Trends To Transform B2B Marketing- #MillennialTalk Recap

Business to business is still personal.

Capturing business from business demands a host of tools: chatbots, video marketing, email marketing, personalized communication and artificial intelligence.

Many or all of these are beyond the talents of the average entrepreneur struggling to make ends meet.

Shama Hyder is not typical. Chief executive officer of Zen Media, she tackles multiple roles as author and keynote speaker to help fellow business owners succeed in business-to-business marketing.

Her credentials include being named a LinkedIn Top Voice in Marketing and serving as chief marketing officer at OneDine.

Hyder talked with millennial expert, top-rated marketing and branding voice, and global speaker Chelsea Krost during Krost’s #MillennialTalk Twitter chat. They discussed what it takes to transform B2B marketing into a financial success.

Reflecting overall trends, B2B marketing will likely have increased emphasis on video. Hyder also noted these ever-growing practices:

• Influencer Marketing. By far one of the hottest trends and a strategy that really works. We’ve really seen great results especially at the B2B level — enterprise businesses looking to market to small businesses by leveraging influencer marketing.
• Remote Events. At Zen Media, we do a ton in the B2B experiential space. We’ve found out that amid global pandemics people tune into digital more than ever before.
• B2B Public Relations. PR isn’t a “nice to have” — it is a must-have. I can’t tell you how busy we are right now helping our clients get ahead of major crises. These are times where a company can really build trust and own the industry conversation.

Besides these trends, Krost sees a surge in do-it-yourself virtual training. She noted that MarketProfs cited these top marketing goals in the last year:

• Creating brand awareness (86 percent)
• Educating audiences (79 percent)
• Building credibility and trust (75 percent)

At the same time, fewer B2B marketers say their efforts delivered success against these goals:

• Building subscribed audiences (45 percent)
• Generating sales or revenue (53 percent)
• Building loyalty with existing clients and customers (63 percent)

Simplify the complex

Artificial intelligence is one of the fastest growing trends, most commonly seen in the “person” of chatbots. These will become more popular in marketing as they take on more of a human touch.

“AI doesn’t have to be complicated,” Hyder said. “The idea is very much to simplify.

“Take Lumen5, for example, or Promo Video,” she said. “You can create videos with AI, taking written content and turning it into a video by matching it to the right clips.”

Hyder also has her eye on SparkToro by rand fishkin, which uses data and artificial intelligence to find who is talking about a given topic.

“Although AI is very futuristic sounding and techy, AI will help make business more human-like through personalization,” Krost said. “It will make healthcare more accurate and less costly.

“Chatbots will become even more accurate at matching human conversation,” she said.

Then there is robotic process automation.

“According to a study by McKinsey Global Institute, by 2055 nearly one-half of our work tasks will be performed by some form of robot,” Krost said. “AI will be able to automate any job that is routine or repetitive.”

Chatbots will rise to greater prominence as companies use them more in B2B marketing.

“In a world where time is money, you can keep your business running 24/7, thanks to chatbots,” Krost said.

“Service-based industries such as healthcare, financial services, hospitality, real estate, retail, e-commerce, entertainment and publishing are all starting to use AI to personalize, grow and automate small and big business tasks,” she said.

In addition to chatbots, Hyder and Krost weighed the benefits of video marketing, tapping into LinkedIn and ultimately earning trust during the rest of their discussion here.