It’s been a wild ride for B2B marketers in 2021, let’s explore what the future holds for marketing teams across a range of industries.
One of the great things about working at IntelligenceBank, is we talk with marketers all day long. It’s the perfect circular reference – marketing to marketers.
Not only do we hear about the crazy creative pitches, the campaigns that crashed and burned, or the small initiative that drove home zillions in sales – but we get to speak with marketing teams across a range of industries on what they are doing differently in 2022.
Most marketing trends are written for B2C, so this year let’s explore the best new initiatives from B2B Content Marketers.
The Rise Of TikTok
B2B marketers are now using TikTok to reach professionals in a creative way.
With over 1 billion monthly active users, despite skewing younger (half of US users are between 18-29), it can’t be ignored.
TikTok is forcing B2B brands to be less boring, more creative and entertaining. Shopify, Uber, Canva and Square have nailed it.
Law firms and other professional services companies are getting in on the act as well.
If you are targeting other small businesses, have a creative product or need an innovative way to showcase product demos – TikTok is a great way to stand out and engage with your audience.
In 2022 we will see more B2B marketers being more relatable and creative using this channel.
@canva The charming @kelseydangerous and @calebnatale are facing off in a magical #CanvaChallenge #Canva #Pottery #LearnOnTikTok
Headless Digital Asset Management
For people wondering what is a Headless DAM?
It’s a content repository driven by APIs so you can have one too many relationships from content you manage with the multiple channels on where it’s being distributed.
This not only helps you with content governance to manage versions of approved content better, but you can also track performance as there is a persistent link from your Digital Asset Management software to websites, social media and other places where it’s published.
Download the IntelligenceBank Headless DAM whitepaper to see what everyone’s talking about.
Casual Approvals
With so much content being produced, across departments and media, getting it approved needs to be fast.
More and more marketers are using creative content proofing tools and online editing to co-collaborate and approve content.
This way you can co-create ‘on the run’ by desktop, laptop or mobile and comments can be audited and counted as approvals in an audit trail.
Artificial Intelligence
AI is starting to make serious inroads into the content marketing lifecycle.
Brands are now using AI to automatically create and refine content, to check it against regulatory compliance frameworks pre-release, to tag it with keywords before it is stored within a DAM system and to smart compare versions during the approval process to automatically highlight the differences.
In 2022 AI will continue to make creating content at scale more efficient and faster than before.
Video Storytelling
The stats are clear.
Video is the fastest growing content type used by 80 per cent of marketers globally.
Why? Because viewers of video retain over 90 per cent of the information compared to 10 per cent in text.
Mostly, video is being delivered on websites via ‘share and embed’ technologies – so performance can be tracked.
Over the past 12 months, IntelligenceBank has seen a 23 per cent increase of video stored within its digital asset management system globally.
NFTs Have Come Of Age
What started out as quirky way to sell collectible, unique digital artwork using block chain got serious in March 2021, when an NFT (non fungible token) which is a unique digital image with a corresponding electronic record) called ‘Everydays: The First 5000 Days’ sold for $69 million at Christies.
NFT’s have turned into big business with multi-million dollar price tags.
Consumer brands are already leveraging this technology to engage with a fan base (i.e. sports codes creating digital trading cards such as the NBA Top Shot).
Universities are starting to provide digital diplomas using NFT technology.
B2B marketers can also get in on the action with VIP access tokens and creating limited edition content that people will want to collect and save.
The more limited it is, the more collectable and more valuable. Watch this space. We are just happy the term ‘digital assets’ is going mainstream.
Website Personalisation
For B2B marketers, database marketing via personalized emails is nothing new.
The same concept of personalisation is now being applied to websites.
Businesses are using decision engines and creative automation capabilities to tailor headlines, images, videos and calls to action down to the individual.
Conclusion
Next year we will continue to see B2B Content Marketers evolve how they reach and interact with their audience.
To find out how IntelligenceBank and help you with your marketing operations, download our Marketing Operations Whitepaper.
By John Ryan, VP marketing, IntelligenceBank
