B2B Marketer

The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) required big banks to reach more small businesses, and those located in underserved communities in particular. The effort has led Chase to significantly expand the company’s products, advertising, and content marketing.

At the height of the pandemic, B2B marketers placed a much bigger emphasis on supporting existing relationships and cultivating lifetime value. As things start to ease up and acquisition-level marketing commands more budget, it’s crucial that marketers not lose the momentum they built up over the past year with their long-term customers.

B2B marketers have been investing more heavily in brand advertising in the past few years, realizing that they need to espouse what they stand for beyond offering competitive prices. At the same time, the pandemic has caused B2B companies to reevaluate their marketing priorities as the top and bottom lines take on new urgency.

Major B2B brands bring several advantages to the market compared to smaller businesses and startups, including brand recognition, significant resources, and longtime relationships with customers and suppliers. But when it comes to leveraging their own data for opportunistic growth — not just incremental performance gains — B2B marketers lag behind their entrepreneurial competitors and could be ceding precious market share.

Call it a feedback loop: Sales reps are under increasing pressure to sell their wares via multiple channels, and B2B marketers need to support these efforts by supplying a steady flow of relevant content for every stage of the buying cycle. At the same time, marketers need to generate revenue regardless of channel, which means steering more and more of their customers to e-commerce platforms.

Despite working from home for the past year, business pros are tapping into mobile apps to do their bidding. With a growing reliance on mobile platforms, buyers are cutting to the chase even quicker than before the pandemic hit, and B2B marketers must respond accordingly.

It’s no longer about sales and marketing alignment per se. It’s about two teams working in tandem to drive revenue and nurture relationships, as the pandemic has provided an opportunity for B2B marketers to steer the relationship in a fundamentally new direction.

A new report explores the “consumption gap,” or the time between when content is requested and the moment it’s opened for consumption, and how this varies according to job title. As B2B buyers become even more elusive, it’s incumbent upon marketers to distribute their content more strategically and strengthen their measurement efforts.

Marketers stress that outbound calls should cater to specific accounts, personas, and/or industries, and they should be integrated within the cadence of email campaigns so that every call is highly relevant. “Spray and pray” has run its course.

Jonathan Copulsky, senior lecturer of marketing at Northwestern University and co-author of an upcoming book on business transformation, says moving to a digital-first strategy requires B2B marketers to employ perpetual change — and realize that success has no finish line.

The pandemic has put pressure on B2B marketers to craft a better customer experience and build more multichannel programming. Experts suggest that the right place to start is with existing customers.

B2B marketers have made little progress in tackling some chronic problems (read: sales-and-marketing alignment) and cultivating digital revenue streams. Could the increase in digital adoption caused by the pandemic help clear some of the logjams and spur an online-first strategy once and for all?

B2B CMOs are much more hopeful about the post-COVID economy than their CEOs, says a recent survey. Cockeyed optimism? More like a sense that the pandemic presents marketers with an opportunity to demonstrate their value to the C-suite and drive better business results.

As B2B marketers prepare for a new set of challenges, they're counting on ramping up their social media channels and virtual events throughout 2021 — and most likely beyond — to steel them for the future.

With lower-than-average CPMs, B2B companies are turning to digital advertising to combat the decline in their traditional marketing channels. This reallocation doesn’t equate dollar for dollar, but there has been enough of a budget shift to drive substantial growth via paid digital channels.

Across the country, small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are suffering from closures, restrictions, and changes brought about by the novel coronavirus, and many are scrambling to do what they can to stay in business. To help, a number of B2B brands, including Deluxe, Vistaprint, American Express, and The UPS Store, are developing tools, grants, and resources for SMBs.

With digital engagement accelerating, B2B marketers are starting to soup-up the look of their websites and other assets. However, many companies have a hard time connecting improved design with the top and bottom lines.

While the impact from the crisis has varied, most B2B sectors are scrambling for effective ways to boost their marketing efforts to retain customers and find new ones.

Despite the pandemic, the appetite among B2B buyers remains relatively strong. But marketers need to take this time to find more purposeful ways of serving their customers and prospects.

Brands have a growing opportunity to capitalize on the interest in B2B-related content and deliver value to audiences tasked with meeting business objectives in an uncertain environment.