If there was a title for the most transformative year of the decade, 2020 would have been the undisputed contender of the title. A year of change and adoption of new-normal; 2020 has shown the world one of the worst faces of human debacle and at the same time it has also revealed the spirit of human courage, resilience, survival amid uncertainties at its peak. The business world was shaken to its core and while many survived, some thrived after the initial setback settled in.
While the most predominant theme of the year was change and adoption of the new normal, there’s a lot that has changed in the B2B market and several trends have shaped the new normal. This blog is all about the most significant trends of the b2b market in the year 2020.
The Survival-fix- Go Digital
While the whole world was going digital, the year 2020 accelerated it further. The best way to stay connected with customers was to go online and communicate virtually. Social media became the main stage for b2b and other marketers to connect with their potential prospects and maintain a dialogue with them for business.
Nearly 96% of b2b sales teams shifted either partially or fully to remote selling.
65% of B2B decision makers now say that the remote model is more effective than it was before the Pandemic.
Optimizing speed, accuracy and efficiency through personalized communication with customers has been one of the dominant trends of 2020 for b2b sales and marketing organizations.
Virtual events:
Face-to-face events- one of the potential opportunities for the sales teams to get leads and convert leads came to a sudden halt making ‘virtual’ the new normal. Webinars, virtual meet-ups and conferences, video marketing through social media became the hottest trends of 2020.
Virtual contact with customers enabled companies to keep their businesses going on and also provided customers with solutions for their challenges in business.
Customer-centric marketing:
The entire focus shifted from selling to identifying the new needs of the customer, addressing those needs and also creating a focused strategy to meet those needs became imperative. Some of the significant trends are as follows:
- Quick response to customer needs
- Agile sales practices
- Personalized offers
- Relevant content
- Empathetic communication
Email Marketing:
While email marketing has remained one of the popular channels for b2b sales and marketing it gained more leverage in 2020 due to the digital shift and online interactions with potential customers. Email marketing started becoming more and more popular amid both marketers as well as customers.
Better reach and personalized offers for getting more leads has proved to be a winning formula in today. Almost 73% marketers think email marketing as an important tool for success in marketing and 83% use email marketing as their most preferred mode of communication.
Hyper-Personalization:
Another popular trend of 2020 has been hyper-personalization. Customer centric strategies and hyper personalization now meant understanding the finer nuances of customer needs and requirements.
Personalization in communicating with customers and providing customized solutions to them has been one of the most dominant features of 2020. Marketing communication too became more empathetic in order to make it more about reaching out and less about selling.
Listening more and understanding the customers has benefited marketers a lot this year. Therefore, conversational marketing also became more popular this year with all the change and adoption of technology.
Technology:
Technology has always played an important role in b2b. Whether it is automated email marketing campaigns, or gathering data or reaching out through chatbots, technology has been a strong pillar of b2b sales and marketing.
This year’s virtual and online shift was enabled only due to technology. In fact, this forced adoption of virtual communication made many organizations realize that technology support could actually fuel sales and marketing to a great extent. Remote work model was possible only due to collaborative features enabled through technology.
Conclusion:
Several other dominating trends of 2020 include ABM (Account Based Marketing) which has now become a main-stream activity for b2b sales and marketing companies. It has enabled the sales team to further narrow down their focus and concentrate on account based activities for better results.
Remote work model, wherein work from home became a norm was another new-normal of 2020. Several trends from 2020 will continue into the year 2021 as they have proved to be not only beneficial but also better than the traditional marketing and sales approach.