The buyer’s journey is always changing and will further evolve with added complexity and market shifts in 2021. While we don’t have a crystal ball that predicts the future, it’s fair to say that buyers will continue to conduct research independently in the early stages of their journey, seeking out relevant information across many channels to help them make their purchase before reaching out to sales.
As a result, B2B marketers will place more emphasis on guiding prospects through the buyer’s journey, helping them solve their pain points with tailored, educational content and demand generation campaigns (without the involvement of sales in the early stages). These campaigns rely on an arsenal of tools, content, channels, and data intelligence to provide the best insights for planning to execution. While all of these tactics are important, a few demand generation marketing trends will rise to the top as B2B marketers adapt to the evolving buyer’s journey.
Here are the top five demand generation marketing trends we predict for 2021:
- Data and insights will reign supreme (from market research and intent data to campaign performance metrics), driving decisions in this evolving business environment with tight budgets and increased urgency to drive sales. Consider conducting primary market research to inform your GTM strategy, refine your messaging, or learn more about your buyer’s pain points and purchase considerations.
- Communicating with authenticity and empathy is more important than ever, especially when addressing a buyer’s pain points and easing their anxiety during this unprecedented time. B2B marketers will need to evaluate and potentially revise their messaging and content to personalize it for each person in the buying collective, depending on the stage in the buyer’s journey.
- More B2B marketers will embrace intent data to identify in-market prospects and drive business decisions and outcomes. There are several intent data providers available with different options to ingest or activate their data. Use a vendor with a mix of first-party and third-party data that provides quality, scale, and diversity so that you can reach the entire buying collective.
- ABM will continue to be a key strategy B2B marketers use to drive account-based engagement and conversions, with emphasis on reaching the right person with the right message at the right time. As ABM platforms become smarter at interpreting data, marketers will gain visibility into a variety of buying signals by account. This timely data will enable you to pinpoint real-time shifts in market activity as business needs evolve. For example, once remote workforces were enabled due to COVID, we saw a substantial shift in intent signals to focus on business operations every month in such areas as video conferencing, server backup, and security.
- Digital marketing tactics and channels will be used to reach prospects and buyers who are predominantly working remotely with mobile devices. Virtual events and video will reach their height of popularity next year, with additional emphasis on experiential marketing like virtual happy hours and richer experiences to provide more variety for digital engagement.
Investing in a robust demand generation marketing strategy that’s fueled by a combination of quality first and third party intent data will help you reach in-market buyers and key members of the buying collective earlier in their buying journey to assist them as they research solutions and vendors to solve their business needs.
Take the time to truly understand your audience and their behaviour to help to create bespoke, relevant, and engaging content and demand gen initiatives across multiple channels. This in turn will empower you with the insight to build and strengthen relationships with your prospective buyers to help convert prospects into repeat customers.
Last but certainly not least, ensure your sales team has a solid lead follow up strategy and invest in a lead nurturing program to help cultivate an on-going relationship with your prospects throughout every stage of the buyer’s journey.
Interested in learning more about B2B marketing trends? Our Past, Present, and Future of B2B Marketing eBook reflects on B2B marketing in 2020 with foreseen trends in 2021 and beyond to reach key stakeholders in the buying collective.