What are the 11 B2B marketing trends to follow in 2024? That's the direct, essential question we set out to answer in this article!
Why? Because B2B marketing evolves year after year and sometimes moves closer to B2C. Although seriousness and professionalism remain at the core of this strategy, emotion, commitments, and humanization are making their way into B2B content. A freelance web writer can also help you adapt your content marketing to these new trends.
The return of snack content, hyper-personalization of your strategy, influencer marketing, interactive content, flagship formats… Everything you need to know about the 11 B2B marketing trends for 2024 is in this article!
1. Combine long-form content and snack content
To win over the general public, it's important to always rely on a solid content strategy. But even when major professional stakes are involved, the human attention span remains what it is: fragile, fleeting — something a small thing can sweep away and, in the blink of an eye, send to the competition!
Diversifying your communication channels and making them "scannable" is the key to success. Images catch the eye — that's an undeniable neurological fact: repurpose part of your blog content into images, into video content or into micro-tips.
This way, you'll reach your prospect through reason with a steady, reassuring blog article, while reaching them emotionally with a punchy visual or a post that uses humor and empathy.
Ideally you shouldn't choose; on the contrary, vary as much as possible!
In 2024, you should recycle and transform your long articles or white papers into short, "snackable" content that is highly relevant.
Also read: How to master your corporate communication?
2. Have a professional, personalized website
Today, a website is very often the first impression, the indelible business card you leave in your prospect's mind.
In B2B marketing, you must take care of your site so that it reflects your professionalism down to the smallest details, as well as your values.
There are countless identical sites with predefined templates. They are indeed less costly than a site created with the help of a web designer, but they won't allow you to stand out and will give B2B companies an unprofessional impression of you.
Our advice:
- Design your visual identity in neutral tones that convey order and stability (white, black, gray, beige), with a touch of bright color for dynamism (red, orange, yellow, or green if you operate in an eco-friendly sector).
- Be useful: professionals are more likely to connect with marketing content that reflects them and answers their questions. This will increase your conversion rate.
- Work on your site's ergonomics so it adapts to your prospects' usage conditions. The idea is to streamline the journey to reach the information or product being sought as much as possible.
- Rather than overselling your products and/or services, showcase them indirectly: judiciously display on the homepage your labels, certifications, ISO standards (if applicable), and your external partnerships.
3. LinkedIn, still at the top of B2B marketing trends
94% of B2B companies are present on LinkedIn and 80% of B2B leads come from this network specialized in intercompany communication. These figures alone are enough to demonstrate the importance of your marketing communication on LinkedIn !
If you want to perform on this B2B social network, here is our advice:
- Try the carousel format: it receives a good response from users and also achieves stronger organic reach.
- Use Lead Generation Forms for your campaigns aimed at acquiring leads. Very effective, it allows collecting data from LinkedIn, which facilitates conversions.
- Launch a LinkedIn Ads campaign: do you want to acquire new clients or boost your visibility with a B2B audience? On LinkedIn you can target audiences by professional attributes and therefore meet your business objectives through advertising.
- Encourage your teams to create a LinkedIn profile, connect with your prospects and clients, and share your page's posts. This will boost the visibility of your posts.
- Be human: the tone of LinkedIn posts has shifted somewhat recently. Emotion, personal experience, and opinions have become much more important. Show who you are, what your values and daily commitments are, and talk about how your personal life informs your professional life (and vice versa) to humanize your communication.
4. The webinar remains a flagship format of B2B marketing
The webinar is a very effective B2B marketing tool which not only generates many leads, but also produces a very high conversion rate.
The webinar will allow you to create a direct connection with B2B prospects. You will be able to demonstrate your expertise live and answer the questions of future buyers.
Webinars are highly valued interactive solutions and, if properly organized, guarantee success! Thanks to their popularity, hundreds of webinars take place every day. Again, you will need to stand out from the competition by choosing your topic carefully and being creative.
Also read: The 9 best tools to broadcast your webinar
5. Enter ABM: ultra-personalized B2B marketing
Never lose sight of your buyer persona. It is and must be at the center of your marketing strategy. If your prospect doesn't feel unique, they will turn to the competition.
In B2B, adapt your communication according to the job role, the type of company, or the industry. In short: use Account Based Marketing (ABM).
The concept is simple: create content according to the consideration journey of a specific customer or a typical customer group.
How to implement an ABM strategy?
- Identify your high-value targets: these are the decision-makers or companies that offer the greatest potential in terms of revenue and conversions.
- Research these companies or buyers to identify their pain points and objectives. Also analyze their positioning in the customer journey.
- Develop personalized marketing campaigns based on the information gathered: write (or delegate the writing of) blog posts, social media posts, emails and other content designed to "nurture" each target.
- Schedule the delivery of content to guide prospects through their decision-making journey up to conversion.
6. Stand out with CSR
The Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility (CSR) is a "company label", an "ethos" as rhetoric would say. In other words, it's a message that showcases your values.
Providing quality products is no longer enough: excellence is a refrain we've heard too often.
Providing low-cost products is no longer enough either: the price war was intensified by globalization and the digitalization of commerce. If you rely solely on your products, you risk losing the marketing battle, including in B2B.
Today, you must sell meaning. Eco-anxiety is spreading among younger generations: awareness of the vast differences in living standards between the North and the South influences purchasing choices.
Highlight and document one of your fair trade initiatives, obtain a certification recognized by professionals in your field, film that workshop where, for example, the pay gap is only 1 to 2, invest in sustainability and local suppliers… In short, show that your company is committed to a better world!
This can win you favor with your B2B prospects in several ways: on one hand, it will appeal to their personal conscience; on the other hand, as professionals, if you form a partnership, they can in turn reflect your CSR onto their own company (which will be excellent for their brand image).
7. The explosion of digital self-service in the B2B world
B2B buyers want to research on their own and handle more of their decision-making journey alone before speaking to salespeople. This trend is not new, but it continues to strengthen year after year!
A TrustRadius report reveals that practically 100% of buyers want to handle part of their purchasing journey themselves (an increase of 13% compared to 2021).
The key to taking advantage of this B2B marketing trend? Provide tools that let your prospects research independently. In addition to publishing lots of content on your company blog or social media, offer segmented newsletters, launch a chatbot, host webinars, produce a podcast-style show…
"Feed" your potential clients as much as possible so they can easily find the information they’re looking for and contact you when they reach the end of their buying journey!
8. The rise of AI
Generative AI is increasingly present on the web today. Websites created with AI, ad campaigns, social media management… AI is unavoidable and is now turning to the B2B market.
While people talk more about B2B, many companies are gradually implementing AI in their content creation processes or sales funnels. Much more personalized and customizable chatbots, automation of order management, logistics, invoicing, customer service responses… In other words: tasks that take a huge amount of time, but which AI automates and optimizes!
9. The rise of Dark Social
Dark Social is gaining ground in B2B marketing. It’s tempting to think that in the digital age and on social networks, all touchpoints are trackable and transparent. But that’s not true! Many “invisible” exchanges still occur between buyers—conversations and recommendations that happen behind the scenes and aren’t tracked by web analytics tools.
The internet hasn’t erased word-of-mouth. Reviews and testimonials from other users remain important, especially in B2B where products/services can be complex and often expensive.
In that respect, Dark Social remains an important opportunity for B2B brands. It’s a chance to discover who their real potential customers are, what their interests are, and their main concerns.
To take advantage of it: find the platforms and discussion groups where your prospects hide, tracking in particular the sites where your content is shared and places where your company name is mentioned. Sign up on those platforms, read and analyze community exchanges to better understand them.
10. The democratization of B2B influencer marketing
Popular in B2C, influencer marketing is becoming essential in the B2B market. After all, this ties into the earlier point about Dark Social. The influencer becomes an ambassador for a company to recommend it to their community. Given the importance of recommenders in B2B, why not optimize digital word-of-mouth by partnering with influencers who have strong expertise in their field?
On LinkedIn, spot leaders and decision-makers who often talk about their work in an inspiring way, who give practical advice and lists of must-have tools. You will inevitably find potential partners there who will agree to test your services, products, or software in exchange for a post on the social network or a blog article.
11. Interactive and immersive content in the age of the Metaverse
The metaverse is only just beginning to break into the B2C world. It will still take a few years before it becomes a major trend in B2B marketing. Nevertheless, this alternative universe will give pride of place to interactive and immersive content. And this type of format is a real trend outside that parallel digital world!
Put it on your content marketing menu now, because it generates a higher engagement rate compared with other methods. You can offer interactive product or service demonstrations, behind-the-scenes augmented reality tours, quizzes, mini-games, free online tools, carousels, etc.
Our tip for B2B marketing
Here are the 11 B2B marketing trends to follow in 2024! Analyzing your current strategy to revise it to match future best practices takes time and a certain level of expertise. Especially when it comes to creating new content!
You can entrust this project to professional web writers that you will find on our content writing platform.
The article The 11 B2B Marketing Trends for 2024 first appeared on Redactor.com.
