, E., 2009. Top 10 2009 B2B marketing trends. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 10 December 2010] Circle research, n.d. Extracts from the b2b marketing trends survey. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 10 December 2010] Junta 42, 2010. What is Content Marketing? [Online] Available at: [Accessed 10 December 2010] Longhurst, L., 2010. B2B content marketing trends and spends. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 10 December 2010] U Talk Marketing, 2010. Half of UK companies have no social media strategies. 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