What\u2019s the secret to B2B marketing success? As in most industries, the topics at the forefront of marketing circle around digitalisation, AI, IoT and other disruptive technologies.<\/p>\n
There is no doubt technology will impact B2B marketing, and in some cases is already changing long-held practices. But it can sometimes be difficult to cut through the hype to find what you really need to know.<\/p>\n
At this year\u2019s B2B Marketing Expo, held at ExCeL London, many speakers and exhibitors claimed to have the answers. Here are five things we learned:<\/p>\n
1) As easy as ABM<\/strong><\/p>\n Account Based Marketing (ABM) has been talked about for a number of years, but it\u2019s not always easy to find examples of companies who put it into practice. One success story is technology specialist Fujitsu, as their ABM Lead Waheed Warden explained during a packed keynote.<\/p>\n She revealed that Fujitsu has been steadily growing its ABM programme over the past four years with the aim of eventually making it \u2018business as usual\u2019 by 2020. The results so far have been impressive, with just 10 ABM specialists delivering 60 per cent of Fujitsu\u2019s marketing-influenced business pipeline.<\/p>\n High-quality content plays a pivotal role in successful campaigns. \u201cContent is crucial in ABM to tell a story to the customer about why your company is relevant to them,\u201d said Warden.<\/p>\n 2) AI or bust?<\/strong><\/p>\n Almost no industry is going to be untouched by AI, and the world of marketing is not excluded.<\/p>\n Sal Mohammed works for digital firm Adzooma, and previously had roles at Google and O2. During his talk on AI in marketing he stressed that not every business requires AI yet, but they should all be thinking about it. His suggestions for areas to \u2018dabble\u2019 in AI were around identifying customers to market to from large lists, personalisation of content and advertising, and tracking and analysing customer data via your business website.<\/p>\n He warned: \u201cBusinesses that don\u2019t embrace AI over the next 10 years will disappear.\u201d<\/p>\n 3) Content is (still) king<\/strong><\/p>\n There was no shortage of experts, academics and marketers in agreement that good content is vital in B2B marketing. \u201cB2B doesn\u2019t need to mean \u2018boring and bland\u2019 – content is your company\u2019s shop window,\u201d said Jack Dyson, Global Head of Content Strategy at SAP Customer Experience, during his keynote speech.<\/p>\n Dyson pointed out that much of the successful formula for content can be traced back to what works in print newspapers and magazines – they were doing Hero, Hub and Hygiene before it was a \u2018thing\u2019. Companies that tailor content to their audience, make use of different lengths and formats of written content, blend eye-catching images with graphics and work with popular influencers will be on to a good thing.<\/p>\n 4) Trust leads to sales<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cHigh-quality content provides the right environment for sales to happen because your audience trusts your brand\u201d – one of the comments from the Content Marketing Association\u2019s (CMA) panel discussion devoted to building trust through content.<\/p>\n They pointed out that fundamental to creating this environment is talking to your audience in an individual way rather than as an institution – make use of your talent and put them front and centre, because their enthusiasm and expertise resonates. As we would advocate at Formative, the secret to engaging first-person blogs is to use brilliant journalists to interview your people so that their message can be articulated effectively.<\/p>\n