B2B Marketing Trends For 2023
Posted On One of the biggest challenges we faced was convincing potential clients that our expertise as business-to-business market researchers and marketers was distinct from consumer marketing. This idea was frequently dismissed, as were the techniques used to explore these markets. The notion that B2B marketing, and hence the methods employed to investigate these markets, were in any way meaningfully different from consumer marketing was frequently dismissed.
B2B Marketing: What Is It?
We must always be precise with our definitions. What do “business-to-business markets” and “B2B marketing” mean? It is helpful to think about the value chain, which begins with customer demand and flows into the need for hundreds of commercial goods or services, in order to provide answers to these concerns.
Consider the plain shirts we purchase as an example. They did not just happen to be in the stores. A hugely intricate value chain starts with cotton or another type of fiber and must then be woven into cloth, which is then manufactured into a garment, boxed, and distributed through several levels before we can finally choose it off the shelf.
The diagram below provides an illustration of this. We refer to this as the “chain of derived demand” since the desire for the product causes everything to the left of the shirt to be drawn through. Businesses sell cotton to traders who then sell it to spinners who then sell it to weavers who then sell it to manufacturers of clothing, and so on.
None of the companies purchases the goods purely for pleasure. They acquire them with the ultimate goal of adding value in order to transfer the goods down the supply chain until they eventually get to the general public, which is us.
B2B marketing strategy focuses on serving the requirements of other businesses, even though eventually consumers’ need for the items that these firms produce at home is more likely to be the driving force.
B2B Marketing Trends for 2023
Priorities for B2B Marketers in Strategic Areas
- For B2B marketers in 2023, improving the customer experience and brand positioning will be their top strategic priorities.
The B2B Purchase Process
- The main reasons for looking for a new supplier are internal circumstances and change, such as cost reduction, new requirements, and organizational growth (48%), followed by external reasons, such as rising customer expectations and keeping up with competitors (21%), problems with previous suppliers (16%), and being made aware of new opportunities through supplier communications (16%).
- The initial research, narrowing the list to only a select few, getting competitive quotations, and making the final decision are the three separate stages of the B2B buyer journey. The average time for each stage of the journey is 2.5 months, but businesses and Millennial decision-makers take considerably longer.
- The average number of sources of information used by B2B decision-makers is ten. These sources include content from suppliers (supplier websites, in-depth reports/guides, and short-form infographics / interactive tools), content that is available to the public (online reviews, news articles, social media, general business communities), and sources that are specific to the industry (industry analysts, industry-specific communities and industry publications)
- More channels are used by winning companies to interact with B2B buyers, and they also get to know them better than failing brands do.
Social Media’s Increasing Role in B2B Marketing
Over 59% of B2B decision-makers use social media for business purposes at least once a week, and 85% use it regularly. With over 94% of Millennials utilizing social media for work and over 75% doing so at least frequently, this figure is far higher.
In comparison to the losing brand, winning brands were 65% more likely to have communicated with the customer via social media during the decision-making process.
Messaging Platforms’ Increasing Relevance in B2B Marketing
At least once a week, 29% of B2B decision-makers use messaging services like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp for business purposes.
When using messaging services, 83% of respondents said they felt more valued and that the interaction was superior to traditional kinds of communication.
Emotions’ Function in B2B Marketing
- Making a final decision on a B2B supplier is challenging, according to 35% of companies with 1,000+ employees.
- In terms of their propensity to recommend a brand, the majority of low- and mid-value transactions made by B2B customers across all business sizes are either “detractors” or “passive.”
- Brands must concentrate on developing 4 “Superpowers” to differentiate themselves from the competition and provide the best B2B experience:
- Reliability at the corporate level: “A brand we can rely on to provide”
- At the corporate level: “Gets my company’s needs”
- At the consumer level: Enrichment – “It improves my working life”
- Preeminence – “A brand people are proud to work with” at the buyer level
Conclusion: Demanding B2B Customers
Business-to-business customers are just more demanding, which is a fitting end to this essay’s final B2B buyer differentiator. When making purchases on behalf of their businesses, they have an obligation to choose wisely. They take fewer risks, so they require absolute perfection in quality.
They are skilled at spotting a subpar deal when they encounter one. They are accustomed to getting their way. Since they frequently pay more than they would as consumers, they have higher expectations for their money. They are more prone to see themselves as active participants in the process of using the good or service being provided to them than as a passive recipient.
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