The idea of B2B marketing is that you are a business aiming its marketing efforts at other companies. Even though the target audience is somewhat different from the general public, your marketing approaches are always much the same.   

You want to ensure that they are aware of and recognise your brand and what it can do, as well as convert them into viable leads that impact your business. This is what marketing does for you.  

The marketing world is constantly changing and growing, with new ideas and trends popping up. To ensure that you are always ahead of the curve in marketing, you need to stay on top of the latest trends and figure out whether they are something you should try for yourself.   

To help you do this, I have put together my top B2B marketing trends for 2023, and it is a train that you will want to get on board with.   

A move away from Google  

Google has become a huge powerhouse in online advertising over the past few years, and this has worked for many brands wanting to advertise and promote their name. However, things are changing, and now marketers realise the time has come to move away from solely being visible on Google.   

One reason for this is that the costs associated with call-per-clicks have risen and do not seem like they will go down any time soon. Not only this, but bot traffic has also been on the rise, making it even harder to get yourself noticed online.   

This has led to B2B marketers moving away from Google and trying out other forms of advertising. This includes Bing Ads and LinkedIn. Both of these can help boost your sales and increase your brand’s visibility.   

Combine SEO with functionality  

SEO isn’t going anywhere; this is true, but the importance of SEO has decreased somewhat compared to user experience. Over time user experience has become just as important as SEO, and in some circumstances, it has become more important.   

This is because clients want to see the quality of the content they read and authenticity. Of course, you can try to combine effective SEO with a well-designed website, giving you the best of both worlds.   

Create interactive B2B content that humans write  

Whilst some marketers have found success using bot-written content; this is not something that is going to be producing results in the long term. You want to generate content that a human writes; for a human, that is the type of content that will appeal to your target audience the most.   

Not only this, but you also want to try and create entirely interactive content. That way, no one will feel that they have been tricked into engaging with the content they have read. The good news is that you can try and do this in many ways: assessments, human-trained chatbots and quizzes.   

These can all help give your audience something that they want to engage with and that they feel is relevant to them and valuable too.   

The changing landscape of analytics  

If you already measure the engagement that you have online, then there is a chance that you will know about Google Analytics or Universal Analytics, which it can be referred to as. This incredibly useful tool can help marketing (or at the very least getting marketing right) all the easier.   

The news from Google is that this service will be retired as of July next year. However, you don’t want to panic; it is being replaced. The brand new Google Analytics 4 will follow, designed to follow from the tracking website engagement prowess of its predecessor. Although this isn’t enough, and whilst it can help with all the same things, it then takes it a few steps further.  

GA4, as it may be known, is much more integrated as a tool and can offer a platform (and information that you need) on a similar basis to an app, which makes it easy to use. It not only focuses on websites alone, but it will also help with eCommerce sites, native apps and web apps too. All of these will come together to create a comprehensive and complete overview of how your business is performing.   

You may wonder why Google has decided to do this; after all, the current approach is working. The reason given is due to changes in privacy regulations, which means that ads, even those that are legitimate, are blocked by browsers. Add that third-party cookies are disappearing, and you can see how hard it will be to track your performance and get good-quality data to represent this.   

Try out influencers for B2B marketing  

Influencer marketing has seen an increase over the recent years, and even B2B marketers are starting to realise that this may be a great approach. As you may imagine, those influencers with a bigger network will give you a bigger reach, and even just one positive shoutout can have a big (and positive) impact on your brand.   

The only thing that you do need to try and do with influencer marketing is to keep the interactions as natural and organic as possible. When bought and paid for, they are not likely to have the same impact as they otherwise would.   

User-generated content is on the rise  

User-generated content is one form of marketing that is definitely on the rise. Consumers are around 2.4 times more likely to trust user-generated content over company-generated content.   

The good news is that anyone can create user-generated content, as the tools you need to use are simple and easy to access.   

With the market for user-generated content growing every week and with no signs of it slowing down, the time has come to try it for yourself.   

Some trends have had their day  

With new trends and approaches, some of the older ones are starting to be less commonplace. This is true for virtual reality and augmented applications too.  

Another trend that has seen some changes in recent years is voice search. It is not necessarily as popular as it has been; there have just been changes in how it works with B2B marketing.  

The focus for voice searching now is on intent; you want to present your search results in a question-and-answer format, giving you the best chance possible to appear when someone uses the relevant search requirements.   

Don’t give up on video for B2B  

If you have already tried video marketing and found that it works, or you have been meaning to and just haven’t found time, then the good news is that video marketing is still relevant.   

Video is one of the best ways to create content that gives a great client experience. However, you want to make a video to have the best results because it is the right time to make one.   

If you make videos for the sake of it, then you are not going to be making them for the right reasons. They won’t feel genuine, will be oversaturating your audience, and will waste your time and money.  

With 2022 coming to a close and another year of opportunity just around the corner, there is no better time to try out some new marketing trends and see if they work for you and your business. 

Some of my services: 

Outsourced Marketing Management

Marketing Project Management

Need help?

If you would like help with your marketing then bringing on a marketing consultant with a fresh pair of eyes can make all the difference. I work with B2B businesses and professional service firms in London, Kent, UK and Europe as well as specialising as a Legal Marketing Consultant. Please get in touch or book a free 30-minute consultation.