Elizabeth Shea is executive vice president of public relations at REQ , an award-winning marketing, brand management and public relations firm.
Outside of the Covid-19 pandemic, there is now talk of a recession and differing views on economic stability and how things will play out. Think high interest rates and talk about a housing bubble, and B2B marketers need to be financially careful when trying to grow their business and create new sales opportunities.
I believe that in the face of an unsustainable economy, the most important thing a business can do is focus on customer retention. And it all starts with communications, digital marketing, and a focus on customer success initiatives.
For 2020, Gartner predicts that "by 2025, 80 percent of B2B business interactions between suppliers and buyers will occur through digital channels." I believe that in 2023 it will be even more important to identify the right marketing channels and areas to allocate resources and spending. Here are some areas that I hope will receive more attention in the coming year:
Customer success can be increased.
A marketing trend that has become critical in recent years is the increased focus on customer success and customer retention priority. Strengthening and developing relationships with existing customers rather than continuing to look for new customers can lead to business growth.
Struggling to keep customers and increase sales can be much easier than acquiring new customers. As a result, we can see core marketing taking center stage, especially as account managers continue to hold senior management-level positions within the company.
Locating a customer service team within an organization is a different story, but I think their position has improved. In most cases, marketing will be responsible for lead generation and customer retention, but I've seen the reverse as well, where customer success is driven by marketing. Regardless of organizational structure, I believe customer success will be high in most companies.
Voice search marketing can get better.
An Insider Intelligence/eMarketer report predicts 135.6 Americans will use voice assistants by 2022, up from fewer than 104 million in 2018. And according to a 2019 report from Microsoft and Bing, nearly three-quarters of US consumers use search voice via assistants. digital services such as Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant and Cortana. As audio search capabilities become more precise, I believe voice will become an important digital advertising medium, offering the same level of targeting as other online formats but at a lower cost.
A customer recently wrote a blog post and deliberately put the title in the question so that it would rank well for voice search (and search in general). It worked because the question was how someone would dictate it into their phone. The main point is that people are no longer just typing in a keyword or two, they are using longer keywords and their own voice to ask questions.
We live in an age where brands need to develop a comprehensive voice strategy that includes search and advertising in all formats. Advertisers should also consider creating more automated campaign types that allow Google to show their ads for long-tail keywords that people search by voice.
More brands can use micro-influencers to promote brands.
Many businesses are turning to micro-influencers and content creators to promote their products and boost sales. A recent report from Polaris Market Research said that by 2030, global influencer marketing platform revenue will reach nearly $92 billion and a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 30%.
In the B2B space, companies are finding that experts in their fields can help them increase sales. Micro-influencers are very important to brands. They often have 10,000-100,000 followers and tend to charge less than influencers with millions of followers, while still providing effective engagement.
Influencers have proven to be quite successful marketing to consumers on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, but in business, the majority of potential buyers are on LinkedIn. This is why I think micro-influencers and LinkedIn influencers should be part of next year's marketing budget.
It's also worth noting that many of the influencer marketing approaches we see on LinkedIn start with getting key executives to target specific products or services through blogs, videos, and other user-generated content. Shoppers on LinkedIn are often valuable targets and deserve to make the decisions to shape marketing campaigns, so I expect LinkedIn influencers to drive just to keep going.
The chapter on hybrid events can be closed.
The director of marketing told me they are being more selective about which conferences we attend and are reallocating funds to events. I've also noticed that some are transitioning from hybrid – many of the marketers I spoke to were either internal or external. While there may be purely virtual events, some conference organizers seem to be choosing one or the other and abandoning the hybrid experience.
We can see brands using more experience-focused digital channels.
Efforts to find new and creative ways to reach audiences and potential customers are also gaining momentum. Businesses can now learn to use smart displays, displays and devices away from home to serve ads and engage with customers.
From immersive experiences to virtual reality, it's exciting to think about what will become relevant in marketing. Many predict the exponential growth of the Metaverse, which has the potential to open new frontiers for digital marketing. In fact, a McKinsey report (via VentureBeat ) predicts that the Metaverse could grow to $5 trillion by 2030.
B2B podcasts also remain relevant. While podcast formats continue to evolve as major shows become popular on Spotify and other channels, they probably aren't going anywhere. According to Statista, there will be 164 million monthly podcast listeners in the United States by 2024.
I look forward to seeing how companies transform and allocate their marketing budgets, especially in these uncertain times. Where will most of their dollars go? There is still a lot to see. It's important to keep an eye out for new trends and determine what's having the biggest impact on the business.
The Forbes Communications Council is a closed community of successful PR, media strategist, creative agency and advertising leaders. I'm right?