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B2B Marketing 2016:

5 Digital Must-Dos

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B2B Marketing 2016:

5 Must-Watch Digital Trends
Which areas should B2B marketers devote additional digital spend
to in 2016? What are the best approaches and tactics to focus on?
Narrowing things down can feel daunting given all the options
available. Over the past few years, as digital marketing has become
core to the strategies of many organizations, B2B marketers have
greatly expanded the areas they invest in.
Some 98% of B2B companies say they increased their digital
marketing budgets in 2015, and that number is expected to be
equaled in 2016.
Where this additional budget is coming from is fairly clear: B2B
marketers say theyre spending less money on traditional channels
such as brochures and billboards.
However, where the spend is going isnt as easy to pin down.
Marketers are spreading their digital budgets across a wide range
of areas, including websites, search, social media, Big Data, content
creation, app development, software suites, and much more.
So, which of these many areas deserve additional consideration
in 2016?
In this e-book, were focusing on a small number of tactics and tools
that are increasingly important for B2B organizations in almost every
vertical. Weve sorted through dozens of surveys and research reports
to find the key digital approaches that are both already working for
marketers and that have substantial future growth potential.
These five areas arent comprehensive by any means, but we believe
that investing in each can significantly impact revenue in the year
aheadand long beyond.

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Table of Contents
Section 1

Section 2

Section 3

Section 4

Section 5

10

Content quality: Focus on more than quantity

The customer journey: Improve your lead generation
Predictive analytics: Look into the crystal ball
Marketing automation: Boost your sales pipeline
Webinars and SEM: Keep an eye on whats working

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Section 1

1. Content quality:
Focus on more than quantity
B2B companies are going all in on content marketing. A
survey conducted last year by eConsultancy found that
B2B marketers view content as the most exciting digital
opportunity, ahead of areas like mobile and social media.
This optimism is being backed up by action and
investment. Some 76% of B2B marketers say theyre
planning to ramp up content production in 2016 and 51%
expect to increase their content marketing budgets.
Companies arent just looking to create more content in
the year ahead, theyre also aiming to create better
content. Some 60% of B2B marketers say producing
high-quality content is currently a challenge, and 72%
say theyre focused on creating more-engaging
content in 2016.
This shiftto thinking about content quality in addition to
quantityis a natural progression. Now that many B2B
marketers have gotten the basics of content production
down, its time to take a step back and evaluate whats
working (and whats not).
We highly recommend that you do the same in 2016; look
beyond indicators based on volumesuch as the number
of assets produced, overall visits, etc.and dive more
deeply into engagement metrics. By understanding which
pieces are driving sales; e.g., which ones are truly valuable,
youll be be able to turn increased content traffic into
increased revenue.

Companies arent
just looking to
create more
content in the year
ahead, theyre also
aiming to create
better content.

72% of B2B
marketers say
theyre focused
on creating moreengaging content
in 2016.

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Section 2

2. The customer journey:

Improve your lead generation
Whats the most important metric to B2B content
marketers? Is it website visits? Conversion rates?
Subscriber growth?
Actually, its sales-lead quality. B2B marketers
overwhelmingly rank lead quality as their barometer
for measuring content success, with 87% saying its
a key metric.
Why? Because even a flood of traffic and engagement is
useless if it doesnt produce a large number of leads with
a high likelihood to purchase.
Of course, getting high-quality leads isnt easy. Thats why
B2B marketers rank improving lead quality as their numbertwo current challenge after new business development.

Improving the
quality of your leads
begins with better
understanding who
is involved in buying
your products
and what their
motivations are.

Improving the quality of leads begins with better

understanding who is involved in buying your products and
what their motivations are. Thats why we encourage you to
fully map your customer journey in 2016.
How important is this exercise? Some 87% of B2B marketers
say that truly comprehending the customer journey is
essential to digital marketing success over
the next three years.
The key to understanding the customer journey is to go
beyond merely creating a few simple personas. B2B
organizations that outperform their peers are more likely to
use multiple data sources to map the path to purchase, and
to develop nuanced psychological profiles (likes,
fears, preferences, etc.) for every role involved in
the buying process.

87% of B2B
marketers say truly
comprehending the
customer journey is
essential to digital
marketing success
over the next
three years.
5

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Section 3

3. Predictive analytics:
Look into the crystal ball
Some 55% of B2B organizations say theyre hiring for
marketing analytics roles next yearmore than are looking to
hire new digital-strategy, search, or social media employees.
Whats going on? Why are businesses suddenly rushing
to beef up their marketing analytics capabilities?
This trend stems in part from B2B organizations struggles
with understanding current trends. The flood of new data
availablefrom marketing platforms, sales teams, thirdparties, and other sourcesis a gold mine but also a challenge.
New employees and software suites are required to merely
get an accurate picture of whats going on right now.
However, the underlying reason that marketing analytics
is booming is its ability to help understand future trends,
not just real-time or past events. The real payoff comes
from predictive analytics, not just snapshots of
current performance.
B2B organizations that use predictive analytics are two times
more likely to have annual revenue growth rates above 10%,
own a larger market share compared with competitors, and
exceed marketing ROI goals.
How are they doing this? B2B companies that utilize
predictive analytics say they use the capabilities to
understand how high-value customers are likely to engage
(97%), to identify new leads/customer opportunities (89%),
and to optimize their marketing mix to reach the right
buyers (92%).
In other words, predictive marketing analytics allows
companies to identify the best approaches, potential
customers, and strategies beforehand; its a powerful
crystal ball that can substantially boost the impact of
everything you do.

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Predictive analytics
allows companies
to identify the
best approaches,
potential customers,
and strategies
beforehand.

55% of B2B
organizations say
they're hiring for
marketing analytics
roles next year.

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Section 4

4. Marketing automation:
Boost your sales pipeline
One of the biggest challenges facing most B2B marketers is
scale. How do you nurture enough new leads at every step of
the buyer journeyfrom research to evaluationto ensure
that revenue increases?
This is where marketing automation can help immensely.
Automation platforms enable businesses to more easily
build, track, and manage digital campaigns via sophisticated
development, measurement, scoring, and analytics tools.
Everything from landing page creation to email marketing
and customer relationship management becomes
more efficient.
This ability to reach more potential customers and to better
evaluate/convert leads is why 66% of B2B organizations plan
to increase their investment in marketing automation
platforms next year.
How much is this investment expected to pay off? B2B
organizations that invest in marketing automation platforms
say they see a 10% increase on average in their sales pipeline.
That bump may not sound earth shattering, but keep in mind
that it reflects an increase in high-quality leads, not just
broad traffic.
Of course, marketing automation platforms arent that new
(in digital time, at least). Whats fresh is the ability for these
tools to handle more and more tasks, and for the systems
to be integrated.
The seamless blending of platforms isnt simple52% of
B2B marketers say they struggle with the complexity of
technology integrationbut if done well, it can increase
scale and efficiency throughout your marketing and
sales processes.

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With marketing
automation,
everything from
landing page
creation to
email marketing
and customer
relationship
management
becomes more
efficient.

66% of B2B
organizations
plan to increase
their investment
in marketing
automation
platforms
next year.

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Section 5

5. Webinars and SEM:

Keep an eye on whats working
Finally, a reminder to focus on the digital strategies and tools
that are already working, not just whats new.
The top tried-and-true methods vary from organization to
organization, but two important ones to keep in mind in 2016
are webinars and search engine marketing (SEM).
Why these particular tactics? The answer is two-fold.
First, they already work well. B2B marketers rank SEM as the
most effective paid digital marketing tactic and webinars as
the second-most effective digital unpaid tactic (after
website content).

Focus on the
digital strategies
and tools that are
already working
for you, not just
whats new.

Second, theyre going to become increasingly important as

the B2B landscape shifts. Some 46% of B2B buyers are now
Millennials (compared with 27% three years ago), and that
number is set to grow quickly over the next decade.
There are a host of differences between Millennial and
Gen X/Baby Boomer buyers, but the biggest is this:
Millennials tend to research a lot more online before
engaging with sales representatives.
Millennial B2B buyers do 12 web searches on average before
reaching out to sales representatives. Some 71% of these
searchers start with generic terms, then narrow over time to
specific product names. Thats why SEM remains essential
for a broad range of keywords.
As for webinars, 70% of B2B buyers say they view videos/
webinars during the evaluation process, with 48%+ watching
for more 30 minutes on average. This makes webinars the
most effective way to have in-depth personal interactions
with digital-native customers early on.

46% of B2B
buyers are now
Millennials,
compared with
27% three years
ago, and that
number is set to
grow quickly.

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Its an exciting time

to be a B2B marketer.
Digital tools and platforms are becoming increasingly
sophisticated across the board. In 2016, marketers will be
better able to understand, reach, and convert customers
than ever before.
If you wisely invest your marketing spend this year
especially on content quality, customer journey mapping,
predictive analytics, marketing automation, and triedand-true tacticsyou should have unprecedented
opportunities to succeed in the digital realm.

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Sources
http://www.regalix.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/State-of-B2B-Marketing-2015.pdf
http://www.information-age.com/it-management/strategy-and-innovation/123460621/b2b-marketing-2016-what-lies-ahead
http://www.circlesstudio.com/blog/9-b2b-marketing-trends-watch-2016/
http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/2016_B2B_Report_Final.pdf
https://www.forrester.com/B2B+MARKETING+2016/-/E-EVE6921
http://ascend2.com/home/wp-content/uploads/Informatica-DNB-B2B-Marketing-Technology-Strategy-150917.pdf
https://www.salesforce.com/form/marketingcloud/2015-state-of-b2b-marketing.jsp
https://think.storage.googleapis.com/docs/the-changing-face-b2b-marketing.pdf
http://downloads.digitalmarketingdepot.com/rs/thirddoormedia/images/MIR_1303_MarketAuto.pdf
https://econsultancy.com/blog/66687-three-insights-into-b2b-marketing-from-our-trends-report/
http://cintell.net/2016-benchmark

10

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