Dove Direct Print & Marketing Blog - “Top 2019 B2B Marketing Trends”

Welcome to the Dove Direct Print and Marketing Blog. Today's post, "Top 2019 B2B Marketing Trends" unleashes marketing directives and strategies for 2019 that B2B marketers have ranked highest in priority for the upcoming year. What is interesting about this set of marketing strategies is the convergence of B2C marketing tactics making their way into the B2B sector. For years, B2B marketers have for the most part shied away from marketing strategies and tactics commonly associated with B2C marketing initiatives.

Not anymore! In the digital world, communication with and among various social media channels including the subsequent niche groups has connected people with people, and that includes B2C and B2B folks sharing and communicating with each other.

Remember when social media exploded and television networks were grappling with how to leverage their programming online? The term "convergence" was the buzzword offered by television execs that predicted television programming will have to be integrated in the social media construct. Now, recall when marketers were attempting to sell B2B organizations an actionable B2C strategy? Those days are also over, and according to a host of B2B marketers, "not anymore!"

Marketing Investments

Regardless of the industry sector one can easily determine value of said industry based on investment growth or investment contractions. Automation and AI have experienced huge capital investments in 2018. Take the September 2018 report about Adobe purchasing Marketo for a $4.75 billion investment in marketing automation. In fact, Brad Rencher, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Digital Experience, Adobe recently stated, "The imperative for marketers across all industries is laser focused on providing relevant, personalized, and engaging experiences." Other marketing investments that experienced a significant increase in 2018, such as HubSpot, rose to market cap value to the tune of $5.2 billion in November 2018.

Automation marketing tools have been the bright spot for B2C marketers over the past few years. However, the success of automation marketing has made its way into the B2B sector and is now converging between B2C and B2B. What is the significance of these investments? Simply put, investors are betting on the rise of AI and MAP (Marketing Automated Platforms) to push the marketing envelope for better personalization, delivered authenticity throughout the customer experience, and communications with prospects at the right time at the right place. Let's take a look at what some B2B marketers believe will be the trend for 2019 marketing strategies including the tools needed to bring those strategies into a workable marketing fruition.

Personalization Leads the Way

If you believe that effective personalization simply means addressing a prospect by either 'full-name,' or 'first-name,' that is now just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, Janice Jackson's infamous tune, "What Have You Done for Me Lately," conjures up a similar customer sentiment in that personalized messages with "just my name attached is no longer enough to gain brand support." In addition, personalization has become the tour de force for generating engagements. While we have experienced data that suggests that personalization has indeed raised ROI levels and moving forward, 2019 promises to increase the personalization aspects to include more marketing disciplines, such as ads, direct mail, email marketing, website user experiences, other content types, reviews and recommendations.

2019 is set to unleash a deeper dive into personalization tactics, and to that end look for B2B marketing to engage more third party content experience platform vendors and data mining providers. Evidence is in the numbers and Salesforce's State of the Connected Consumer Report states that 52% of consumers are somewhat likely to switch brands in the event a company fails to make an effort to personalize communications with them. Personalized marketing efforts will increase across the board and brands that fail to embrace extended personalized mechanisms may lose whatever competitive edge they are currently enjoying.

Direct Mail's Tactile Marketing

In 2018, more and more B2B brands invested in direct mail marketing and 2019's numbers are set to increase. Print as an industry continues to grapple with growth ever since the digital era became firmly planted in the mind of consumers. However, one aspect of print is on the rise, and that is direct mail. B2B marketers are increasingly looking for methods to break through the digital clutter and many are focusing on tactile, direct mail marketing.

What is surprising about direct mail collateral is the fact direct mail is now on par with its digital counterparts. Direct mail offers tracking mechanisms and is now fully flexible thanks to Variable Data Printing technology which has the capability to create in-depth personalized focus across a range of data points. Direct mail's tactile impressions present a marketing statement that digital cannot match. Direct mail is now the truth teller in that a physical, human interaction is now deemed more meaningful and trustworthy. In an age of falsehoods and bots spreading across the digital landscape, coupled with overcrowded inboxes, direct mail is now the preferred go-to tactic. Further, direct mail breaks through and interestingly enough, also provides increased email open rates, more video views and higher purchase rates when used in conjunction with digital channels! 2019 is promising to be a strong year for tactile, personalized direct mail collateral.

Video Marketing in 2019

The State of Video Marketing 2018 report proclaims that 72% of people would choose video over text to learn about a product or service. That said, most B2B brands continue to hold off on investing in video marketing most likely due to staffing issues. Similar to direct mail marketing, video does inject emotional triggers that translate into improved engagement rates and purchasing decisions. The rise in video viewing is also seen within the mobile viewing environment. Here are some startling data points to consider when deciding whether or not a brand should use video as a marketing tool.

• 72 Hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every 60 seconds.
• One-third of online activity is spent watching video.
• 85% of the US internet audience watches videos online.
• Every second, a million minutes (17,000 hours) of video content will cross global IP networks by 2021, according to Cisco (via Forbes).
• The 25-34 (Millennial) age group watches the most online videos and men spend 40% more time watching videos on the internet than women.
• Over 500 million (half a BILLION) people are watching video on Facebook every day (via Forbes).

The sheer number of folks viewing videos on a daily basis is staggering. In fact, there are a multitude of numbers declaring just how effective video marketing can be, so much so that it would be far to lengthy for this post. Video marketing will continue its upward trend setting trajectory well into 2019 and beyond. Look for more B2B marketers to jump on the video bandwagon, particularly since reading text is on the decline.

The AI Factor

B2B marketers are rapidly becoming more interested in using Artificial Intelligence and how that can help in capturing "intent data." What is intent data? Intent data is a data-set that shows what an individual is interested in and therefore, what they are likely to do, say or buy next. Marketers are convinced that AI together with intent data capture will provide a better mechanism to push the right content at the right time to both prospects and customers regardless of where the targets are residing, albeit social media channels, websites, blogs, email lists, etc.. Further, according to Marc Johnson, CMO and GM of Bombora stated, "How do you personalize to a business? Not easily. With the convergence of AI and intent data, however, it is now possible to understand the interests of a buying group within a business and apply those insights to deliver actually relevant and valuable content. 2019 will be the year when this will become a core element of account-based marketing (ABM) for B2B brands."

Chatbots On the Rise

Chatbots, often referred to as live chat components typically found on websites and also 'messenger bots" such as Facebook bots are deliverers of content. Some B2B brands often mistake deploying a live chat believing that a live person has to be fielding and interacting with users in real time. Chatbots are programmable to exchange real time engagement conversations with prospects and customers so much so that some users are unable to tell the difference between the chatbot and a live person.

Chatbots also provide quick answers that deliver that 'instant gratification' desire to its users. The quicker a prospect can obtain answers for a product or service from a brand, the more likely that prospect will become a qualified buying target for the brand. The inherent beauty of chatbots is that the staff needn't be burdened with having to be on call to answer chatbot requests. Although, large enterprises tend to employ live chat attendants, in reality it is not necessary if the chat bot has been properly programmed. It could be said that chatbots actually improve efficiency and productivity for brands that use them. Lastly, the 2018 State of Chatbots Report declares that only 43% of consumers said they would prefer to communicate with a human. Conversely, that means that 57% of consumers are comfortable engaging with a chatbot, or livechat component. Look for B2B brands to up their interest and investments in chatbots going into 2019.

Customer Experience is Predicated Upon Customer Intelligence

The term 'customer experience' is a relatively new buzzword the marketing community has been tossing around. And for good reason; it's absolutely true that if the customer experience is lacking, odds are good that sales conversion rates will also come up short. The marketing community has learned that the customer experience is the all that ends all. That said, the only way to excel at creating a stellar customer experience is to garner customer intelligence. That term 'customer intelligence' will become the next buzzword focus going into 2019. By definition, Customer intelligence (CI) is the process of gathering and analyzing information regarding customers, and their details and activities, in an effort to build deeper and more effective customer relationships and improve decision-making by vendors, suppliers, and partners.

Further, the customer experience fed by customer intelligence will be the game changer among all game changers. Gary DeAsi, Director of Marketing, Demand Generation, Pointillist states, "In 2019, customer-centricity, personalization, and customer experience are officially make-or-break factors for marketing success. Lack of integration between all the tools and systems within the organization has increasingly led to siloed data and teams, and ultimately the lack of a single, unified view of customers and their omni-channel journeys over time. Without that unified view, it is very difficult to be customer-centric, successful with personalization or customer experience, or generate meaningful customer insights at the rate required today." Look for increased investments aimed at acquiring and utilizing improved customer intelligence.

Experience Driven Content

We've all been inundated with "content marketing" in all its glory, including the various types of content marketing usages and how it should be applied to the various marketing channels and targets. Both B2C and B2B have enjoyed the content marketing boom, however, in 2019 B2B marketers will look for 'experience driven content." Experience driven content is far reaching in that this perspective includes what the prospect is doing both online and offline in the physical world.

Examples of experience driven content could be utilized in the form of interactive content such as online assessments, infographics, quizzes, flipbooks with multimedia inserts and other types of interactive content that is requesting the user to participate.

As more buyers are looking for brands that can connect from an experience perspective, it makes sense that a good experience in an of itself could elevate brand equity above competitors that lack experience. In fact, 93% of marketers agreed that interactive content is effective in educating buyers versus just 70% for static content, as reported by the State of Interactive Content Marketing, who have stated that static is out and interactive is leading the way.

The Net-Net

Keep in mind that any B2B marketing strategy is actually designed for one purpose, and that is to earn the right for a sales meeting. All of the top 2019 B2B marketing trends mentioned herein will greatly assist B2B brands in their efforts to compete at a higher level and improve their bottom lines. We contend there are more B2B marketing trends emerging, from account based marketing, Goggle's voice search, Influencer marketing and others floating in the marketing ionosphere. That said, we believe these aforementioned trends represent a great starting point. Thank you for reading "Top 2019 B2B Marketing Trends." Happy Holidays to all!

Let's have a conversation about direct mail strategies, printing, print software, transactional documents, variable digital printing, brand equity and unified marketing collateral during our next Open House. We invite you to join us on Thursday, December 20th, 2018, for an hour or two, anytime between 9:30 am to 4:30 pm. Let us show you how to improve your document processes to optimize your workflow, reduce your costs, and maximize your organization's printing, letter shop and mailing capabilities. Dove Direct does have an official USPS certified bureau located within our offices that will save you time and money. And, if you bring us your files, we will create a demo file for you. For more information call Carla Eubanks at 404-629-0122 or email Carla at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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If you don't want to wait for the Open House, you can reach Dove Direct today by calling 404-629-0122 or use the contact form for Dove Direct.