The power dynamic in B2B buying has officially flipped, and one thing is clear: your buyers expect more—and they’re not afraid to look elsewhere for it. Research shows that 82% of B2B buyers now expect the same level of speed, ease, and personalization they receive as consumers.[1] Welcome to the new age of B2B buying, where the buyer—not the seller—holds the power.

This evolution has rewritten the rules. Buying journeys are no longer linear or seller-driven; they’re complex, digitally native, research-heavy, and influenced by trust and emotion. As buyer expectations continue to rise, many B2B companies are struggling to keep up. Those who succeed will be the ones who rise to meet today’s demands.

Meet the 2025 B2B Buyer: Digital-First & Demanding

The face of the B2B buyer is changing fast. Millennials and Gen Zers now represent more than 70% of B2B buyers.[2] These digital natives are multitaskers, skeptics of traditional sales tactics, and relentless researchers. They’re used to instant access to information and personalized experiences and expect no less in their professional lives.

Modern buyers:

• Educate themselves through blogs, videos, and peer reviews
• Hop between LinkedIn, email, Google, and review sites, all in a single decision cycle
• Want proof (not promises) before they invest

Therefore, your marketing and sales strategies must evolve as quickly as they do to win their attention (and their trust).

The 7 Non-Negotiables of the Modern B2B Buying Experience

If you want to meet the expectations of today’s buyers, you can’t just tweak your strategy; you need to rethink it entirely. B2B buyers now demand the same seamless, personalized, and flexible experiences they’re used to as consumers. Below are seven core expectations that every brand must deliver to stay competitive.

1. Seamless, Consumer-Like Digital Experience

Think Amazon, not antiquated portals. Buyers expect fast-loading sites, intuitive search, mobile optimization, and real-time help. Long forms and clunky navigation are deal-breakers. To keep them engaged, perform a UX audit and eliminate friction in your site or demo flow. Today’s buyers are used to effortless online experiences in their personal lives, and they bring those expectations into their workday. If your site feels outdated or hard to navigate, they’ll assume your product is too.

2. Self-Guided Exploration Tools

Before talking to sales, buyers want to explore on their own. That means interactive product demos, ROI calculators, recorded walkthroughs, and side-by-side comparisons. Tools like Walnut, Navattic, and Storylane allow you to showcase your solution without requiring a login. Modern buyers don’t want to schedule a call just to get basic information; they want answers on their own time. Giving them control builds confidence and keeps them engaged longer in the decision-making process.

3. Hyper-Personalization Across Channels

Mass emails are dead. Your outreach should be tailored by industry, funnel stage, company size, and buyer behavior. Smart CTAs, personalized nurture streams, and dynamic content platforms can turn browsers into believers. Platforms like HubSpot and Salesforce allow you to automate this at scale. Think: email workflows triggered by a whitepaper download or homepage content that changes based on industry. The more relevant the experience, the more likely buyers are to take the next step.

4. Proof, Trust & Transparency

Trust isn’t built with buzzwords; it’s earned with evidence. Case studies, honest product comparisons, transparent pricing, third-party reviews, and trust signals (like certifications or customer logos) are table stakes in 2025. Buyers want to see who you’ve helped, what results you’ve delivered, and what real users think. Featuring client logos, G2 or TrustRadius reviews, and even showing limitations of your product where appropriate can strengthen credibility and differentiate your brand.

5. Real-Time Responsiveness

Speed sells. According to a survey conducted by Lead Connect, 78% of buyers purchase from the vendor that responds first.[3] That means your team must respond within minutes, not days. Leverage AI chatbots, automated email sequences, and clear SLAs to stay ahead. Even a short delay can be the difference between closing a deal and losing it to a competitor. With so many tools available, there’s no excuse for radio silence, especially when a quick response can make your brand the obvious choice.

6. Advisory Over Transactional Selling

B2B buyers now expect a guide, not a pitch. Your reps should educate, consult, and provide value through insights and use-case expertise. Sales enablement should focus on customer storytelling and not just feature checklists. That means understanding the buyer’s industry, anticipating questions, and leading with value. Instead of starting with features, top-performing reps open conversations with challenges, trends, and real examples to position themselves as strategic partners.

7. Flexible Engagement & Pricing Models

Buyers want to try before they buy. From free trials to usage-based billing and modular pricing, flexibility is key. Empower them to customize their path and scale on their terms. Rigid pricing models can create hesitation, especially for risk-averse buyers. Offering pilot programs, à la carte features, or personalized packages helps reduce friction and allows buyers to grow at their own pace.

Why Most B2B Brands Are Falling Behind

Despite all the available insights and tools, many B2B brands are still stuck in the past. Gated content, outdated websites, impersonal drip campaigns, and disconnected sales and marketing teams are common culprits. And let’s not forget slow follow-ups, which can kill deals before they start.

How to Catch Up (& Get Ahead)

Meeting modern buyer expectations requires more than awareness; it takes action. Modern decision-makers have high standards, and they’re not lowering them. If your brand is falling short, now’s the time to audit, adapt, and align your efforts. It’s not about reinventing the wheel; it’s about removing friction, increasing relevance, and delivering value faster. Here are key strategies that will help you close the gap and build an outstanding buyer experience.

Audit & Map the Buyer Journey

Start by putting yourself in your buyer’s shoes. Where are they getting stuck? What content is missing or misaligned with their stage in the journey? Use web analytics, CRM, and customer feedback data to uncover friction points and content gaps. Then, align your content strategy with each journey stage: awareness, consideration, decision, and post-sale engagement.

Adopt the Right Tech Stack

To deliver the experience buyers expect, you’ll need the right tools working together behind the scenes. Look for technologies that support automation, personalization, and real-time engagement across channels.

• CRM: HubSpot, Salesforce
• Conversational AI: Drift, Intercom
• ABM Platforms: 6sense, Demandbase
• Personalization: Mutiny, Segment

Ensure your tools are integrated, and your teams are trained to use them effectively. Technology is only as good as its implementation.

Unify Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success

Silos don’t serve your buyers. When internal teams operate independently, the result is a disjointed experience that’s obvious to your audience. Align your revenue teams under shared KPIs and create a continuous feedback loop to share insights, optimize messaging, and improve hand-offs. A unified team speaks with one voice, making the experience feel seamless from first touch to post-sale support.

Build a Content Ecosystem

Buyers don’t want one-off assets; they want a connected, informative experience. Think beyond blogs. Create an entire content ecosystem, including guides, interactive tools, calculators, webinars, videos, and case studies. Repurpose high-performing content across formats and channels to reach more people without reinventing the wheel. For every asset you create, be sure to ask: does this solve a buyer’s need at this stage?

Real-World Examples of Buyer-Centric Brands

Still not convinced? Take a cue from the brands that are setting the standard. These companies aren’t just keeping up. They’re leading the way by making the buyer experience seamless, transparent, and hyper-relevant. Here’s what they’re doing right.

• com: Delivers transparent pricing, frictionless onboarding, and interactive demos that don’t require a sales call.
• io: Leads with value-first thought leadership and instant product clarity.
• HubSpot: Personalizes everything, from blog suggestions to email sequences, based on user behavior and CRM data.

It’s clear that prioritizing buyer experience isn’t a nice-to-have anymore; it’s a competitive advantage.

The Future of B2B Buying Is Already Here

B2B buyers are no longer waiting for you to catch up. They want flexibility, speed, transparency, and a frictionless experience—and they want it now. Brands that recognize this shift and adapt quickly earn trust, build loyalty, and drive growth. Those that don’t? They’ll be left behind.

Is your marketing strategy evolving fast enough to meet the modern buyer’s expectations? Sagefrog’s B2B marketing experts can help you align your messaging, modernize your strategy, and deliver the seamless experiences today’s buyers demand. Contact Sagefrog to start building a marketing engine that converts.

[1] Salesforce, State of the Connected Customer Report, Second Edition, 2018, https://www.salesforce.com/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2020/08/state-of-the-connected-customer-report-second-edition2018.pdf.

[2] Amy Hayes, “Younger Generations Are Shaking Up B2B Buying — Are You Prepared?” Forrester, March 25, 2024, https://www.forrester.com/blogs/younger-b2b-buyers/.

[3] LeanData, “The Modern Rules of Lead Response Time,” LeanData Blog, accessed November 1, 2024, https://www.leandata.com/blog/the-modern-rules-of-lead-response-time/#:~:text=Consider%20this%3A,hour%20(Harvard%20Business%20Review).

More than half the world—nearly 64% of the global population—is on social media, spending an average of two hours and nineteen minutes a day scrolling, liking, and engaging.¹ It’s where your audience spends their free time and where people and businesses can provide value—whether through a helpful service or even just a laugh.

While paid social media offers precise targeting, organic social remains the cornerstone of long-term brand visibility and trust. Think about it—what’s your first thought if a company has no social media presence? Mine is they’re either not established or not organized. That said, the playbook for organic social media isn’t one-size-fits-all. Business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) brands take very different approaches. Let’s break them down.

Audience Behavior Differences

Engagement and results differ by market. B2C audiences are emotional and impulse-driven, focusing on personal needs and desires. They respond to entertaining, casual content like polls, contests, and trending hashtags that spark quick interaction. Retail brands thrive in this space by aligning products with lifestyle preferences—for instance, a fitness brand showcasing how its gear enhances workouts through aspirational, lifestyle-focused content.

In contrast, B2B audiences take a research-driven approach, seeking solutions to business challenges. Decision-makers prioritize content offering industry insights and results. B2B engagement relies on a professional, authoritative tone with thought-provoking posts, meaningful discussions, and direct messages. For example, IT solution providers excel by showcasing ROI and efficiency through case studies, testimonials, and data-driven content.

Platform Prioritization

When it comes to platforms, B2C and B2B shine in different arenas to reach the right audience. B2C brands thrive on highly visual, consumer-centric platforms like Instagram and TikTok, where they can leverage engaging trends and formats to capture attention. Meanwhile, B2B gravitates toward LinkedIn, the go-to platform for professional networking. LinkedIn’s business-oriented environment allows B2B marketers to build credibility and connect with decision-makers. Niche forums and specialized industry groups are also becoming increasingly important for fostering deeper discussions and targeted engagement.

Goals of Organic Social Media Marketing

Organic social media marketing serves a universal purpose—building relationships and delivering value—but the goals for B2C and B2B brands take distinctly different paths. Understanding these differences is core to crafting an audience-focused strategy.

For B2C brands, organic social media focuses on triggering emotion and building a loyal consumer base through storytelling, relatability, and fun—not direct selling. Engagement such as likes, comments, and shares amplifies reach while signaling to audiences that the brand is worth supporting. By delivering consistent, relatable content, B2C brands create a sense of belonging, transforming visibility into a thriving brand ecosystem that keeps customers coming back.

B2B brands use social media to share insights and expertise, positioning themselves as trusted industry resources and problem-solvers. While engagement metrics matter, the focus is on quality over quantity—one real connection outweighs hundreds of likes. This includes addressing questions, sparking discussion, and participating in professional groups.

• Content Strategies: B2C is about quick, visually appealing, and shareable content—think reels, memes, and influencer collaborations. On the other hand, B2B content is more in-depth and value-driven. This includes whitepapers, webinars, and case studies delivered in an educational, expert tone.
• Community Building: B2C thrives on the power of a good inside joke. Whether through a meme or an influencer, brands build loyalty through shared experiences and a sense of connection. By tapping into trends, B2C fosters communities that feel authentic and relatable. Alternatively, B2B focuses on meaningful discussions that pave the way for lasting professional relationships. While it may not be as quick, the goal remains the same: leading with interactions that build trust and foster a sense of belonging—because, at the end of the day, everyone wants to feel like they’re part of something.
• Consistency & Frequency: B2C brands post frequently to stay visible and relevant, focusing on consistency and timely content that keeps audiences engaged. Meanwhile, B2B prioritizes a more strategic approach, emphasizing value-rich posts that offer relevant insights and establish authority.

Challenges of Organic Reach

B2C brands face the challenge of carving out their space while keeping consumers engaged and navigating algorithms that prioritize interaction over visibility. For B2B brands, the hurdle lies in targeting smaller, niche audiences with naturally lower engagement rates, often requiring patience as organic strategies take longer to deliver ROI.

Measuring Success

Success on social media looks different for everyone, with unique factors such as the target audience, industry, goals, and the type of content being shared. For B2C, metrics like likes, shares, comments, and direct messages signal strong audience engagement and brand affinity. B2B focuses on website traffic and potential leads, emphasizing quality connections over sheer volume.

Cut Through the Noise: Organic Social Media Strategies for Success

B2C and B2B brands approach social media from distinctly different angles. B2C thrives on emotional connections, frequent posts, and visually engaging content that resonates with consumers personally. In contrast, B2B focuses on strategic, value-driven content, emphasizing thought leadership and meaningful professional networks.

At the core of both approaches lies a universal truth: understanding your audience is everything. Organic social media isn’t one-size-fits-all, and that’s its strength. By tailoring your strategy to the specific needs of your B2C or B2B audience, you can maximize impact and ensure your brand stands out in a crowded digital landscape.

Source:

1. https://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-strategy/new-global-social-media-research/

Artificial intelligence (AI) and automation have emerged as transformative tools, allowing businesses to streamline operations, enhance customer interactions, and optimize their marketing strategies with unprecedented efficiency. These technologies promise immense value—allowing teams to automate repetitive tasks, analyze customer data in real-time, and deliver personalized content at scale.

However, as powerful as AI and automation are, they are only a piece of the larger marketing puzzle. These tools can fail to deliver real, long-term growth without a strategic foundation. To unlock their full potential, you must integrate AI and automation into a broader marketing strategy that includes human insight, creativity, and the expertise of marketing professionals who understand how to align technology with business goals.

As Sagefrog’s 2025 B2B Marketing Mix Report notes, AI and automation are critical. Both ranked amongst the top ten marketing and sales priorities for 2025 in a survey of B2B professionals. But the most successful companies recognize that technology alone won’t drive success. Instead, they leverage these tools alongside expert guidance to create holistic strategies that fuel sustainable growth.

Let’s explore how B2B marketers utilize AI and automation and why a human touch remains indispensable.

How B2B Marketers Are Utilizing AI

B2B marketers have begun to embrace AI and automation as critical components of their digital strategies. These technologies have revolutionized how marketers approach their target audiences. Sagefrog’s 2025 Marketing Mix Report revealed how B2B professionals most commonly apply AI:

1. Content Creation: The number one use of AI tools was content creation. While these tools can help generate blog topics, social media posts, or even preliminary drafts of copy, human oversight is essential for finalizing and creating compelling content that resonates with audiences and aligns with brand tone and messaging.
2. Coding: Marketers are also using AI to accelerate coding and development tasks. AI platforms can assist with writing code snippets and troubleshooting, making developing websites, apps, and other digital assets more efficient.
3. Presentations: AI is also making waves in presentation creation with tools that automate slide design, suggest layouts, and even analyze audience engagement data to craft impactful presentations. This helps marketers communicate data and ideas more effectively.
4. Design: AI graphic design tools enable marketers to quickly create visuals for campaigns, websites, and social media. These platforms analyze design trends and user preferences to generate visual assets aligned with a brand’s identity.
5. Chatbots: AI-powered chatbots are revolutionizing customer engagement by providing instant, personalized responses. These tools handle routine inquiries and assist customers through websites, contributing to lead generation and improving the user experience.

AI and automation are also valuable in several other aspects of marketing, including paid media advertising. And while these applications may deliver results, they are only as effective as the strategies they support. Businesses that rely on automation alone often fail to engage customers in meaningful ways, as they miss out on the personal, creative touch that only humans can provide.

The Power of Automation: Time-Saving but Not Self-Sufficient

Automation is one of the most time-saving tools in modern marketing, allowing businesses to automate repetitive tasks like email marketing, social media posting, and even data analysis. However, it’s essential to recognize that while automation can handle the execution, it cannot handle the strategy.

Tools like HubSpot have made it easier for businesses to implement automated workflows that nurture leads and manage customer relationships. These platforms can be programmed to send follow-up emails based on specific triggers, such as a customer downloading an eBook or visiting a pricing page. While this frees up valuable time for marketers, it’s crucial to remember that automation can only be as effective as the strategy behind it.

For instance, automating emails is great for efficiency. But if those emails don’t resonate with the recipient—if they’re too generic, poorly timed, or don’t address the customer’s unique needs—they won’t achieve the desired outcomes. This is where the expertise of marketing services and agencies comes in, helping businesses develop the right messaging, optimize touchpoints, and ensure that automation is delivering personalized, relevant experiences.

AI & Automation: Just A Part of the Whole

While AI and automation are incredibly powerful, they are not the whole picture when it comes to successful marketing. Over-reliance on these tools can lead to missed opportunities, as they lack the human intuition and strategic thinking necessary to create lasting customer connections.

Take AI-driven customer segmentation, for example. While AI can segment customers based on data such as demographics, behaviors, and past interactions, it cannot provide the context of why those segments behave the way they do. It takes a skilled marketing professional to interpret these insights and craft personalized experiences that speak to the underlying motivations and pain points of each customer group.

In essence, automation is a means to an end—it helps marketers achieve greater scale and efficiency—but it doesn’t replace the need for a broader marketing strategy. That strategy should include deep customer research, creative messaging, and omnichannel campaigns that engage customers throughout the funnel.

Why Human Oversight Matters in the Age of AI

As AI and automation become more advanced, the role of marketing agencies and services is more important than ever. Agencies help businesses implement these tools and provide strategic guidance to ensure that AI and automation efforts align with business goals.

Marketing agencies bring expertise to the table, helping companies develop campaigns that integrate AI-driven insights with human creativity. They understand that AI can predict customer behaviors and automate tasks but cannot replace the need for authentic, meaningful connections between businesses and their customers.

Moreover, agencies can help businesses stay ahead of the curve by keeping up with the latest AI trends and tools. They can recommend the best platforms, train internal teams on how to use them and provide ongoing support to ensure that automation delivers measurable results. From content strategy to data analysis, agencies act as partners in a company’s long-term success.

Combining Automation with Strategy for Ultimate Growth

The takeaway for B2B marketers is clear: AI and automation are essential tools for scaling efforts and improving efficiency, but they are only part of a much larger strategy. To truly unlock the potential of these technologies, businesses need the expertise and strategic oversight that marketing agencies and services provide.

By combining the efficiency of automation with the insights and creativity of human marketers, B2B companies can create comprehensive strategies that drive long-term growth. The key is to view AI and automation not as a replacement for human effort but as an enhancement leading to success when combined with strategic thinking.

In the ever-evolving landscape of medical technology, staying ahead requires more than just innovation; it necessitates a robust demand generation strategy. This tactic is crucial for companies looking to build awareness, engage prospects, and ultimately convert leads into loyal customers. A unique approach to demand generation is what will get you the most leads, and this involves building specific buyer personas and creating targeted campaigns to uncover gaps that most businesses miss. But what does this look like in action?

Learn the basic steps involved in smart demand generation and how to leverage it effectively to drive ROI in the B2B medtech sector.

What Is Demand Generation?

Demand generation is a holistic marketing strategy aimed at creating awareness and interest in a company’s products or services. Unlike traditional marketing, which typically focuses on immediate sales, demand gen emphasizes building long-term relationships and educating prospects, helping them understand the challenges they face and how the company’s offerings can solve those challenges.

In the B2B medical technology sector, this goes beyond mere promotion; it’s about informing your audiences, highlighting unmet needs, and positioning your medtech solutions as the ideal answer for prospects. By leveraging targeted campaigns, companies can attract high-quality leads and guide them through the buyer’s journey, from awareness to decision-making.

Demand generation can also help companies align with medtech industry trends in telemedicine, AI, and sustainability to better reach relevant audiences. In a competitive and rapidly changing space, this tactic is not only valuable for navigating market shifts but also for improving brand awareness, complying with stringent regulatory updates, and overcoming supply chain complexities.

Demand generation can be tailored to various stakeholders in the medtech field:

• Manufacturers: Manufacturers can build interest in new products and foster relationships with healthcare providers and distributors.
• Distributors & Retailers: Distributors and retailers can boost market presence and position medtech products more effectively to consumers.
• Healthcare Providers: Practitioners, clinics, and hospitals can keep up with new medtech innovations for the benefit of their patients.
• Regulatory Authorities: Regulators can understand industry trends and educate the community on medtech compliance requirements.
• Procurement Professionals: Procurement teams can identify and evaluate potential suppliers to improve their medtech supply chain.
• R&D Firms: Researchers and developers can align projects with market demand and drive investment in new technologies.

Planning a Demand Gen Campaign

A successful B2B demand generation campaign in the medtech industry starts with a nuanced understanding of the target market. You’ll need to gather information on your audience, which includes putting together an ideal customer profile and scoping out the competitive businesses they are familiar with, so you know what you’re up against.

1. Understand Your Target Audience

Define the healthcare providers, institutions, and other stakeholders who would benefit from your product. This can involve creating an Ideal Customer Profile or buyer persona for each audience type. Whatever path you choose, make sure to consider demographic and psychographic information, including occupation, responsibilities, location, pain points, buying behaviors, and even common objections—reasons they might present as an argument for why they wouldn’t need your product. It’s important to get a grasp on all angles and traits of your target market to ensure your demand generation efforts resonate with the right people at the right time.

2. Position Your Medtech Product

Building awareness is the next step. You’ll need to position your medtech products as solutions to challenges that your target audience faces but may not be aware of. Awareness efforts can take on many different forms. You can start with persona-specific messaging and going after your ideal customers on LinkedIn by focusing on company sizes, job titles, and locations that match your buyer personas. Sharing evergreen content like eBooks, whitepapers, and handy checklists and deploying ads across platforms will help educate prospects during this phase, but note that you want to avoid gated landing pages. Any content you promote here should not feature a contact form. For now, it’s all about creating awareness without capturing information.

3. Start Generating New Leads

Leverage insights from the awareness stage of your campaign to create targeted contact lists. You can build highly targeted lists by tracking and analyzing this data through tools like LeadLander, Lead Forensics, and ZoomInfo. These platforms function by monitoring the online activities of visitors, such as identifying the industries and companies visiting your site, the pages they viewed, the duration of their visit, and even their job title and contact details. They effectively pull back the curtain on anonymous site users who haven’t filled out a contact form. Incorporating these tools into your demand gen strategy facilitates a smooth shift from raising awareness to engaging with specific individuals who are most likely to show interest in your medical technology.

4. Nurture & Convert Your Leads

Transform initial awareness into genuine interest and action. Now’s the time to employ tactics like account-based marketing (ABM), paid search engine marketing (SEM), LinkedIn Sponsored Content, and automated email marketing to engage and nurture leads through the sales funnel. Segment your contact lists and use them to precisely target key decision-makers within specific organizations and capture leads through form fills. At this stage, you’ll need to keep your messaging consistent with the messaging used during the initial awareness phase. This ensures a cohesive narrative that resonates with the audience. Highlight how your products or services address real-world healthcare challenges to demonstrate value and relevance. Now is perfect for sharing helpful resources, case studies, and special offers with leads to keep engagement consistent.

5. Optimize Your Campaign

Align your marketing efforts with the sales team. Develop collateral like brochures and sell sheets to equip your sales team with practical tools that seal the deal with warm leads. Staying closely connected with sales will help marketers refine demand generation strategies based on data and feedback, ensuring that nurtured leads quickly convert into customers. Measuring campaign effectiveness is vital in identifying areas for improvement. Regularly track KPIs such as conversion rates, cost per acquisition, and lead quality, then use these insights to adjust your tactics, whether it’s fine-tuning your messaging, optimizing your targeting criteria, or reallocating your budget to the most effective channels. By continuously iterating your strategy, you can enhance the overall efficiency of your demand generation efforts, ultimately driving better results and maximizing ROI.

Get the Guide & Start Generating Demand

Demand generation in the medical technology industry is a complex but vital process. It requires a deep understanding of the target market, a strategic approach to content and messaging, and the ability to engage potential customers at every stage of the buyer’s journey. From creating awareness and building interest to nurturing leads and converting them into loyal customers, each step plays a critical role in achieving success.

As the medtech landscape continues to evolve with advancements in technology and changes in regulations, staying ahead with a well-executed demand generation strategy is more important than ever. By consistently measuring and optimizing your efforts, you can refine your approach, drive higher engagement, and ultimately achieve a better return on investment.

For a more detailed look at medtech demand generation, check out Sagefrog’s and contact us for support with strategies and execution.

As the world embraces the return to in-person events and conferences, B2B companies have a prime opportunity to leverage these gatherings for increasing brand awareness and business growth. Effective event marketing can be the difference between a memorable brand experience and a missed opportunity. We’ve curated this concise yet comprehensive guide to ensure your B2B event marketing efforts are successful, drawing from process-proven resources and expert insights.

The Importance of B2B Event Marketing

B2B events are vital touchpoints in the customer journey, offering unique opportunities for networking, lead generation, and brand positioning. Whether you’re attending a trade show, hosting a seminar, or participating in an industry conference, your approach to event marketing can significantly impact your ROI. In fact, for years, in-person tradeshows and events have topped the leaderboard in the B2B Marketing Mix Report as one of the top lead sources for marketing and sales, and this year is no exception.

Events provide a platform for face-to-face interaction in an increasingly digital world, allowing for deeper engagement and relationship building. They also offer the chance to showcase your products and services to a captive audience, gather market intelligence, and observe industry trends firsthand.

Pre-Event Preparation: Laying the Groundwork

Success in B2B event marketing starts long before the event itself. Thorough preparation is key to maximizing your impact. Here are some essential event marketing preparation steps:

Define Clear Objectives

• Set Specific Goals: Identify what you aim to achieve, be it lead generation, brand awareness, or customer engagement. Goals should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) to provide a clear direction.
• Align with Business Strategy: Ensure your event objectives align with your broader business strategy and marketing goals. This alignment helps in resource allocation and measuring success effectively.

Choose the Right Event

• Research Events: Seek out events that align with your industry, target audience, and business goals. Look at attendee demographics, past event feedback, and the reputation of the event organizer.
• Evaluate Opportunities: Consider the opportunities each event offers, such as speaking engagements, sponsorships, or networking sessions. Select events where your participation can have the most significant impact.

Develop a Strategic Plan

• Create a Detailed Timeline: Plan your participation well in advance. A timeline should include key milestones such as registration deadlines, marketing campaign launches, and logistics planning.
• Design Your Booth: Your booth is the face of your brand at the event. Ensure it is visually appealing, reflects your brand identity, and is equipped with engaging materials and technology to attract visitors.
• Prepare Marketing Materials: Develop high-quality brochures, business cards, and digital presentations. Ensure your messaging is consistent across all materials and highlights your unique value proposition.

Promote Your Presence

• Leverage Digital Channels: Announce your participation through your website, email newsletters, and social media platforms. Use targeted ads to reach your desired audience.
• Engage Influencers: Collaborate with industry influencers to amplify your message. Influencers can help generate buzz and attract more attendees to your booth.
• Utilize PR: Send press releases to industry publications and local media to gain coverage before the event. Highlight any unique aspects of your participation, such as product launches or exclusive offers.

During the Event: Maximizing Engagement

Your performance during the event is critical to achieving your objectives. Here are strategies to maximize your event engagement:

1. Engage with Attendees

   • Train Your Team: Ensure your team is well-prepared, knowledgeable about your products and services, and equipped to handle inquiries. Role-playing exercises can help in refining their pitch and engagement techniques.
   • Create Interactive Experiences: Use demos, VR experiences, or hands-on activities to attract visitors and keep them engaged. Interactive elements not only draw attention but also make your booth memorable.

2. Collect and Qualify Leads

   • Use Digital Tools: Employ lead capture tools like mobile apps, QR codes, or digital business cards to collect contact information efficiently. These tools can streamline the process and reduce manual errors.
   • Qualify Leads on the Spot: Develop a system to qualify leads based on their interest and potential value. This can involve categorizing leads into hot, warm, and cold, allowing for prioritized follow-up.

3. Network Actively

   • Attend Sessions and Events: Participate in conference sessions, workshops, and networking events. This not only provides learning opportunities but also places you in a position to meet industry leaders and potential clients.
   • Engage with Other Exhibitors: Networking isn’t just for attendees. Building relationships with other exhibitors can lead to strategic partnerships and collaborative opportunities.

4. Utilize Social Media

   • Live Updates: Share live updates from the event on your social media channels. Use event hashtags to increase visibility and engage with other attendees online.
   • Interactive Content: Post photos, videos, and stories that capture the essence of the event. Encourage followers to comment and share, broadening your reach.

Post-Event Follow-Up: Sustaining Momentum

The period following the event is just as important as the event itself. Effective follow-up can convert leads into customers and extend the impact of your participation. Here are recommended B2B event follow-up processes for successful lead generation:

1. Timely Follow-Up

   • Contact Leads Promptly: Reach out to the leads you collected within a few days. Use personalized messages that reference your interaction at the event to make a stronger connection.
   • Segment Your Leads: Categorize your leads based on their level of interest and potential. Tailor your follow-up approach accordingly, focusing more effort on the most promising leads.

2. Evaluate Performance

   • Analyze Metrics: Review your event metrics against the goals you set. Metrics can include the number of leads generated, social media engagement, and overall ROI.
   • Gather Feedback: Collect feedback from your team and event attendees. Identify what worked well and what could be improved for future events.

3. Leverage Content Marketing

   • Share Event Highlights: Create blog posts, videos, and social media updates that highlight key moments and takeaways from the event. This content can engage your audience and keep the event’s momentum going.
   • Repurpose Content: Use the content generated at the event for future marketing efforts. Webinars, whitepapers, and case studies can provide long-term value from your event participation.

Embracing Digital in B2B Event Marketing

As illustrated, integrating technology into your event marketing strategy is crucial. Here are some quick tips to enhance your B2B event marketing in the digital world:

1. Utilize Social Media

   • Engage Before, During, and After the Event: Use social media to create a buzz before the event, share live updates during it, and keep the conversation going afterward.
   • Interactive Campaigns: Launch social media campaigns that encourage engagement. Contests, polls, and user-generated content can significantly boost your visibility and engagement.

2. Incorporate Virtual Elements

   • Hybrid Events: Offer virtual attendance options for those who cannot attend in person. Hybrid events can increase your reach and provide additional content for your digital marketing efforts.
   • Virtual Booths: Create virtual booths that mimic your physical presence. Include downloadable content, live chat options, and interactive features to engage online attendees.

3. Leverage Data Analytics

   • Track Engagement: Use analytics tools to monitor attendee behavior, engagement levels, and content interactions. This data can provide valuable insights into what worked and what didn’t.
   • Optimize Campaigns: Use the data collected to refine your marketing campaigns. Understanding attendee preferences and behaviors can help in creating more targeted and effective strategies.

4. Create Digital Content

   • Extend Event Lifespan: Produce webinars, podcasts, and video content to extend the life of your event. These materials can reach a wider audience and provide ongoing value.
   • Engage with Video: Video content is highly engaging and can effectively communicate your key messages. Share event recaps, interviews, and behind-the-scenes footage.

Prepare, Execute, and Follow-through for Successful B2B Event Marketing

As companies continue to return to the vibrant world of in-person events, a well-planned B2B event marketing strategy can set you apart from the competition. By preparing thoroughly, engaging effectively during the event, and following up diligently, you can turn your event participation into a powerful driver of business growth. Embrace the digital elements and keep refining your approach to stay ahead in the ever-evolving landscape of B2B marketing.

B2B events offer unparalleled opportunities to build relationships, generate leads, and position your brand as a leader in your industry. With the right strategy and execution, your next event can be a resounding success.

For a more detailed guide to B2B event marketing, check out Sagefrog’s Ultimate Guide to B2B Event Marketing and contact us for support with pre, during, and post-show marketing.

Impactful marketing campaigns transcend product promotion, playing a pivotal role in sculpting a brand’s identity, forging emotional bonds with the audience, and ultimately driving tangible results in leads and ROI. Launching a campaign is easy; launching a successful one is not so easy.

In a world saturated with marketing campaigns, especially in advertising—a subset emphasizing creative and persuasive messages—the public is inundated, presenting a significant challenge to stand out. The average person sees about 5,000 ads daily, equating to more than 1.8 million per year.[1] Yes, you read that correctly: 5,000 ads every single day! With such overwhelming exposure, it’s imperative to understand best practices, lean on an experienced marketing agency, and plan and execute strategically.

As we navigate through 2024, embracing best practices becomes crucial for planning marketing campaigns that capture an audience’s attention and deliver successful and measurable outcomes.

What Is a Marketing Campaign?

Before we get into the nitty-gritty details, it’s vital to understand what a marketing campaign is. A marketing campaign is a focused, strategic effort to promote a specific product, service, or brand. It involves coordinated activities, usually across various channels, to achieve predefined goals and objectives. Some marketing campaigns may aim to capture customer feedback, while others wish to raise awareness for a new product.

Types of Marketing Campaigns

Before purchasing a product or service, individuals typically research, evaluate, and engage with potential companies. Campaigns revolve around this buyer’s journey—the process a prospective buyer undergoes before making a purchase. Mapping out this journey can offer insight into prospects’ needs and guide the provision of relevant information. Campaigns typically target three stages of the buyer’s journey: Awareness, Consideration, and Decision. Each stage informs the type of campaign to create, tailored to target prospective buyers in a specific stage.

• In the awareness stage, prospective customers know they have a problem that requires a solution. They are likely looking for resources to learn about possible solutions. Campaigns that target the awareness stage revolve around educating, informing, and sometimes proposing a solution to the problem. Often, this includes resources such as articles, eBooks, and whitepapers.
• In the consideration stage, prospective customers actively research their options—now with a deeper understanding of their problem—and evaluate specific solutions. Campaigns that target the consideration stage incorporate continued education but mainly highlight how a company’s offering is different and better solution than its competitors.
• In the decision stage, prospective customers are on the brink of making a choice but may require an extra push to finalize their decision. This could be achieved through incentives like discounts, customized demos, or free consultations. And don’t forget that while prospective customers may be close to choosing your company, they can still change their minds. Optimize every interaction with value-adds and responsiveness.

Components of a Marketing Campaign

A successful marketing campaign comprises various crucial elements, each meticulously planned to achieve desired outcomes. Let’s delve into these components:

Goals & KPIs

Begin by clearly defining your goals. Are you aiming for increased brand awareness, lead generation, or sales growth? Establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure success and ensure they align with your overarching business objectives. For instance, maybe you wish to increase online sales. A KPI for this may be to increase web traffic by 10% this month. Tracking KPIs can help provide insight into what your company is doing well and where it could improve.

Timeline

A well-structured timeline is essential for the success of any marketing campaign. A marketing timeline can give you an overview of all the activities and initiatives to be executed. By establishing a timeline for your campaign, you can organize your projects according to deadlines on a per-project, quarterly, or annual basis. You can set milestones and deadlines by breaking the campaign into phases to keep the team on track. Consider the seasonality and industry trends that might impact your timeline.

Budget

Allocate your resources wisely. Determine a realistic budget based on your goals and the channels you plan to leverage. According to the 2024 B2B Marketing Mix Report, nearly half (48%) of all surveyed businesses intend to increase their budget in 2024 compared to 2023. Be prepared to invest in creative content, advertising, and other necessary tools to make your campaign stand out.

Channels

Identifying the most effective channels for reaching your target audience is essential. This may include a combination of social media platforms, email marketing, search engine optimization, and traditional advertising. Tailor your approach to the habits and preferences of your audience.

Types of marketing campaign channels include:

• Social media marketing
• Email marketing
• Influencer partnership marketing
• Content marketing
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Guerilla marketing
• Event marketing
• Direct mail marketing
• Mobile marketing

Offer

And finally, your offer is pivotal to your campaign, serving as the catalyst for prospect engagement. It entices prospects to fill out a form, becoming qualified leads in your sales pipeline. Tailored to the campaign stage—awareness, consideration, or decision—it varies: educational content (whitepapers, eBooks) for awareness, comparative tools (case studies, checklists) for consideration, and decisive actions (free demo, discount code) for the decision stage.

Not sure where to start? Download our interactive template: Planning & Executing a Strategic Marketing Campaign for guidance.

Creating a Marketing Campaign

The most essential part of creating a marketing campaign is planning. Planning is crucial to ensuring that all components are well thought out and that you cover the necessary bases.

Concepting

A vital component of a successful marketing campaign is establishing a compelling concept built around the offer. It’s not enough to offer a free download or discount but to anchor the offer in a bigger idea tied to seasonality, tradeshows, industry trends, or national holidays. Brainstorm creative and engaging ideas that resonate with your audience. Consider incorporating storytelling, visuals, and interactive elements to make your campaign memorable. It can also be helpful to examine marketing campaigns that have proven successful and those that have tanked for more insight.

Distribution

Once you have a solid concept, plan the distribution strategy. You can leverage multiple platforms to maximize reach and engagement. Choose the channels that align with your target audience’s behavior. For instance, if you are trying to increase awareness surrounding a product and your target audience is ages 55-70, TikTok probably wouldn’t be the best choice for distributing content.

Conversion to Customers

Drive your audience towards conversion by implementing effective calls-to-action (CTAs) and a seamless customer journey. Whether making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or downloading content, the conversion process should be intuitive and user-friendly.

Measuring & Assessing

Utilize analytics tools to track the performance of your campaign. Monitor KPIs and gather insights into what worked and what didn’t. Use this data to make informed decisions for future campaigns. Don’t be afraid to iterate and optimize based on the feedback and data collected. Marketing is an evolving process, and continuous improvement is critical to staying ahead of the competition.

Launching an Impactful Marketing Campaign

When executed strategically, marketing campaigns are vital in building brand identity, engaging audiences, and achieving business objectives. Through thoughtful planning, execution, and analysis, businesses can create memorable campaigns that leave a lasting impact.

Need assistance creating an effective marketing campaign? Sagefrog’s dedicated B2B marketing strategy experts can provide a thorough view of your market landscape, help you establish the right KPIs and target audience, and develop a comprehensive marketing campaign that converts prospects into leads! Contact Sagefrog today to learn how we’ll work together to achieve your goals in 2024.

[1] “Thinking vs Feeling: The Psychology of Advertising.” USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Science, November 17, 2023. https://appliedpsychologydegree.usc.edu/blog/thinking-vs-feeling-the-psychology-of-advertising

“Strategy without tactics is a daydream; tactics without strategy is a nightmare.”

Influenced by Sun Tzu, this quote implies that there’s a clear difference between marketing strategy and marketing tactics.

It suggests that one can’t be done without the other, and to do both correctly, strategy must come first. It’s the foundation, after all.

B2B decision makers are not easy to reach. They don’t navigate the buyer journey in any linear fashion. There are no patterns of behavior, and they are completely unpredictable. This makes it almost impossible for B2B and tech companies to reach this audience with relevant content.

One question on the minds of many B2B marketers right now is whether we should be funding new approaches like AI, VR, AR, or even Tiktok! My view is to always mainly focus on the stuff that works. And once that’s in place, you can experiment with new ideas. Too many marketers are always looking for the next big thing, yet they haven’t perfected what’s right in front of them. And what’s right in front of them is not that complex.

In this post, you’ll find out how B2B marketers are planning, executing and budgeting their marketing programs, so you can be sure your strategy falls in line with or zooms ahead of your competition.

PS – Check out our 10 tips for optimizing your content marketing. Watch Now!

1. Have a Formal Marketing Plan

In a significant and encouraging shift from the data released in our B2B Marketing Mix Report, more B2B teams are using formal plans to guide their branding and marketing. 66% of B2B marketers reported using a formal marketing plan this year, taking a more strategic and proactive approach to tactics, rather than a sporadic and reactive approach to the marketplace.

Once again, there are differences between a strategic marketing plan and a tactical marketing plan. A strategic marketing plan, which we’re talking about here, combines market research with a situation analysis of your brand.

One of the most common ways to get started is by using your marketing agency or internal committee to identify your top five to ten competitors and conduct a SWOT analysis for each. Cross-reference your competitors’ SWOTs against your company’s own analysis to uncover the whitespace—areas where the market is severely lacking or strengths that only your company brings to the table.

With this information, you can develop a brand strategy and messaging platform that intelligently markets the characteristics that make your brand different and better from the rest.

2. Partner with a Marketing Agency

63% of B2B marketers report using a content marketing agency to handle some or all of their marketing program.¹ For small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that can’t afford to build out an entire marketing department in-house, complete with strategic marketers, certified specialists and subscriptions to the various tools and platforms that make a marketing program run, an agency is often the way to go. Marketing agencies give SMBs access to top-tier marketing capabilities and capacity, while using their internal resources more effectively.

“Between digital, inbound and traditional methods, there are an incredible number of moving parts, and the real art lies in not just understanding how each tool works best, but how each works best in cooperation with each other. And that requires an agency that has developed a particular kind of harmony in addition to individual expertise,” commented one of the publishers of the report.

3. Use Retainer vs. Project Contracts

The majority of outsourced marketing efforts are executed via retainers, according to the last year’s B2B Marketing Mix Report.¹ More and more companies are taking advantage of retainers, recognizing that the nature of most digital marketing programs is long-term and ongoing.

Search engine optimization (SEO), for example, aims to get your company found on Google by increasing its presence in unpaid search results. But ranking in the search results doesn’t happen overnight.

It requires ongoing technical work, such as website optimization, as well as local SEO, which is the process of using a company’s geographical location to rank a business higher than its local competitors.

Link building, keyword research, optimizing copy development and more are all part of a successful SEO program, and as you can tell, these tactics are not one and done; rather, they require ongoing maintenance, attention and analytics, which are best executed with a retainer agreement.Of course project work has its place for initiatives that have a concrete start and end, such as completing a brand strategy, creating a website or producing a marketing brochure. But when it comes to implementing a complete marketing program, including digital, retainer contracts are the way to go.

Looking to grow your website traffic and leads? Check out our weekly blog content service!

4. Spend 10% of Revenue on Marketing

Senior leadership and marketers have differing opinions when it comes to the marketing organization’s goals. The management team expects marketing to lower customer acquisition costs. Marketers, on the other hand, believe it is more important to focus on developing and executing strategies that will drive brand awareness and positioning.

Senior leadership teams also expect marketers to demonstrate ROI of their marketing efforts, but this is extremely difficult as marketers feel they do not have the proper tools to do this. For other marketers, they feel senior management needs to focus more on customer insights rather than just on products and pricing.

One of the most common questions marketing leaders get asked is, “How much should I be spending on marketing?” Informed by hundreds of marketing executives, this report found that the magic number is 10% or more of a yearly budget.

Up 5% from last year’s report, the number of businesses allotting 10% or more of their company’s budget on marketing reflects the priorities of leaders facing greater competition both online and off. Advanced and automated marketing tactics, personalization, interactive content and new user experience requirements all demand a greater portion of a business’s budget to achieve. Beyond the spend that’s allocated to marketing personnel and agency partnerships, the top three tactical areas where marketers invested that 10%, as identified by the report, include website development, digital marketing and trade shows and events.

5. Consider Account-Based Marketing

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is the practice of tailoring sales and marketing strategies to a particular account that can make a big impact on ROI. ABM doesn’t care about the thousands of followers you gained on Twitter. It’s closing the deal that matters, which helps you build your bottom line faster and more efficiently.

According to a study by SiriusDecisions, 42% of marketers claim that they have been using ABM for at least 6 months. During the Sirius Decisions 2017 Summit in Las Vegas, Lynsay Russell of Medtronic discussed how ABM proved beneficial for their organization. In their ABM approach, the average deal size of accounts targeted via ABM methods was 35% larger than that of accounts not targeted via ABM methods.

Account-based marketers don’t concern themselves with lead quantity. Rather, they pursue quality. Narrow your focus and personalize your marketing efforts to target your best accounts that have higher chances of converting. Don’t waste your resources on the smaller fish. Go for the big one.

PS – Check out our latest case study that shows how we helped one company double their leads!

6. Ride the Rise of Mobile

More than half of the world’s web traffic comes from mobile devices, so if you’re not implementing a mobile-first strategy, then you’re ignoring more than 50% of your potential leads.

There are over 5 billion mobile users around the world that you can potentially reach with mobile marketing strategies. Now that mobile has become a primary channel for media consumption; businesses need to take advantage of the opportunities for new traffic and data collection.

Ensure that your content is responsive on any mobile device. Since business owners and department heads are now using their mobile devices to research business solutions, make your website accessible through any device and optimize it for the biggest screens down to the smallest gadgets.

Invest in mobile apps so that you can personally reach out to your prospects and existing clients, as this will help accelerate sales and client engagement. Make sure to allot resources for mobile app remarketing since research suggests that people tend to stop using apps after 30 days.

PS – Our latest case study shows how we helped one company double their leads!

7. Embrace Automation and Martech

A multitude of technologies and innovations are available to make the lives of marketers easier. Of course, these Martech tools can also be used to enhance existing marketing campaigns.

Marketing automation tools help you reach your prospects and personalize communications. If you’re still doing it old-school, these repetitive, mundane tasks are probably costing your business more in the long-run.

Review your approach to using marketing technologies. Audit the tools you currently use across your marketing categories. Scott Brinker, author of “Hacking Marketing,” outlines six marketing categories that you can use for your audit:

Marketing Experiences: This refers to technologies that directly affect customer touchpoints across the marketing lifecycle, including advertising, email, social media, SEO, content marketing, A/B testing, marketing apps, and other related tools.

Marketing Operations: Operations cover the tools and data for managing the “back-office” of marketing. This includes your data analytics, MRM, DAM, and agile marketing management technologies.

Marketing Middleware: Marketing middleware helps integrate marketing platforms and systems with each other. This may include data management platform, data protection, API services, cloud connectors, tag management, and the like.

Marketing Backbone Platforms: Review each of your backbone platforms separately, as each may be for a different purpose. Examples of these are tools for customer relationship management (CRM), content management systems (CMS), automation, and e-commerce tools.

Infrastructure Services: Your marketing infrastructure includes cloud computing, big data management, databases, and software development tools.

Internet Services: This doesn’t just refer to your internet provider (but you need to check that, too). Make sure the internet platforms you’re using such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, or any other services that underlie the marketing environment are integrated seamlessly.

8. Create Visual Content

Adding images and video to your content will help promote brand awareness and brand recall. According to multiple studies, visual recall is stronger than audio or text. When people hear a piece of information, they tend to only remember 10% of it three days later. But when you add pictures to the same information, they can remember 65% of it after three days.

Additionally, 37% of marketers claim that visual marketing is their most important form of content because it greatly contributes to building trust and engagement with audiences.

Use compelling images that are consistent with your brand across all platforms. Make your content easy on the eyes and use white space to your advantage. You don’t want to overdo it and overwhelm your audience with needless distractions, so aim for visual quality over quantity.

Create graphs and charts to illustrate data and statistics. Customize your images for added relevance and branding. Experiment with short and highly educational videos. Most importantly, make sure you’re following these Top 10 Visual Content Rules.

9. Harness the Power of Big Data

Big data algorithms and advanced data analytics make it possible for marketers to deliver consistent omnichannel customer experiences across all platforms and channels. Indeed, big data is revolutionizing the way we do marketing. It increases the quality of your sales leads, improves customer experiences at every touchpoint, and helps managers make sound business decisions.

Without the necessary data, you can’t understand who your leads are and how to reach them with personalized communications. So, get on the big data bandwagon and optimize your campaigns!

Go beyond your marketing campaign execution and use big data to help make customer relationships more successful. A data analytics expert or consultant can help you with this when the numbers become too overwhelming.

Create a big data framework that’s aligned with your organizational and marketing goals. Segregate transactional and non-transactional data to determine which ones go under social analytics, performance management, decision science, and data exploration.

In a nutshell, taking advantage of data means setting up systems to collect and analyze data at every possible point in your sales process. The more you know about your business and your audience, the better you’ll be at creating the right marketing strategy.

10. Create More Relevant Content

I had a conversation with a colleague yesterday who asked me what I thought about instructing sales to get inserted the buying process as early as possible to “paint the vision.”  I asked her how many sales people she knew that were truly industry experts that could paint a vision without pushing their products?

Much of the content or discussion I have with vendors (either digitally or with their sales people) is all focused on them – their products, their services, their unique value proposition. What about the buyer? It is imperative that B2B organizations begin developing content that is much less about what they want to say and tailored to what the buyer wants to hear.

The days of selling to “the decision maker” are largely over. Multiple buyers with different perspectives and biases are all part of this process and it is necessary to speak to all of them. Consequently, this impacts the content creation process.

Marketing content should educate and create a dialogue about challenges and issues that are unique to the buyer. This dialogue must extend through to the sales conversation and it is marketing’s job to help educate and enable sales to have this conversation.

While many organizations are spending and creating more content, one must ask if this is the right content. Marketers must begin to understand the various roles that are involved in the buying process and create content specific to them. It is then that marketing will see an improvement in the value of their content and not before. More isn’t better, it’s about relevance.

11. Go Multichannel

B2B buyers use a multitude of mediums to research and explore their purchase options with the web, specifically with social media leading the way. This highlights the need for our marketing messages to be accessible across an array of mediums, not just email.

In order to determine a proper and profitable medium, it is imperative that organizations know how their buyers like to consume content and ensure their content is accessible via these channels. Too often organizations rely on social, web and email as the go-to channels and while these are often used; to just assume these are the only channels your buyers uses to consume content is a dangerous proposition. Ensure you are utilizing the channels that your buyers are using and make your content available across all of them. Think multi-channel.

12. Develop Strategic Marketing Objectives

Compared to higher revenue B2B companies (37%), lower revenue companies (57%) are more likely to view the marketing team as an extension of the sales organization, and not as a strategic asset to the company.

For high performing B2B marketing organizations, they develop digital marketing objectives, not sales plans, that inform their company’s business strategy to help differentiate their brand in the marketplace.

13. Identify a Senior Marketing Advocate

Nearly two-thirds of all B2B marketers think a senior advocate or champion will be needed to help marketing succeed in the next 3-5 years.

This person will not only represent the marketing and customer’s voice at the executive table, but will also work to influence and collaborate with other organizations to drive business strategy and sales through marketing, establishing marketing as a competitive advantage and revenue stream for the organization.

14. Develop and Invest in Marketing ROI Metrics

The ability to measure results and demonstrate that B2B marketing contributes to the company’s bottom line and enables business growth will help change the perception of marketing as a competitive advantage rather than cost center for organizations. But nearly 60% of B2B marketers say they do not have the appropriate measurement tools they need to effectively prove their ROI.

The top strategy for removing these barriers is to develop ROI metrics and invest in marketing strategies and technologies that will enable marketers to measure and demonstrate ROI.

15. Build Relationships with IT and Finance

Higher revenue B2B companies believe cultivating close relationships with other organizations within the business, such as IT and Finance, is absolutely needed to successfully drive their marketing strategies, measure performance and manage marketing spend.

16. Create Content that Addresses Your Customer Journey

What differentiates high performing marketing organizations and marketers from their average peers is that they develop a deep understanding of their customers, including their biggest pain points and challenges, content needs and preferences, just to name a few.

Interestingly, many B2B companies don’t have buyer personas in place today, but do plan to build them in coming year to help boost the effectiveness of their demand gen efforts. A Demand Gen Report study found that only 27% of respondents said personas were aligned to their messaging and 30% noted that there will need to be some fine-tuning of their efforts.

Often, mistargeted or irrelevant content and messaging contributes to campaign failure. Detailed buyer personas offer a fantastic opportunity for marketers to ensure content is relevant for its intended audience, on the channels they prefer.

Using the customer insights gathered, successful B2B marketers develop specific marketing strategies for each buyer persona and create as well as curate content that is relevant and valuable to consumers at each stage of the customer journey, to effectively connect, engage and convert them.

17. Create a Brand Identity and Personality via Content

The B2B companies that achieve higher revenue focus their marketing efforts on developing and driving a consistent brand identity at every online and offline touchpoint, creating a seamless, positive experience across all parts of the organization a customer touches and interacts with.

This requires marketers to develop a strong brand positioning against their competition, track and identify segments for better targeting, and communicate their insights to sales teams so they can adjust and improve their strategies accordingly.

Very important question: Does your company have a clearly defined tone of voice, or does it vary from person to person in your PR or content marketing teams? Consistency is critical in any company’s communications, so you if you don’t have a tone of voice established, it should be a new priority that all employees can weigh in on. To get started, you can:

• Think about how you communicate successfully with existing clients
• Identify what type of tone you want to express to clients in the future
• Take a look at the competition and see how they’re communicating

Checking out your competitors is key here. You’ll likely want to communicate with your audience in a similar fashion, but you need to do it in a distinct way, which is where having a unique tone of voice comes in. It’s one of the most effective ways you can differentiate yourself.

The value of creating a distinct tone for your brand also extends to how you engage with your audience on social media. Also look to B2C brands to get a feel for how they interact with their audiences on social media platforms like Twitter. The digital divide between B2C and B2B is disappearing with every passing day.

Each company has a clearly distinct tone of voice and is unique in its own way. Then, think about how you want to interact with your audience on social media. Do you want the tone to match the rest of your communications, or do you want it to vary slightly because your audience on social may be different from your email subscribers or blog visitors?

18. Align and Build Ongoing Partnerships with Sales

Silos between sales and marketing organizations continues to be one of the biggest barriers to marketing success. And over half of all B2B marketers surveyed in a joint study by ANA and GfK believe better alignment between sales and marketing will help advance marketing’s contribution and ability to demonstrate their ROI.

The research found that the top three marketing objectives for B2B marketers are to generate sales and leads, improve brand awareness, and increase customer loyalty and retention, and it is crucial for marketing to partner and collaborate with sales in order to achieve these goals more effectively and drive business growth together.

19. Acquire Digital Marketing and Technology Competencies

The wide adoption of digital and mobile by consumers will continue to accelerate, and B2B marketers believe this would require developing digital marketing and technology skillsets that most marketers currently do not have.

Only 7% of B2B marketers surveyed believe they have an effective process in place to capture data on customer behaviors, attitudes and engagement that can inform and optimize existing marketing strategies and tactics.

20. Create Interactive Marketing Campaigns

Over the past few years, marketing campaigns featuring interactive content have continued to increase in popularity. Why? Because anyone can write a blog post, and reading blog post after blog post can get, well, boring, and new types of content are always exciting.

Interactive content can be many different things—from quizzes, polls, and surveys to interactive infographics, whitepapers, and others. The goal of interactive content is simple: you want to get your audience engaged in the learning experience as opposed to simply reading an article or watching a video.

People—yes, even B2B professionals—like to participate in things. And interactive content provides a great opportunity for your audience to do exactly that. Content like quizzes, polls, and surveys also provides a unique benefit—it allows you to capture data from leads and learn more about your audience and what’s important to them. This data can then be used to inform future content marketing endeavors or guest blog posts—further allowing you to establish yourself as an industry expert and thought leader.

21. Focus on the Buyer

The buying process is becoming longer in the majority of cases, not shorter. This only underscores the need for B2B marketing organizations to move away from tactical one-and-done campaigns, to a strategic approach that maps content to this buying process and engages, nurtures and converts the buyer throughout their buying process.

What does this mean? It means that our B2B demand generation programs always have a sense of “what’s next” in terms of content. It means that marketers should not be promoting an asset, but seeking a conversation. This requires a buyer-centric strategy and without this in place, there is no way marketers will be successful in connecting through this ever-growing buying process.

For B2B marketers, the complexity and world in which we operate in a day-to-day basis will only continue to shift, change and grow with increasingly complexity. A tactical approach of spending, creating and pushing more of anything, is not the answer. There must be real transformation that enables us to get to know and engage our buyers at a deeper level and ultimately, meet them where they are in their process. It’s all about the buyer, so go figure!

22. Partner with B2B Influencers

The thing with B2B marketing is that it’s not really a bright and shiny object. It’s not as cool, fun or exciting as let’s say, working with Kim Kardashian or Jared Leto. Don’t expect to see any viral TikTok videos about data centers or enterprise software anytime soon.

But one thing that B2B brands can capitalize on is influence. And understanding influence has a much longer shelf life of value than a viral TikTok video.

Influence is more than just a noun or verb. Influence has the power to separate brand leaders from those who follow, especially when it is applied and becomes ground zero for all marketing.

Stemming from ground zero is B2B influencer marketing and programs like this can be managed in many ways. One of the most important steps in building an influencer program is research and analytics. Influencers just don’t appear overnight or wake up one morning with millions of followers. And even if they did, it wouldn’t mean that they’d be crowned an influencer.

Influencer marketing might not be for you and your brand at the current moment, but influential voices will always matter. And that spans across multiple marketing channels and campaigns.

• The influencer marketing industry reached almost $20B last year.
• 82% of people trust social networks social networks to guide purchasing decisions. [Source: DMI]
• 86% of women use social media for purchase advice.
• The return on social media marketing investments have surpassed those of print marketing, and that’s not changing any time soon.

An analysis must happen to identify truly influential voices. Part of that analysis will also uncover the topics and themes that influencers are talking about and how that content is spreading across the digital ecosystem.

Take a look at this buyer journey graph above. At which point do you believe influential voices would play the strongest part: awareness, consideration, interest, or preference?

The answer is all of them. We can’t measure the precise back and forth behavior that each buyer experiences, but planting influencers around your messaging who can speak to your audience’s pain points could benefit you if there’s industry opportunity.

These types of insights can inform all content marketing. The result is brand relevance and search engine visibility. In this case, there is value from using B2B influencers, which could have an everlasting benefit. Some quick ideas:

• Reach out to some analysts for a trends or predictions piece
• Cover the top stories and trends in your industry and mention the influencers who are driving them
• Create a Top Influencers report in your industry report like we did with this one
• Work with a few influencers this year to co-create some content
• Attend influencers webinars and write articles about what they say

Using some of these (mostly free) tips to working with B2B influencers can really help to create some connections while borrowing on their fame.

23. Master the Art of “Trendjacking”

Many B2C companies are experts at jumping onto the latest trend or pop culture reference to get more attention to their marketing campaigns. Just look at the number of companies that produced campaigns themed around the hugely popular series, Game of Thrones. Ikea, Johnny Walker, and KFC all jumped on the GoT bandwagon, along with dozens of smaller brands.

It can be a little more difficult for B2B companies to use this tactic without coming over as cheesy and like they’re trying to hard, but it can be a very effective marketing tactic when done well.

One great example of successful B2B trendjacking is premium stock photography and video site Shutterstock. The company created their own promotional video for the ill-fated Fyre Festival using their own stock clips.

Not only did this video manage to attract a huge amount of attention due to the social media buzz and controversy around the festival, but it was also an incredibly effective way for the brand to showcase how stock footage can be used to create an impressive promotional video on a small budget. In just one day.

You don’t have to put a lot of time and resources into building a whole campaign around this tactic, either. This social media post by financial trading platform eToro joined the trending #10YearChallenge to draw more attention to its product and engage its audience.

24. Encourage Customer Advocacy

The formula is proven and it’s simple. It’s easier and cheaper to keep current customers happy than to acquire new ones. This is such a good marketing lesson yet so many brands don’t prioritize their current customer relationships. They are too focused on customer acquisition.

Building customer advocacy programs seem to be a thing of the past. But here’s the thing, it wasn’t always that way.  In the early days of social media, building customer communities was common practice for all brands that had a Facebook page and Twitter account.

It was easier back then because the networks were much smaller back then, and organic reach on social media was 100%. Those were the good old days.

Customer advocacy needs to be both a mindset and a program. If it’s a mindset, then the whole company will build programs, campaigns, products and services, process, and general business practices with a customer-first mentality.

For example, if you infer from the customer journey map that responses to emails and requests for calls pop up 1-2 weeks after a purchase decision, you can begin anticipating your customers’ needs by giving them exactly what they want. But you’ll be beating them to the punch line.

Customer advocacy becomes a part of the cultural DNA. This will make building a customer advocacy program much easier to launch, manage and scale.

The key to building a program rests on the “all too familiar” people, process and technology. From this perspective, people represent the marketing teams responsible for managing the program.

Process is more about the mechanics of the program. It’s building a process on how the program will work, how it will be integrated into other marketing initiatives, how it will be measured and the overall strategic plan.

Technology is the tool or set of tools that will be used to manage the customer community and there are many available on the market.

25. Harness the Power of Storytelling and Emotions

B2C marketing tends to be rather emotionless and cold. This is because most B2B marketers follow the theory that B2B decision-makers buy with their head and not their heart.

While this is true to a point, it’s critical to remember that you’re still selling to a human, not a robot. As Forbes council member Joyce Salano puts it: “In reality, nobody is actually marketing to businesses — they are marketing to people. And people want content that is helpful and won’t put them to sleep.”

Of course, it’s still important to get across why buying your product or service makes good business sense. But, there’s no reason why you can’t follow the lead of successful B2C marketers and employ some storytelling tactics  to make your messages more compelling and memorable.

Just take a look at this promotional video from management tool Airtable. It follows a group of children who are using the tool to help them plan and film a movie:

The video is not only cute, funny, and memorable, but it also effectively demonstrates how the software can be used in a number of different ways.

Compare it to their standard introduction video, which also demonstrates the product in a more traditional way. Both videos achieve the same purpose, but the first is more interesting to watch, and you’re much more likely to remember it.

If cute and playful isn’t appropriate for your brand, there are many other ways you can incorporate storytelling. Salesforce has an entire platform dedicated to its customer success stories, which demonstrates how companies in different industries and of varying sizes have used Salesforce to grow their business.

26. Turn Your Employees into Brand Storytellers

People trust people. It’s a significant part of our human nature. And that means that B2B buyers trust their peers, colleagues, influencers and “people like themselves” when seeking purchase recommendations.

Trust is the reason why people read Yelp reviews before booking a restaurant reservation or lookup the Amazon reviews before purchasing a pair of headphones.

Over the last decade, hundreds of studies and research reports have validated this point. So, when this trust paradigm is applied to B2B marketing, the opportunity to influence purchase behavior becomes real – very real.

This is one reason why building an employee advocacy program is a smart and strategic thing to do, especially for enterprise B2B and tech companies. And while many of these companies do have existing employee programs, there is a lack of innovation when it comes to deployment. They launched the program, checked the box and moved on.

I like to call this Employee Activation because like customer advocacy programs, you need to find ways to get your staff to want to write and share.

27. Experiment, Be Creative, and Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously

B2B marketing has a bad reputation. Marketing materials targeted at businesses are not exactly known for their innovative and exciting ideas. If you think about the first words that pop into your head when you think about B2B marketing, they’re probably “corporate,” “dull,” “old school,” and so on.

And, this isn’t working anymore. Research shows that B2B marketers are lagging behind their B2C peers in several areas, including technology use, analytics, and innovation.

Stop following the unwritten rule that B2B marketing has to be dull and dry. It’s true that B2B buyers must be more logical and less emotional than B2C buyers, but they’re still human ­– you can still appeal to their desire for humor and to be entertained.

B2B marketers have additional challenges, of course. B2B products tend to be much more complex and at a higher price point. B2B buying cycles are also much longer than B2C and involve many different stakeholders, compared to B2C purchases, which are often instantaneous and involve one person only.

It’s not simple or easy to overcome these challenges, but they don’t mean that your B2B marketing has to be safe, dull, and lacking personality, either. B2B marketers can follow the lead of B2C marketers to inject a little fun and innovation into their marketing strategy and put the spark back into their marketing.

The fact is that many B2B marketers have got themselves into a rut and fallen into the trap of thinking that marketing messages targeted at businesses need to follow a formulaic template. A lot of corporate marketing materials look the same ­ – a color pallet of blue, white, and grey, with some standard stock photography of people in suits.

The world’s most successful brands don’t conform to the norms and are innovative with their marketing. There’s no reason why you can’t experiment, just because you’re marketing to a company rather than an individual.

Try using a bold color palette. Ditch the dull stock photos, and use some fun abstract images or illustrations. Be creative. Don’t be afraid to inject a bit of humor into your copy.

Many B2B brands are afraid of deviating from the corporate norm for fear that they won’t be taken seriously, but having the confidence to experiment and do something different and unexpected can make your business get noticed in a crowded market place.

To see how effective this approach can be, just take a look at the Euphoria campaign by Slack – rainbows and pink unicorns ­– not exactly your standard corporate imagery!

But, the campaign did its job at getting noticed and was a huge success. Instead of touting stats about productivity and efficiency in the usual dull and boring way, Slack created a campaign that was both educational and memorable.

How Will You Adapt Your Strategy This Year?

It’s easy for us to think that we need to reinvent our strategies at the start of a new quarter or fiscal year, but have you ever considered that the answers are right under your nose? Maybe you’ve even deployed a few strategies before, but when they didn’t deliver immediate results, you tossed them.

There are tons of marketing strategies, and we’ll be the first to admit that they are not all made equal. Consider taking a step back to reinforce these marketing strategies that may be a bit rusty, but could actually work for you if you’re willing to whip out the WD-40.

Another thing: all of the B2B marketing strategies we discussed here have one common denominator: people.

Influencers, customers and employees all have a voice. They all have audiences, albeit some smaller than others. And they all have influence.

Customer acquisition is important. Yes, 100%. Content is like gold. Creative messaging and storytelling are also important and play a crucial role in marketing communications. But without the human layer, it goes back to that same marketing that everyone on the planet ignores and calls spam.

What’s next is activation. Brands must prioritize each of these internal and external stakeholders and integrate them into existing marketing programs, campaigns, and initiatives.

If you are ready to get more traffic to your site with quality content that’s consistently published, check out our Content Builder Service. Set up a quick consultation, and I’ll send you a free PDF version of my books. Get started today and generate more traffic and leads for your business.

A seismic shift is underway, brought on by one powerful acronym: AI. Artificial intelligence has evolved from a buzzword to a remarkable force, reshaping how B2B businesses connect with their audience, analyze data, and craft strategies.

With the success of today’s marketers hinging on adaptability, integrating AI isn’t just an option—it’s a strategic necessity for growth. While embracing AI may seem daunting, it’s an unparalleled opportunity with transformative potential for those who understand how to leverage it best.

The Vast Influence of AI on B2B Marketing

The influence of AI is visible in every facet of B2B marketing, from lead generation and customer engagement to data analytics and decision-making processes.

It’s important to understand that AI isn’t a replacement for professionals in the creative fields but rather a tool to complement them, enabling them to tackle complex tasks more efficiently and reach their full potential. It has made marketing efforts far more manageable in some significant areas.

Content Creation

From natural language processing to machine learning algorithms, AI enables content creators to generate compelling content and automate and enhance various aspects of the creative process. AI algorithms can analyze data patterns, understand user preferences, and optimize content for maximum impact.

According to the 2024 B2B Marketing Mix Report (MMR), compiled by Sagefrog, nearly one-third of B2B marketers use AI to help with content creation.

Automation of Tasks

Some tasks are time-consuming, forcing marketers to focus on minutiae rather than where they’re needed most: strategy. Instead of posting on social media channels or sending email campaigns in real time, marketers can create content in advance and use AI automation to execute it. Plus, marketers can use AI to target the best days and times for the highest engagement. Whether social media posts, email marketing, or research, AI streamlines monotonous tasks, which commonly results in increased efficiency, reduced workload, and faster campaign execution.

Big Data Insights

With metrics now influencing most marketing decisions, big data is more critical than ever. AI-powered tools sift through massive datasets in real time, extracting valuable insights that guide strategic decision-making. B2B marketers can leverage these insights to refine their campaigns, optimize resource allocation, and stay ahead of industry trends.

Personalization at Scale

One of the most significant contributions of AI to B2B marketing is its ability to deliver personalized experiences at scale. As mentioned, AI analyzes vast datasets through advanced algorithms to understand individual preferences and behaviors, enabling marketers to tailor their outreach with unprecedented accuracy. This personal touch creates trust, enhances customer satisfaction, and fosters meaningful connections.

Predictive Analytics

AI-powered predictive analytics enables marketers to pinpoint potential leads and target audiences with a higher likelihood of conversion. Targeting these specific leads helps optimize time and resources by only engaging with the most probable buyers.

Enhanced Communication

AI isn’t just a tool for marketers; it’s also revolutionizing customer engagement. AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants enhance communication channels, providing instant responses to queries and streamlining the customer journey. AI improves efficiency and elevates the overall customer experience, a critical factor in the competitive B2B landscape. The MMR found that AI chatbots account for twelve percent of today’s marketing spend.

Incorporating AI into Your Marketing

Explore the various AI platforms to incorporate AI in your B2B marketing plan successfully. To decide which tools are suitable for your company, assess your needs; compare the features, functionalities, and cost of each one; and test them where possible. You want to choose those that align with your specific goals.

If you’re not confident about where to start, you may want to consider Sagefrog’s tested and approved AI tools:

• HubSpot’s Content Assistant & ChatSpot
• GrammarlyGO
• ChatGPT
• Drift
• Wynter
• Google Ads

Once you’ve decided on the best tools for your business, you’ll want to ensure that your team thoroughly understands the technology to utilize it best. Training your team on an AI platform requires a systematic approach. Depending on your team’s specific skill level, you’ll want to incorporate vendor-provided materials, custom training programs, and practical projects to practice the skills learned.

However, your implementation of AI tools does not end there. The use of AI is meaningless without evaluating the results. As with training, evaluating AI tools requires a systematic approach to ensure effectiveness. There are steps that you can follow to assess the outcome:

1. Define your key performance indicators (KPIs)
2. Establish baseline metrics
3. Track and analyze data
4. Compare the results
5. Evaluate ROI
6. Gain feedback
7. Continuously adapt and monitor

Growing Your B2B Business with AI

There is no denying that AI has and will continue to overhaul the B2B marketing industry as we once knew it. While AI does not replace marketers, it can empower them to make smarter, more efficient decisions. Including AI tools in your marketing plan is critical to maintaining a competitive edge.

Download Sagefrog’s 2024 Marketing Mix Report to discover more B2B marketing tips and trends to expect in the year ahead.

Need assistance with effectively leveraging AI for marketing? Connect with Sagefrog for expert guidance on the best way to incorporate AI into your business. Our in-house marketing research center explores and masters new AI tools and platforms as they arise. We stay at the forefront of AI technology and apply rigorous testing so you don’t have to. Contact Sagefrog today to learn how we’ll work together to improve your marketing by incorporating artificial intelligence.

Attracting and retaining top talent in a competitive job market has never been more challenging. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated changes in workplace dynamics, ushering in remote work policies and hybrid office environments. Simultaneously, it triggered the Great Resignation, where millions sought better career opportunities. This seismic shift in the workforce landscape emphasizes that people now expect more from their jobs than ever before—not just higher pay but also flexibility and support.

To stand out in this competitive talent market, companies must effectively communicate their strengths and position themselves as the ideal workplace for prospective and current employees. This is where employer branding comes into play. It enables organizations to convey why they are the perfect fit for potential team members, answering crucial questions like: “What makes your company unique? What’s your culture like? Why should I work for you? Why should I stay?”

The Essence of Employer Branding

Employer branding is the practice of marketing your company to current and potential employees. It involves shaping how you want to be perceived as an employer and strategically and consistently conveying that message to job seekers and your existing team.

The goal of employer branding is twofold: attracting talent that aligns with your company culture and nurturing high-performing employees into brand advocates who stay for the long haul.

Creating a comprehensive employer branding platform involves crafting a clear Employer Value Proposition (EVP). This statement outlines your company’s appeal as an employer, conveying core beliefs about the ideal workplace, the culture you nurture, and the benefits you offer team members.

Crafting Your Employer Value Proposition

To develop an EVP that resonates with potential hires and nurtures a positive workplace culture, consider the following example from Sagefrog:

Sagefrog believes in a workplace that lets you be the best version of yourself through professional development and personal fulfillment opportunities. Our culture includes training programs, community connections, and a supportive structure that provides growth opportunities, including promotions, management positions, and competitive compensation packages. By joining our team, you’re supporting our mission to unlock potential and accelerate success for B2B companies through branding and integrated marketing.

Building a Robust Employer Branding Platform

To build a strong employer branding platform, start by crafting a compelling EVP. Once that’s in place, create a platform that resonates with your audience. This involves combining compelling messaging and visuals that convey a deeper understanding of your brand.

Key components of an employer branding platform include:

• An inspiring mission and vision
• Company story and core values
• Employer Value Proposition (EVP)
• Why join the team messaging
• Employee benefits messaging
• Workplace accolades
• Employee testimonials
• Inside look at the culture

These elements collectively form the foundation of a robust employer branding platform that attracts and retains top talent.

Implementing an Effective Employer Branding Platform

Creating an employer branding platform is only the first step. To realize its full potential, focus on building these five key elements of implementation:

1. Structure & Support

Start by prioritizing the employee’s experience. Regularly review compensation structures, benefits, and workplace perks to stay competitive. Offer resources for career development, continuing education, and team-building activities. Implement a uniform onboarding process to equip new hires with the tools they need for success.

2. Trust & Transparency

Foster a culture of transparency, encouraging teams to celebrate successes and seek help when needed. Ensure that your employees feel comfortable approaching management to discuss any dissatisfaction. If your team isn’t empowered to let you know when something is wrong, you’ll struggle to prevent these issues from reoccurring. Establish an open-door policy that empowers employees to share ideas, good news, and concerns. Keep teams informed about company growth and direction through regular meetings and outreach.

3. Employee Advocacy

Turn your employees into brand advocates by showcasing their achievements and experiences. Publish content featuring their opinions and successes, celebrate promotions through a company-wide email blast or social media, and encourage engagement with your brand on social platforms like LinkedIn. Consider implementing an internal referral program to reward employees who refer quality candidates, and any other perks that would be suitable for your unique business.

4. Recruitment Strategy

Leverage your crafted messaging by sharing it with your HR team and updating your website and social media profiles. Maintain a dedicated careers page on your website, consistently portray your brand across social media and job boards, and actively engage with potential candidates. While crafting your employer branding is important, ensuring this information is readily available is equally vital.

5. Continuous Improvement

Remember that employer branding is an ongoing effort. Regularly conduct employer brand audits to measure success and gather feedback through employee satisfaction surveys and social media analysis internally and in comparison to competitors. Use this data to refine and enhance your employer branding platform and strive for constant improvement while recognizing that perfection is not a state of being but a process of consistent and positive reactions to changes and feedback.

Evolving as an Employer

The importance of effective employer branding cannot be overstated. It’s not only about attracting talent but also about nurturing a culture that retains and empowers employees. In today’s ever-changing job market, staying agile and continuously improving your employer branding efforts is critical to unlocking success.

Ready to enhance your employer branding? Connect with Sagefrog for expert guidance on improving your employer branding and creating a workplace that attracts, retains, and empowers top talent. We’ll help you unlock your company’s potential in the competitive world of business—contact Sagefrog today to learn how we’ll work together to achieve this goal and more.

Your B2B marketing strategy can only succeed with accurate data capturing your efforts and how well they worked for you—and all that information needs to be stored and analyzed somewhere. That’s where Google Analytics 4 (GA4) comes in.

As the replacement for Universal Analytics (UA), GA4 offers new features, including better data collection, upgraded privacy controls, and predictive capabilities. This update is essential for B2B marketers tracking ads, lead generation, and more who want to be able to make data-driven decisions on marketing tactics in the future.

Ready to get started with more advanced tracking and more accurate marketing analytics? Whether you’re migrating to GA4 from another analytics tool or starting your metrics tracking from scratch, learn about GA4 and how to use this vital tool for your marketing efforts.

What is GA4?

GA4, short for Google Analytics 4, is Google’s analytics platform. It uses AI to help marketers predict user behavior, allowing for better ads and an improved customer experience. While marketing automation is well-known in the industry, its application in GA4 is a new feature that improves the quality of the data you get when you use it.

Users transitioning to GA4 from UA had a few years to do so between the former’s launch in 2020 and the latter’s complete replacement on July 1, 2023.¹ Now that UA is gone, GA4 is Google’s only analytics tool. Whether you’ve been using Google’s analytics tools for B2B marketing in the past or just beginning to look into your options, it’s not too late to get on board and benefit from the significant upgrades GA4 offers.

Differences Between GA4 and UA

Former UA users certainly wondered what GA4 could offer that UA lacked. According to Google, those new features that are exclusive to GA4 include:²

• Website and app data collection to better understand the customer journey
• Event-based data tracking instead of session-based data tracking
• Privacy controls such as cookieless measurement and behavioral and conversion modeling
• Predictive capabilities for guidance without complex models
• Direct integrations to media platforms that can drive actions on your website or app

One of the most important new features in Google’s switch from UA to GA4 involves event tracking. While UA could only track pageviews, GA4 can be customized to give you more information about “events”—what they now call user interactions with your website. Events can be automatically collected and tracked, and marketers can also opt to view enhanced measurement events (like scrolls, site search, video engagement, outbound clicks, and more), recommended events based on your industry, and custom events that you can set up yourself depending on your needs.¹

The Importance of Metrics in Marketing

As a B2B marketer, you certainly have goals you’re trying to reach and key performance indicators (KPIs) you’re tracking to ensure you’re on target. Metrics are essential to marketing success, and carefully following your analytics lets you see if your ad and outreach performance aligns with your marketing goals.

Metrics help you make the most of your B2B company’s online presence to generate qualified leads, show relevant content to your audience, and earn more sales on your products and services. When you know what your customers and potential customers are looking at on your site and for how long, you can better tailor your content and your ads for success.

How to Use GA4 in B2B Marketing

One of the most critical aspects of B2B marketing is knowing how to target your audience. Unlike the broad world of B2C, B2B audiences—from possible leads to existing customers—are incredibly specialized. B2B marketing focuses on niche business segments within your industry, which, while smaller, actively seek the specialized products or services you offer.

That’s why GA4 and other analytics tools are essential in B2B: they let you use your resources as effectively as possible to target the specific audiences you need to reach with your marketing efforts. The feedback you get when you review your metrics will help you better communicate with your B2B clients and customers.

How can you harness the power of GA4 for your B2B marketing efforts? For most companies, starting with GA4’s event-based data tracking makes sense, which lets you track individual user interactions separately to measure things like conversion rates, click-through rates, and other user behaviors. The insights you get from this information will be crucial as you develop, change, and perfect your B2B marketing strategy. Tailor your marketing plan to your specific B2B needs, but the more information you have—and the more detailed it is regarding your audience’s behaviors on your site—the better for your marketing outcomes.

Are You Ready for GA4?

UA is gone, and GA4 is here—make sure you’re on board to you don’t miss out on these crucial metrics for your business. An important note: Although UA stopped gathering new data earlier this month, the data will be available for you to collect and save until the end of 2023.

Download our checklist to confirm that you’ve successfully created your GA4 property and migrated the data you need from any previous analytics tools you may have used.

Getting Started with Digital Analytics

Whether you’re migrating your analytics to GA4 from UA or setting up your metrics for the first time, you don’t have to make the transition alone—learn how Sagefrog Marketing Group can help. Our B2B marketing services include extensive digital advertising expertise to help you set goals and track metrics using GA4 and other tools, all working toward maximizing your company’s success. Contact us today.

1. CXL, “The definitive guide to Google Analytics 4: What you should know”
2. Google Analytics Help, “Introducing the next generation of Analytics, Google Analytics 4

In modern B2B marketing, a vibrant, engaging website isn’t just a bonus, it’s a necessity. A great website drives customer engagement, builds brand credibility, and can help foster a community around your products or services. But these benefits only come to light when your audience can easily find you in the crowded digital marketplace. And while paid ads and promotional partnerships are great ways to gain traction, organic website traffic is foundational to gaining visibility, enhancing engagement, generating leads, and driving conversions.

However, driving organic traffic isn’t as simple as launching a brand-new website and hoping your audience stumbles over it. Real organic growth requires a strategic approach and ongoing effort. To help get you started, here are 9 proven practices to propel organic website traffic.

1. Integrate Relevant Keywords

The foundation of a successful organic SEO strategy is keyword integration. By researching and using phrases your target audience is searching for, your website becomes more visible on search engines. Keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner can help you find relevant keywords to integrate into your website’s content, meta titles and descriptions, and URLs.

For example, a B2B company specializing in data analytics software might identify keywords like “best data analytics software for businesses” or “enterprise data analytics solutions.” Once these keywords are identified, that company should integrate them into blogs, product descriptions, and other website content. These keyword updates increase the chances of your site appearing in search results for relevant queries, driving more organic traffic to your site.

2. Start a Blog

Blogs are proven tools for offering fresh, relevant content that keeps users returning to your site. They also provide ample opportunities for keyword integration and internal linking. Each new blog post is another web page that can rank in search engines and help increase your organic traffic.

For B2B companies, a blog is a cost-effective platform to showcase industry expertise, provide insights on market trends, and offer solutions to your target audience’s unique challenges. With proper planning of each post, your blog not only positions your company as a leader and innovator in your field but also gives potential clients a reason to frequent your site, fostering business relationships and potential opportunities. The more engaging and insightful your blog posts are, the more likely they will be shared, further amplifying your visibility and organic reach. And while blogs should abide by the rule of quality over quantity, consistency in posting can be as important as the content itself to promote organic growth.

3. Earn Quality Backlinks

Backlinks—links from other websites to yours—are a significant factor in search engine algorithms to rank the value and credibility of digital content. Relevant, quality backlinks from reputable websites build authority and trustworthiness, help with referral traffic, and improve the accuracy and speed of indexing your content. But not all backlinks are created equal. Excessive linking from low-quality or irrelevant sites can potentially harm your SEO, while high-quality backlinks can significantly boost it. It’s always better to focus on earning high-quality backlinks from reputable and relevant businesses in your industry, guest blogs, or by producing shareable content.

4. Optimize for Mobile

With over half of all web traffic coming from mobile devices, a mobile-friendly website should be considered mandatory. A mobile-optimized website that is responsive, loads quickly, and offers a seamless user experience helps improve brand trust. Responsive sites automatically adjust and adapt their layout, images, and functionalities to suit different devices and screen sizes. Fast and responsive websites help ensure your content looks good no matter how users view it, keep users engaged longer, increase the likelihood they’ll take desired actions like filling out a contact form or downloading a resource, and drive more organic traffic.

5. Update Outdated Content

Outdated content can hurt your search engine rankings and make users distrust your website. Regularly audit your content, update outdated information, and keep your website fresh and relevant. For example, many businesses still feature content or callouts focused on aspects of the COVID pandemic or a specific natural disaster that affected their industry—which may feel outdated or irrelevant to visitors, depending on the context of their site visit.

Staying vigilant to remove, refresh, and revitalize outdated content helps improve your search rankings, enhances user experiences, and builds trust. Producing “evergreen” content (content that remains relevant and valuable over a long period) is a great way to reduce the updates required, and offers a nice balance to more topical content.

6. Leverage Social Media Strategically

Social media channels are designed to help businesses grow, network, and build audiences, and taking a strategic approach to them can be highly effective in boosting organic traffic. Here are a few strategies to consider:

• Channel Selection: Not every social media channel will suit your business. Most B2B organizations might find more value in LinkedIn or Twitter, which are great for sharing industry insights, news, and detailed content. On the other hand, businesses that rely heavily on visual appeal, such as in the fashion, design, travel, or food industries, could experience more organic engagement from image-centric platforms like Instagram or Pinterest. The key is to choose platforms that align with your target audience and business goals.
• Quality Over Quantity: Sharing content for the sake of sharing can lead to low engagement, reduced visibility, and wasted resources. Instead, focus on producing high-quality content that your audience finds valuable. High quality means the content is relevant, accurate, comprehensive, unique, and professionally presented. These pieces can be thought-provoking articles, informative infographics, blogs, and videos.
• Consistent Branding: When your logos, color schemes, messaging, and tone of voice are consistent, it makes your business easily recognizable, irrespective of the platform. This consistency builds a sense of familiarity among your audience, which is vital in building trust and organic engagement. When audiences know what to expect from you, they’re more likely to engage organically, share, and follow through on CTAs. It’s important to note that your level of engagement and tone of voice are critical elements of a branded social media presence, and most businesses see better organic results when they actively respond to comments and like and share content from others.

7. Use Internal Linking Wisely

Internal links guide visitors to other pages on your website, keeping them engaged longer. They also help search engines understand the content and structure of your website, improving your SEO. For B2B companies, internal links can be used strategically to guide potential clients through your value proposition, showcase solutions and case studies, and share customer testimonials.

By effectively using internal linking structures, you can create powerful content silos that lead your visitors on a contextual journey that informs and builds trust, increasing the chances of conversion and boosting your organic traffic. During content reviews and updates, be sure to check for and remedy any broken links, as they can hamper the user experience and SEO.

8. Leverage Local SEO

Optimizing for local search is a must for any local business. Use local keywords, list your business on local online directories, and ask for customer reviews to boost your local SEO. For example, a healthcare technology company in Boston could incorporate keywords like “Boston healthcare technology” or “health tech solutions in Boston” into their content.

Make sure your business is also listed in local directories and on platforms that allow for customer reviews, as these channels can enhance your visibility in local search results, improve organic traffic and increase business opportunities within your local market. And no matter where you’re listed, ensure your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) are always consistent!

 9. Optimize Page Loading Times

Slow-loading pages are a barrier to user engagement and can give an impression of unprofessionalism or poor technical capabilities, especially to potential B2B clients who value efficiency. Factors contributing to slow page loading times can include unoptimized images, excessive use of scripts, or a lack of browser caching. Furthermore, slow websites are often penalized in SEO ranking, as search engines prioritize sites that provide a “good” user experience marked by fast load times.

To counter this, regularly evaluate your website’s speed using tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights. From there, you can optimize by compressing images, minimizing JavaScript and CSS files, leveraging browser caching, and considering a Content Delivery Network (CDN) for faster web content delivery. By ensuring your site loads quickly and runs efficiently, you enhance the user experience, encouraging visitors to stay longer, return more frequently, and possibly convert, all of which contribute to organic growth.

Get Started and Get Ranking!

In the vast ocean of the internet, standing out can seem like a monumental task, but these proven practices can help transform your website from a mere drop into a powerful wave, driving organic traffic and making an impact in your industry. Building organic traffic is a journey, not a destination, and as the digital landscape evolves, your strategies must adapt to keep pace. Stay curious, keep testing, and continue optimizing to navigate the ever-changing tides of SEO trends and algorithms.

If the prospect of charting these waters feels daunting, remember that you’re not alone—our team of marketing experts can help! Contact us to talk with our team about maximizing your organic traffic.

You must continually adapt your website marketing strategy to stay relevant and visible to your desired clientele. For example, recent numbers show that 75% of customers judge a company’s credibility on its web design.

Undoubtedly, your online marketing presence will become even more vital as the world handles more commerce digitally. The challenge lies in addressing the numerous elements of your site, including navigation, user experience, and ongoing content creation.

Dig into this post to uncover what an effective website marketing strategy is and the critical factors to concentrate on for success.

Key Takeaways:

• Your business planning must include regularly refining your website marketing strategy components and execution.
• Keep current on the factors that influence whether a web strategy is effective, such as your user’s intent at every digital touchpoint and interaction.
• Stay on top of SEO and respond to your competitors’ current tactics.
• Mobile user experience is paramount because that’s how most users access your site.

 PS – I put together these 10 tips for optimizing your content marketing. Watch Now!

Understand What a Website Marketing Strategy Is

A website marketing strategy is an action plan to get your site’s visibility to where you want it. Your research and objectives will determine how you’ll launch or overhaul your site to increase traffic.

Companies that take this approach gain more conversions and, ultimately, more customers. Your website strategy naturally starts with your site design, but it also should  incorporate:

• Technological advancements
• User behaviors and experience
• Trends in current internet use

Don’t think of your web strategy as a one-and-done to-do list. Instead, your site should be an ongoing work in progress that grows and changes alongside your business and industry.

Just like a physical store needs to change its signage, update its layout, and even remodel occasionally, you must keep your site fresh as an initial step in your marketing game plan.

 PS – Check out our weekly blog content service to grow your website traffic and leads!

Work To Grasp Users’ Intent

Website marketing strategy effectiveness depends on determining what your audience wants and adapting rather than forcing people to act a certain way. From our experience, doing this requires engaging with an audience in a manner that meets their intent.

For example, if your only contact method is a “Contact Us” form, it’s time to rethink that approach. Waiting on a follow-up email no longer fits the bill for most consumers.

Instead, you should consider: How does my audience want to interact with my company or brand?

Avoid lumping all users into one bucket and method for interaction. Depending on where they are in the buyer’s journey, different users will have distinct needs and intent behind visiting your website.

Instead of giving your website visitors only one contact option, try to offer different communication methods. Here are a few to start with:

• Add a phone number, email, social handle, or other contact information to your form page.
• Implement a chat feature or chatbot (we love Drift!)
• Insert a calendar feature allowing users to book consultations or appointments.
• Give users the option to view a pre-recorded demo of your software or product.

These ideas will boost your website marketing strategy to increase engagement and conversions.

PS – Check out our latest case study that shows how we helped one company double their leads!

Mind Your SEO Competitors

Another way we’ve helped many clients drive traffic to websites is through search engine optimization. A strong SEO plan has many different aspects, but one of the most important to your website marketing strategy is auditing what your competitors are doing.

Use tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush to compare your website with your top competitors. You can also save time and money by letting your content marketing agency handle it for you.

Excellent SEO research tools answer the following questions:

• What keywords are competitors ranking for?

• What are my competitors’ most trafficked pages?

• Which reliable sources are linking back to companies similar to mine?

• Do any of my competition’s pages have 404 errors or other status codes?

Use this data to inform your SEO strategy, and you’ll be making headway with your website marketing.

Increase Traffic With Content Marketing

To drive as much traffic and convert as many users as possible on your site, put high-quality content front and center. Time and again, we find that the key to successful content in website marketing strategy is to offer information and resources that are truly helpful to an audience.

Accurately and consistently convey your message by telling stories that create a genuine connection and inspire users to act.

Also, provide a range of content that includes blogs, videos, PDF downloads, and eBooks to meet different needs. Remember, not every user consumes content the same way.

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Once you’ve begun developing content, invest in a content management system like HubSpot. A CMS allows you to easily self-publish, store, manage, update, and customize your site’s content without having to repeatedly ask your developer to make every update manually.

Consider the Mobile and User Experience

If you haven’t already, start focusing on responsive, mobile-first designs that scale appropriately for all devices. Our clients find that a mobile-first approach to a website marketing strategy improves the entire experience, including desktop versions.

The reason for the improvement is a mobile-first mindset forces you to use copy that’s clearer, more concise, and, ultimately, more creative.

In other words, do you want to grab the attention of your audience? Keep it short, sweet, and simple.

While a mobile-first approach and a responsive design are great starting points, you also must consider the overall user experience. If your UX is poor, people will quickly bounce off your site.

To keep users on your website and maximize the number of conversions, make it easy for them to get to where they need to with the least amount of clicks possible. Determine whether you’re offering an ideal UX by asking yourself:

• Is my website’s navigation clutter-free and easy to understand?
• Does the site architecture make sense?
• Are hyperlinks easy to identify?
• Can we add more features to appeal to a wider user base?
• Did we optimize all pages to bring in the highest possible conversions?

A pleasing UX is another vital piece of your website marketing strategy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJISRhrmqds

Re-Evaluate Your Budget

Once you’ve combed through your website and ensured it’s as mobile and user-friendly as possible, take time to review your marketing budget. The economy is in constant flux, affecting every industry differently.

Whether you’re experiencing a boom or a slowdown, regularly re-evaluate your budget to determine how to align your spending and priorities.

Your company might be lucky enough to be immune from specific economic struggles. Still, you can at least expect your customers’ buying patterns to change. Create a website marketing strategy that meets current client needs to remain a part of their budget.

Achieve Website Marketing Strategy Success

A successful web strategy covers a range of issues. Address technological advancements, changes to user behavior, and design trends to ensure your website is well-designed, user-friendly, and engaging.

Master these facets of your website marketing strategy, and you’ll be in a position for continual success. If you’re ready for expert assistance, talk to Marketing Insider Group to learn more.