Social media
“There’s no question that marketers with decent B2B budgets can and do buy media to reach audiences and fund development of owned channels,” says Realise Digital head of planning Rob McLeod. “However, in 2012 – more than ever before – it will be those who ‘earn’ media placements who will be on the front foot. Social media is now well and truly here – with business audiences as much as consumers expecting two-way conversations with companies. And to succeed here, the trust of the audience must be earned.
Data
“B2B marketers are realising they cannot simply ‘batch and blast’ everyone in their database. In 2012 marketers will need to stop thinking of digital marketing as simply an e-mail function and start to consider technologies such as tracking mechanisms, social media platforms and apps,” says Eloqua chief security and privacy officer Dennis Dayman. “These sophisticated technologies will become increasingly important for B2B marketers to help them support all the analytical processes required to really understand buyer behaviour in the digital world. Businesses will continue to dig deeper into the sources of data they collect and data quality is now of paramount importance.”
Mobile
“With more businesspeople than ever using smartphones to work on the move, mobile websites are going to be ubiquitous by the end of 2012, by which time a high number of B2B companies will have taken the necessary steps towards building an effective mobile presence that allows their customers to investigate, query, and make purchases from them while out and about,” says Antenna vice-president marketing communications Clare Grant. “The companies to derive the most marketing benefit from their mobile websites will be those that see development as an opportunity and build a site that provides the best mobile experience, taking the visitor on a journey perfectly tailored for the small screen.”
E-mail
“Greater relevancy, driven by customer intelligence, should be foremost in the minds of B2B marketers in 2012,” says Emailvision pre-sales director strategic global accounts Henry Smith. “We all understand the need to create compelling and relevant campaigns to ensure ROI, but as e-mail inboxes become smarter, so must our understanding of customers. There is an exciting opportunity to turn customer data into usable, intelligent information that can help marketers to go beyond traditional segmentation and truly personalise their customer communications.”
SEO
“Predicting the future is rife with potential banana skins, but I think one big trend to look out for is Google playing hardball,” says SiteVisibility creative director Kelvin Newman. “I think Google is growing up and starting to take on Facebook and Apple. We’ve seen indications like the introduction of https to logged-in users, which makes it harder for SEO companies to track their performance. It’s a small step that only slightly undermines SEO but gently nudges people to spend their marketing budget on PPC rather than SEO. Combine this with developments like the ability to search for hotel availability within search results, credit card comparison services and so on, and you can see the company is getting more aggressive.
Integration
“Today, most B2B marketers see trade shows and e-mail delivering real impact; most too are aware of the potential of social. So for 2012, the important trend for marketers is to effectively combine channels,” says e-Dialog director of planning and development Nick Fuller. “E-mail can, for instance, support sharing content across social networks, while social media can be used to gather opt-ins, thereby turning anonymous social visits into personalised e-mail dialogue. Social in B2B is potentially more effective than in B2C because communities are focused and often content is more about utility than gimmick; brands can therefore communicate with an engaged audience to which relevance has real value.”
Sponsorship
“There will be many superb opportunities in 2012 for marketers to run exciting sports related promotions, without the danger of acquiring a criminal record; while the Olympics will be a ‘no-go’ area for anyone other than official sponsors, by contrast, the Euro 2012 football championships in June will provide marketers with a fertile field for activities that, with England and the Republic of Ireland qualified, will draw major public interest,” says Fotorama director Philip Penlington. “Matches taking place in Poland and Ukraine will not prove to be an obstacle to media audiences as both countries are only an hour or two ahead of the UK time zone.”
Decision making
‘‘Never forget that business people are still people with an innate emotional impulse, even when they are seemingly making the most rational purchase decisions,” says MBA chief executive Stephen Maher. “This emotional impulse provides license for B2B strategies that employ social media.’’
Affiliate
“2012 will be a year of experimentation,” says LinkShare UK marketing director Penny Mather. “Marketers will have to be shrewd about how they attribute their marketing spend to take advantage of new technology such as social applications, mobile technology and analytics to measure it all, but still maintain current conversations. Affiliate marketing will play an increasingly important role in this increasingly complex social and mobile world. Using an affiliate network provides customer data and insight, helping marketers understand how their customers and competitors’ customers behave. It also offers brands a test-bed for new technologies such as mobile marketing, without requiring the budget commitments of a self-run programme.”
Content
“With the eruption of new technologies resulting in ever increasing levels of convergence, B2B marketers are recognising the value of content marketing as a relevant and engaging means to ensure that their consumers remain susceptible to the brand messages trying to be conveyed,” says APA chief operating officer Julia Hutchison. “This year, the use of mobile enabled web, smartphone apps, video and webinars have been pinpointed as growth areas, so marketers need to be both content savvy and knowledgeable about how to utilise these new channels.”
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