Marketing Tools for B2B Companies

By Abhinav Girdhar | Last Updated on January 20th, 2023 7:47 am

In 2021, B2B companies will focus more on creating a stronger personal connection with their customers. In order to make this happen, they will start focusing more on content marketing and lead generation campaigns. The goal is to attract potential customers and close more deals. Automation tools will also be used by B2B companies in order to enhance the personalization of the messaging process. It will become imperative for marketers to know what works best for their audience.

The Outlook for B2B Marketing in 2021

For B2B companies, it is essential to be able to communicate with their customers effectively if they want to keep them coming back again and again. They must also ensure that they pay attention to their overall digital experience as well as making sure that their products are marketed properly. This is only possible if there is good collaboration between the sales and marketing departments.

The marketer’s role is to make sure that the business has a solid online presence and that it is accessible by potential customers. The sales department’s main goal is to convince leads into becoming paying customers. If both departments work together, then it will be easy for the business to improve their marketing activities in 2021.

UX and UI Design Trends for 2019

User experience and user interface design trends will be the biggest influencers in the B2B sector in 2019. Not only will these trends be used for digital marketing and designing sites and apps, they will also be applied to traditional advertising channels such as advertising, print media, social media marketing, email marketing, etc.

The goal is to make sure the overall customer experience is positive. It is essential for B2B companies to create an engaging user experience when it comes to their sales process. This means that they must deliver a seamless experience across multiple channels. Content marketing is one of the most effective ways of doing this. The main goal is to make sure that leads are converted into paying customers once they reach the website.

With user experience in mind, B2B companies can improve their web traffic, conversions rates and overall sales figures. UX design trends will continue to be important in 2019 even though there are some new trends on the rise in terms of UI design. Below are some of the top trends that you should keep your eye on in order to improve your marketing campaign performance in 2019:

1. Personalization

Personalization will continue to be one of the most important trends for 2019. This is mainly because it is one of the best ways of improving customer engagement and conversions. It also goes a long way in promoting the brand image. The more personal your content is, the more likely you are to create a positive brand perception in the eyes of your audience. Personalizing your content means that you can offer more value to your target audience on different levels.

2. Responsive Design

Responsive design will continue to make an impact on B2B websites in 2019. It is more cost-effective than ever before, which means that it will be used by more B2B companies this year. A responsive website will automatically resize itself depending on the device being used by the customer. This helps ensure that they have a seamless user experience even though they are using different devices.

3. Simplicity & Minimalism

Simplicity and minimalism are two major UX design trends that you should keep an eye on in 2019 if you want to get ahead of the competition this year. It has been proven time and time again that simplicity works well when it comes to creating engaging web experiences for users across multiple devices. Minimalism, on the other hand, focuses on using fewer elements or visual elements on each page and in turn makes the overall experience much simpler and easier for customers to understand and use what’s on offer.

4. Microinteraction Design

Microinteractions can be used as a standalone content marketing tactic, but they are more commonly used as a part of the overall user experience strategy. This means that you can leverage microinteractions across your website to create a better customer experience. The main goal is to make sure that every element on your website plays a role in enhancing the customer’s experience and turns them into paying customers. It is one of the best ways of generating revenue from different marketing channels such as social media, email marketing and SEO.

5. Storytelling

Storytelling has been around for thousands of years, but it is only now that marketers are starting to embrace it as an important tool of their trade. Storytelling is more than just telling a story; it is about showing how your product or service helps your target audience achieve something specific and meaningful to them. It goes deeper than just talking about what you do and it helps build trust and authority with your audience at the same time.

6. Animation & Video

B2B companies will continue to focus more on video content as well as animated videos this year. This trend will also be applied to other digital marketing channels such as email marketing, social media marketing and search engine optimization (SEO). The main reason why animation and video will play an important role in B2B marketing campaigns is that they help grab the attention of the customer and improve engagement levels significantly compared to plain text-based content. Nowadays, people expect things to move faster on the web, which means that any type of content must be engaging otherwise it can lead to lower conversion rates and empty sales pipeline reports.

7. Virtual Reality (VR) & Augmented Reality (AR)

VR/AR technology will continue to make an impact in the B2B sector in 2019. As these technologies become more affordable, they will be leveraged by businesses in order to create unique experiences for their customers across multiple platforms including mobile devices, desktops, laptops, etc. One way of using VR/AR technologies effectively is by creating 360-degree product viewing experiences for potential customers who are looking for new products or services online. So far, brands like IKEA have already started embracing VR technology in order to improve their cross-device experiences for both customers and leads alike. They created a virtual IKEA catalog which offers users the ability to interact with its products using VR devices such as Google Cardboard or Daydream View headsets among others!

8. Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial intelligence is a term that you’ve likely already heard and read about more than once in the past few years. What is artificial intelligence? As defined by Gartner, AI is “a symbiosis of human brain with artificial neural networks to do tasks which are impractical or impossible for humans alone.” The B2B sector has been using AI for over two decades now. Last year, Google revealed its Cloud Natural Language API which lets businesses easily analyze data from text-based documents in order to better understand what the content means. IBM Watson has also been around since 2010 allowing companies to leverage its cognitive computing platform in order to enhance their marketing efforts across different channels including social media, display ads, email marketing, etc. And let’s not forget about Amazon Alexa which was made available to all businesses last year via Amazon Web Services (AWS).

9. Chatbots & Voice Search

The rise of chatbots can be attributed mostly to brands like Facebook Messenger, Slack, WhatsApp, Telegram and LINE who have introduced these new interactive messaging experiences for both their customers and users alike. There are several reasons why chatbots will continue to influence the B2B landscape in 2019. For example, these technologies allow companies to have more control over how they interact with their clients/potential clients by providing them with faster service without having to wait on hold or contact them through email or social media platforms like Facebook Messenger. Another reason why chatbots will gain popularity this year is because they make it easier for companies to stay connected with their customers/leads even when they’re not online! This eliminates the need for marketers to develop customer support teams or hire more consultants to provide 24/7 client services during off-hours (i.e., nights and weekends). Chatbots can be deployed across multiple devices including mobile phones, smart TVs, Internet of Things (IoT) devices among others! They also offer users the opportunity to learn more about their products and services without having to call them or visit their websites first! It’s important for marketers working at B2B organizations in 2019 to start adopting chatbots as part of their digital strategies if they haven’t already done so yet!

10. Accelerating Customer Experience (CX) Metrics

Businesses using leading CRM software often focus on metrics such as conversion rates and closed deal value among others when analyzing the performance of their sales teams. However, these metrics don’t always paint a complete picture of what’s happening behind the scenes after the lead is generated by the sales team. Is there an opportunity for your sales reps to close more deals? Does your business have a solid retention strategy? Are your customers happy with your product offerings? These questions should appear alongside your top KPIs in most cases but they most likely aren’t being tracked by most firms today due to a lack of available resources and a lack of proper tracking systems within many CRMs currently being used by businesses worldwide! In 2019, look for companies who are leveraging CX management solutions from Salesforce and other top providers in order to get a better idea of where improvements can be made with regards to customer satisfaction and retention rates among other things!