The three exciting Social Media trends in the year 2020

Any time is a good time to re-assess your Social media strategy. With an ever evolving technology landscape; the smallest changes in the market can create an impact on overall business performance and decision-making in the IT B2B Marketing realm. Social media and its strategy is one of the important aspects of your overall marketing strategy. In such as a scenario, keeping yourself updated about the latest trends is the best possible way to help you stay ahead in the competition.

Let us see some of the key trends of Social media in the year 2020.

Content Authenticity-

Raw stories, customer stories and experiences that directly talk about brands will dominate the trends this year. Stories that intend to create transparent, meaningful and interactive content are predicted to make waves in social media this year. Better storytelling will define the parameters of the authentic content that is required. Sharing moments too can dominate the social media landscape this year.

Video marketing-

Video may not be the latest entrant in B2B Digital marketing and social media trends, but it is proving to be one of the most effective ones. And to further augment its effectiveness; marketers will now need to have a video-strategy and this could be the major differentiator this year in social media marketing.  Live videos, interactive videos and strategies such as video re-marketing will be remarkably popular. To get maximum output through video marketing would require you to set your goals, to create short videos for Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and the re-purposing of content wherever possible.

Innovative Chatbots -

Just like videos; chatbots have also been trending and marketers are excited about the value that they are capable of bringing to organizations in order to gain the trust and loyalty of customers. It is one of the most effective ways to reach and enhance engagement with your audiences. Chat-blasting like email-blasting is a trend that marketers would want to consider this year. Some of the good practices when it comes to chatbots may be to strategize delivering content through messenger, to build a Facebook Messenger chatbots and build more contacts on Facebook for effective interaction via these chatbots.

Trends come and go, but the best practices never become redundant. Some of these trends only get enhanced in time to create more positive results, adding value to your marketing strategies and activities. If applied effectively you could get the best possible results that can change the face of your business.

Social Media marketing trends to watch out for in 2020

Just like content; social media is at the heart of digital marketing. It is one of the most powerful tools that help distribute content to the right audience at the right time. With ever-changing social media trends, and the social media channels coming up with new, innovative tools; social media marketing has become omnipresent in IT B2B marketing industry.

Going visual-

The trend in 2020 in B2B Digital Marketing Services is definitely shifting from content-only to visual-only and also on social media. With the attention span of readers reducing by the day, and customers being spoilt for choice; videos are becoming the eye-catcher. Videos are becoming an equally dominant trend in the year 2019 as they were in the year 2018.  With the focus of social media on engaging audiences and building relationships with customers through fresh content-mediums such as stories and live streaming; the use of visual content has more demand now than ever. There is a shift in trends with brands wanting to create a richer, visual-content the medium that can yield a more effective business output.

GoLive-                                                                                                                                            

Video has been gaining popularity and is picking up fast since the year 2018. However; video content on social media has become yet another opportunity for marketers to attract, engage and convert prospects. Going live helps build trust and loyalty of customers. Going live with video also makes it more interactive, helping marketers connect better with their customers. In B2B Digital Marketing industry; video is helping personalization and customization become easier than before.

Enhanced customer experience-

Brands that emphasize more on elevating customer experience have more chances of fetching customer loyalty. A one-on-one communication with customers increases the chances of better and effective communication. Data is now being used and leveraged to make the best of personalization for enhanced customer experiences. Marketers are also focused on giving enhanced customer experiences through recommendations, brand reputation etc. to make the most of social media.

Social media is undeniably one of the most powerful tools for marketers to enhance brand image and reach the expected target audience. And the powerful combination of visual medium and social media is only helping marketers to gain a wider reach with better results.

3 trends in digital marketing, that you may not have yet adopted in 2020

While we are ready to almost pave halfway through 2020; it is never too late to know what it is that is trending in the digital marketing world. With change being the only constant and more so with technology and customer awareness changing the way we do business today; one should be in sync with what works today and now! Here are a few trends of Digital marketing in 2020 that is catching up fast and that may help your business in more ways than one.

AI (Artificial Intelligence)-

Going by the trends in AI; all our simpler jobs, at least, in the near future will be taken over by AI. This path-breaking technology can analyse consumer behaviour; while utilizing data from social media. It creates new search patterns to build better understanding between the marketers and consumers. Chatbots are a great example of simplifying the complex needs of customers, like-wise, providing them with what they want. AI is already playing a crucial role in moulding the way B2B Digital Marketing works.

Programmatic Advertising-

In IT B2B Marketing, this can also be termed as refined advertising; one that is done with the help of technology; as, through programmatic advertising, you now get to automate your Ad- buying for a specific target audience. Simplifying the process of identifying the audience and not fully knowing what would appeal to them; programmatic advertising brings in the ease of knowing and delivering what the customer wants without any guess-work. According to sources (www.emarketer.com) almost 90% of digital display ads in the U.S will be made programmatic by the year 2020. With systematic programmatic advertising; you can expect higher conversions and ROI.

Video Marketing-

Video marketing has already made its entry and has been here for some time now as the next big thing in the digital realm.

Going by the statistics, it is about to make a bigger wave in the digital world-

•  Almost 72% of businesses are saying that video marketing has improved their conversion rate
• 70% of consumers say that they share brand videos
•  52% of consumers say watching videos help them make online buying decisions more confidently
• 65% of executives say that they visit a marketers website after watching a video

(source- www.impactbnd.com)

The good thing about change is that, there is always something new that is trending and can help augment your business. The skill is to know how much of it you really need, and how much of it you have to adopt right away so that you don’t lose out on the potential chances of enhancing your business today.

The importance of effective content marketing in the B2B landscape

A time when everyone is talking about the content being king and that an effective content marketing strategy can yield the expected results in any B2B organization; there is a need to take a look at the way content marketing is being designed in order to achieve best results. This can help evaluate its effectiveness and why it is important that one dishes out brilliant content pieces that are distributed through an intelligently designed and appropriately timed content marketing strategy.

To begin with, here are some numbers that only echoes the fact that content marketing is definitely the future in the IT B2B Marketing world-
• Today almost 90% organizations are using content for marketing purposes
• On average companies today are using over 25% of their budgets on content marketing
• Almost 91% of B2B marketing uses content marketing
• On average, almost 78% CMOs see customized content as the future of marketing
• Almost 86% of B2C marketers use content marketing
• On average, around 37% believe that content-led websites can successfully engage customers
• Almost 62% companies outsource content marketing
(Source- www.demandmetric.com)

So what does effective content marketing in B2B Digital Marketing world do to organizations-?

Engages audiences-
Apart from attracting the major chunk of users through content; it is very important that you also keep the attention of readers constant by giving them authentic, relevant and shareable information from time to time.

Improves brand loyalty-
Effective content and content marketing elevates brand image and enhances brand loyalty. This creates trustworthiness amid users and thus stronger ROI.

Generates leads-
In a challenging B2B landscape where the customers’ demands change rapidly, great content and effective content marketing help generate potential leads easily.

Increases sales and ROI-
With effective content that attracts the right prospects, chances of increasing sales and thus the ROI are higher.

1. Almost 68% of people spend time reading about brands
2. 20% of internet users spend their online time in searching for the most relevant content
3. Almost 80% readers want to learn about a company through content that is customized
4. Almost 57% read content marketing titles at least once a month
(Source- www.demandmetric.com)

So whether or not you are in the B2B space, marketing any product or service today, needs effective content and content marketing efforts. With digitization and customers spending maximum time online to look for what they want; a robust and sustainable content marketing strategy is a must for organizations or any marketer today.

5 Tips for effective content marketing in 2020

”A picture is worth thousand words”. Sounds familiar? Pretty much, right? “Yes”, this would be the slogan all across “content marketing” in 2020. Let’s throw some light on the content marketing tips with this analogy.

Humor or information infused content- “Humor” and “information”, when fused together, make an impeccable combo. If your content can make the readers chuckle while they feed on your content full of important information, you have it then and there! In other words, you could count on them.. That’s the ultimate goal, honestly - to get repetitive traffic from the same loyal audience base, over and over again. Creating fun and humorous blogs and articles is one of the best ways to exploit this, internet marketing service, email marketing services strategy.

Visuals and Infographics: If it’s not mandatory to read; most of us will love skipping through a text based content, which spans through pages and pages. When you are expecting quick responses and interaction from the audience, visuals and infographics have much better chance against “text only” content. Visuals and infographics can help you convey more as well as precise information through a brief interaction, and that’s why they are being used so extensively by the marketers these days.

Creating Shareable content: Creating easily shareable content without any incurred cost to the viewer is one tough task today. In order to induce the sharing emotion from the audience, you need to create the content that strikes home run in the first attempt. You don’t get second chance with same post on social media - if it has been seen once, it’s stale now. Anticipating the trends before they happen is the ultimate social media superpower anyone can have.

Curating content especially for handheld devices- As most of the social media activity is happening on the handheld devices these days, creating content which is tuned to give best experience on mobiles and tablets can help you reach more and more people. Sliding panoramic posts, AR posts, VR posts are examples of such content type.

Memes and Gifs are hot trends these days- Memes and Gifs have become an integral part of the social media platforms. Instagram, twitter, Facebook- every platform is filled with Memes and similar content. If you can tap into the power of memes as a marketing asset, it can make you the pioneer of meme marketing industry, as it’s not yet been adopted at bigger scale. You cannot underestimate the power of shared laughs over a meme, because even after when the memes are gone, their references stay in the mind of the viewer.

Inbound vs. Outbound Marketing- which one should you choose?

In the world of marketing, some frequently used words such as inbound marketing, outbound marketing, and digital marketing may appear like jargons, but they are not. They have distinctive characteristics that define the way you do marketing and they are designed with independent objectives in mind to derive the expected results. Let us see what differentiates them and which method should you use in today’s technology and B2B landscape.

Outbound Marketing-

These are the age-old marketing techniques that are raw and use interruptive and push-methodologies such as tele-ads, advertisements, billboards, newspapers, magazine ads and so on. Typically, these techniques lack personalization and a lack of customization of services and not catering. Tagged as expensive and overrated; these techniques are now not as effective and are giving way to inbound marketing.

Inbound Marketing-

Based on the methods that pull-in customers; inbound marketing is one of the most popular forms of marketing techniques that involve usage of blog posts, emailers, landing pages, case studies, and many more tools that are built using rich, relevant and shareable content pieces. With content at its center, inbound marketing is a very effective method of marketing that attracts, engages and converts the prospects with compelling content and strategically designed campaigns.

Here are some major differences between Inbound and Outbound marketing-

B2B Outbound marketing techniques any outbound marketing techniques usually use pull-methodologies to attract customers that are more inert and one-way; the ones that try to sell in a hard-sales-y way, regardless of what customers want or are looking for. It is based more on what the marketers want to sell, as against what the customer wants. On the other hand, inbound marketing strategies use customization and offer tailor-made solutions, wherein the aim is to pull-in the customers by giving them what they want.

Inbound marketing is less expensive than outbound; however the effectiveness of inbound is difficult to measure as it is more intangible. Since one cannot directly quantify brand awareness, adding value to business etc. it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of inbound marketing. Also, the effectiveness of B2B inbound, as opposed to B2B outbound marketing, is slow, but steady, and if built around intelligent strategies; one can obtain long-term results.

More and more marketers are using inbound marketing over outbound marketing techniques and the numbers tell why-

- Inbound marketing costs 62% less per lead than outbound marketing

- Content marketing generates 3x as many leads per dollar than traditional marketing

-57% of online users view content at least once per month and the average user spends 20% of their online time viewing content

- High quality, relevant and valuable information makes prospects more likely to take action

(Source- www.demandmetric.com)

Whether it is outbound marketing or inbound marketing, in the B2B landscape each business has different needs. Doing what’s best for ‘your business’ is the wise thing to do. You could also use an effective mix of outbound and inbound for better results. Regularly analyzing data, reassessing the business needs and keeping a tab on the changing demands of the customers will help you use the right marketing mix at the right time.

Effective B2B Inbound marketing – Attract, Engage and Delight!

The B2B marketing landscape has drastically changed over the past few years. With digitization and technology at the forefront of revolutionizing the entire customer experience; marketers are re-thinking their approach toward attracting prospects, engaging them and eventually establishing a long-lasting relationship with the ‘happy customer’.

If you look at the buying journey of your customer, it should look like an incredibly engaging transition from an intrigued prospect to a happy customer; one that is built around trust, momentum, and sustainability. A smart IT B2B Marketing strategy can do just that! It is more like a journey, built around innovative approaches and practices to create an invaluable customer experience with a long-lasting, positive effect on businesses.

Inbound marketing is all about raising brand awareness, adding value to businesses, unlike the hard-sell approach. It, therefore, promises a more sustainable marketing business model that can win you, loyal customers.

So what does inbound marketing look like?

Attract (Pull-in prospects through without the hard-sell approach)
Engage (Empathetic conversations)
Delight (Creating lasting customer relationships through a consultative approach)

The Inbound methodology that works-

Curate what and whom you want to attract- You want to attract only those prospects that are most likely to get converted into potential leads and eventually happy customers. You can do this by identifying buyer-personas and creating relevant content, publishing it around the right channels at the right time and analyzing the results and re-strategizing your content. You can attract them through blogs, videos, emails, ads, and social media.

Engage to create lasting relationships-

More human interaction with an empathetic touch can create more possibilities of engaging your prospects. You can do this through engaging and relevant conversations created through chats, e-mails, ads, etc. Engage them through a creative confluence of technology and content strategy by using conversational bots, emailer marketing, lead management and many more tools.

Delight with trust and credibility-

For a more delightful customer experience, make sure you deliver the right information to the right customer, at the right time. It’s all about surprising them with engaging content through innovative tools such as videos, infographics and more. Smart content, emailers, and marketing automation tools can help you delight your customers throughout the buyer journey.

The whole definition of customer experience in the past decade has changed drastically. Inbound marketing, therefore, fits in right, with a more strategic and persona-based approach. Giving away the right information through innovative content is one of the most important ingredients of a successful inbound marketing strategy.

For effective B2B inbound marketing, pinning the wheel of inbound marketing tools around rich and shareable content is the key to attracting the right prospects, engaging them effectively and delighting them in the longer run.

8 Tips to Revive Your Lead Generation in 2020

Scrolling through the last decade, you can’t miss out the pace with which everything has transformed. From the way people make decisions to the way they buy, has evolved! In the market, where you see thousands of options for one good or service, it is very difficult to differentiate yourself. It is important that you put across your brand’s value in an effective way to catch the attention of your target audience. Yes, your website SEO services, internet marketing service, email marketing services, demand generation and content all are relevant, but what next? How do you make that impression on your audience?

Here are some unusual yet effective ways to get the desired results, especially in 2020.

#Microsite

Your every prospect is not looking for all the services in your portfolio; hence, it is important that you provide a separate space for each of your service or targeted audience. Microsite does exactly that by explaining the niche service/product. Also, microsites are easy to rank on long-tail keywords, which can also drive traffic to your main website, if linked to the microsite.  

                   

#Build B2B app

B2B products and services often neglect the significance of application. Most of the people think business applications are to buy the product or service. But, one shouldn’t forget, app is an easy and quick way to exhibit your services. Also, a few thoughtfully designed service packages could be a part of the app. This will help prospects to get quick services without much business and paper hassles.

#FAQs page

Your prospects need to know in and out of your services before they actually purchase it. Hence, they will need answers to their questions. FAQs page is a great opportunity to convert your prospects into customers. An FAQ page with an enquiry form or an instant chat box can definitely help you answer the doubts of your customers then and there. 

#Engage with fellow service providers

Even if your fellow service providers are your competitors, you should be interacting with them through social media, conferences and other media. This will not only help you understand the current industry trend, but also enable you to set the thought leadership path of your organization’s services. It will help you to be one step ahead of them and differentiate yourself.

#Personalized pop-ups and slide-ins

However irritating these might be, but the prospects that actually need your service will definitely fill the form for more information or enquiry. And, when you personalize them, it adds a human touch to the otherwise wry and dry transactions. Your customers do feel welcomed and connected to the brand.

#Tradeshows

Tradeshows are a great way to connect with your prospects on personal level. It gives you a first-hand chance to know them and their demands. And, when your customers can directly approach you through events and tradeshows, they do feel related to the brand.

#Corporate Social Responsibility

This is rather an offbeat and unglorified way to generate leads. Remember, whether a prospect or not, everyone wants to be associated with the good. When a brand is associated with a social cause, it creates a goodwill in society and ultimately amongst the prospects.

#Hire an expert

Last, but not the least, you cannot underestimate the value that an expert brings on the table. Experts having the technique and experience in market can definitely help you boost your lead generation activities. Though, you’ll have to carefully scrutinize and choose which lead generation company can help you meet your objectives.

Conclusion

The lead generation is the ultimate goal of your marketing activities. Thus, it is important that your marketing is effective and current enough to catch the eyeballs of your prospects. The above mentioned ways will not only boost your lead generation activities, but also help you to differentiate yourself in the industry.