Technology companies struggle to deal with the complexity of the B2B purchasing process. This process often involves more than 4 people in the decision, lengthening the cycle. To overcome these difficulties, it is essential to adopt B2B marketing strategies that are aligned with the preferences of each person involved in the decision-making process.
Given this, one of the practical strategies that B2B companies are doing is creating processes and actions that integrate the two areas, even if each team performs different daily functions, they are aligned in a single objective: to win more customers.
In addition to this important integration between the marketing and sales teams, it is essential to keep up with the latest trends and statistics to guide your strategies effectively, because with the growing use of artificial intelligence, the B2B marketing landscape is constantly evolving.
To boost your marketing efforts, let's explore some key statistics and insights to guide your B2B marketing strategies in 2024 to apply right now in your technology company.
1. Simplifying the Sales Process
When analyzing sales figures, it's important to consider not just the operation, but the bigger picture. Did you know that approximately 77% of B2B purchasing decision-makers found the last closing complex? What's more, 81% of non-executive B2B employees have an influence on purchasing decisions?
This data is important to guide and show that the sales process should be as simple and focused on the decision-maker as possible. So here are some tips to implement in your sales area:
- Be organized and map out all the necessary steps and information in the sales process;
- Dedicate yourself to qualifying your leads and map out the relevant information (people involved, pain points, main objections, etc.)
- Become an expert on your customer and your product;
- Use tools to help the B2B sales process.
- And most importantly: People like to relate to people!
2. Content as the central focus
Content marketing is a fundamental part of B2B strategy with a strong impact on purchasing decisions and customer loyalty, as 52% of B2B buyers say they are definitely more likely to buy from a supplier after reading its content.
Therefore, B2B marketing needs to be your sales team's ally by mapping out strategies that are aligned with your customer's buying process, and not just produce content that isn't relevant.
Some additional figures when we talk about content strategy for technology companies:
- 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine, highlighting the importance of SEO.
- 73% of B2B marketers have a content marketing strategy in their companies. However, only 40% of them have this strategy planned and documented.
- 70% of B2B marketers consider conversions to be the main metric for evaluating content performance. Lead quality is the second metric with 60%, while website engagement is in third place with 57%.
3. Importance of Email Marketing
Email marketing, even in 2024, is still a great strategy. Last year, 83% of B2B companies published email newsletters, with almost 50% of online B2B sales coming from clicks on links in marketing emails.
Therefore, this channel remains the third most popular method of content distribution, behind only the Blog and social media, with Linkedin leading the way for B2B marketing and technology companies.
To stay relevant on this channel, here are some tips:
- Segment your user base for better performance.
- Create personalized flows focused on users' interests and interactions.
- Emails with personalized subject lines have 26% higher open rates than those with generic subject lines.
- Integrate actions with other marketing channels.
You need to direct the user base of your newsletters and emails to visit your company's website, consume content from your blog, learn about new products and, at the end of the day, generate sales.
Use these 'tips' to improve the ROI of your email marketing strategy, to avoid losing money and becoming obsolete on this channel.
4. Rise of video and social media
Using video as a strategy for B2B marketing is another effective way of interacting with the target audience, with 78% of marketers saying that video is the main area of investment in content marketing in 2023.
After artificial intelligence and automation (42%), video marketing is the second most popular new B2B sales and marketing strategy (32%) in 2023.
By 2027, it is predicted that US$180 billion of total spending on B2B video ads will be generated through mobile devices.
Alongside video, there has been a growth in the use of social media marketing. In 2023, 95% of B2B marketers used social media to distribute content, with LinkedIn leading the way at 97%.
B2B content marketers consider LinkedIn (39%) and YouTube (29%) to be the two most effective organic social networks.
5. Growth in B2B advertising
B2B advertising is significant for boosting sales. Thus, 67% of B2B organizations use at least one paid channel to promote their content. In addition, 52% of B2B companies monetize their content through sponsorship and advertising.
The best performing channels for the B2B technology market are, respectively:
- Organic with 37%,
- Paid with 33%,
- partners with 15%,
- ABM with 10%,
- Events with 4%
Research shows that at least 61.5% of B2B companies are expected to have bigger budgets by 2024. It is therefore important to analyze and know how to invest in the best channels and strategies.
6. Analytics and Automation
Implementing a data-driven culture is also one of the biggest trends in digital marketing for technology companies. The use of these analytics allows organizations to understand customer behavior and make data-driven decisions. However, 48% of B2B marketers face difficulties in collecting or integrating data from different platforms to measure content performance.
So, to make things easier, the use of web and mobile analytics tools for B2B marketing is growing rapidly. According to a 2023 study:
Some other relevant figures:
- 72% of B2B companies collect transactional and behavioral data from their websites;
- 64% of companies are investing in analysis tools to better understand their users' interactions,
- 49% of companies report using some kind of BI tool to make better decisions.
Analytics tools allow companies to monitor their key indicators, better understand their customers and make more assertive decisions. The idea of an integrated Stack Tool that makes sense for the company's moment is increasingly necessary.
Conclusions
With multiple decision-makers in the buying cycle and the growing prevalence of online research and innovation, B2B marketers must always be on their toes to capture their audience's attention.
By adopting a content-centered approach, exploring new forms of engagement such as video and social media, and investing in strategies such as SEO and marketing automation, companies can position themselves for growth and expansion in a competitive market.
As we browse through these statistics and trends, it's clear that companies must take advantage of these figures to guide the success of their marketing strategy.
The global B2B SaaS market is expected to grow to $307 billion by 2026. However, the biggest marketing problem for 60% of B2B SaaS companies is lack of time.
If you are a technology company and want to start implementing these and other marketing actions more strategically, talk to one of Montre's experts.
