The Latest in B2B Marketing Trends: A Mid-Year Update

If you are a B2B marketer, you are likely always on the lookout for news ways to fill your sales funnel. After all, lead generation is the lifeblood of any business.
While most articles on the latest trends in marketing usually hit around the New Year, we thought we would mix things up a little and do a mid-year assessment of what are the hottest trends in B2B marketing right now. After all, things change quickly in the marketing world so it is important to know how to best promote your B2B brand throughout the year.

1. Channel Integration. It is always tempting to focus on individual channels that seem to work well for your B2B brand. However, integration of channels can do wonders for your brand. No longer does it make sense to spend all of your marketing dollars on email marketing, for example. Savvy B2B marketers understand the importance of integrating email marketing with web optimization and social media-or whatever combination works best for their particular brand.
2. Personalization. Individual interactions are all the rage. Providing seamless, unique experiences for customers that is both user-specific and time-sensitive leads to huge bumps in ROI.
3. Account-Based Marketing. Account-based marketing involves getting more personalized information from users. The more personal information you can get from users, the better you can customized their experiences which means they will remain on your website longer and visit it more often.
4. Video, Video and More Video. If text or video are both available on a website, most people will click on the video. The options with video are virtually endless. You can livestream from a tradeshow, perform product demonstrations, give behind-the-scenes tours of your business and much more. This is all in addition to posting straightforward brand videos and client testimonials.
5. Content Marketing. This is certainly not a new trend but its popularity continues to grow. B2B companies benefit greatly from content marketing because B2B buyers have a longer sales journey than B2C buyers. That means B2B customers have more time to pour over content which will allow them to make the best buying decision. It also means you need to constantly work on upping your content marketing game.

No matter what you think about the latest marketing trends, one thing is for sure, there has never been more ways to connect with customers and prospects. The key is to find a few of the trends you know you can excel at and work hard to take full advantage of them.