In the era of Covid-19, the practices of B2B marketing professionals have been turned upside down. Budget reduction, team reorientation, digital explosion: new trends are taking shape and deeply modify the uses.
The advent of digital
B2B marketing professionals had to adapt to the economic crisis induced by Covid-19. To do so, a majority of them chose to redirect budgets and teams towards digital.
While the “off line” levers remained major in the marketing strategy of B2B companies at the beginning of 2020, the switch to 100% digital started from the first confinement. Certain practices are now unavoidable. Virtual events, such as conferences or webinars, are now strategic tools for lead generation.
A 2021 Marketing Usage Barometer shows that the most effective sources in terms of lead generation are now the on-site form (68%), participation in events (50%) or webinars (41%).
Customer commitment: an unchanged objective
The means change, but the objective remains the same. For marketers, customer commitment remains the major challenge.
And in this race for leads, digital is once again showing its omnipotence. For 81% of marketing professionals, the main measure of customer engagement is the opening and click rate of newsletters. This shows the growing importance of content strategies.
In 2021, the levers tested since the start of the health crisis should be consolidated and streamlined.
The barometer also shows that, to develop their notoriety, B2B marketers rely primarily on “alliances and partnerships” (67%), social networks (66%) and press relations (46%).
At last, SEO-SEA will remain in 2021 a key axis of the social selling strategy, despite the difficulties observed in recruiting these sought-after profiles.
