A new decade is upon us, which means it’s time for B2B marketers to leave the tactics that didn’t work behind them and think of new ways to develop killer content and experiences. This collection of personal and professional resolutions from industry experts aims to highlight the trends and tactics B2B practitioners are planning to focus on in 2020.
To write more myself, but to get the entire team writing more. I’m not talking about blog posts – I’m talking about writing, period. I think writing of every source is the most important muscle group in B2B.
I’d like to help orgs start “rebranding” their marketing operations teams. Marketing technology is all about enabling customer experiences. Let’s get away from thinking of MarkOps members as admins or technologists and think of them more as customer experience makers.
I think we’re at a point where we may have to think more about tech consolidation instead of acquisition. “Build vs. Buy?” is a constant question for technologists and we’re at a point where we need to understand what needs we can solve with what we have before we purchase the next shiny toy.
Develop a more consistent and cohesive content strategy that provides real value to my B2B audience and builds long-term relationships. I want them to know I am here for them when they need me.
I am so excited to see my good friends Tamsen Webster, Brian Fanzo and Todd Henry present! Additionally, I’m looking forward to being part of the community of #B2BMX! I expect to make a lot of new friends.
In 2020, my B2B marketing resolutions are to increase my engagement on others content within LinkedIn, while also mixing in live video content with my current weekly video series. Also, I will be looking at great B2C examples of 2019 to understand why they worked, with the goal of adjusting and tweaking them to B2B. I don’t believe B2B is that far behind or different than B2C in today’s marketing world, especially when wanting to target Millennial and Gen Z consumers.
In this ever-changing world of B2B marketing, it’s never been more important to study your peers, find creative ways to collaborate and network with those doing great things in your industry. There’s no doubt that #B2BMX is the place to do that. I’m coming back for my third time in two years because of the speakers, the agenda and the vibrant community.
Finally work on a newsletter that people actually love. I think we have lost our way and become spammers. It’s time to recreate value in every touch point and I am testing it myself by creating a #BecomingIntentional hashtag to see how that might work.
I am in the midst of creating a documentary about a difficult topic in the marketing industry. While it’s a hard truth to swallow, I believe telling and embracing hard truths are what moves industries forward, and helps us evolve as a profession that is in desperate need of change.
As a B2B marketer in 2020, I resolve to balance data and technology with creative and empathetic strategies. In other words, to flex both sides of my marketing brain – that which seeks to optimize through data and testing, and that which leverages instinct and humanity to connect with people through language and emotion.
I also resolve to push my clients towards thought leadership that can truly be called “thought leadership.” I was shocked by an Edelman / LinkedIn study that found only 17% of B2B decision makers rate the quality of most of the thought leadership they read as very good or excellent. Telling hard truths, doing the work to find original thought from our organizations’ practices, and delivering it clearly/simply to those who need it most is worth the investment. Lazy shortcuts, me-too content strategy, and lacking understanding of our target buyers will only waste time and budget. (But I expect to see a lot of it, regardless!)
Finally, I resolve to prioritize building trust as my #1 B2B marketing initiative for 2020. We live in a world of information overload, misinformation, and bad actors (both in business as in politics / media). This has led to the largest decline of trust in the last two decades among all buyers. Trust is a matter of perception, and marketers are the purveyors of perception. It’s on us to fix this, and it’s on all organizations to, in turn, trust marketers to guide them to build trust with skeptical buyers.
I’d really like to be more consistent in learning about the trends and interests that keep coming up in the B2B marketing space. This was a pretty big year of change for me, so I haven’t had as much time as I’d like to learn about trends. I have wonderful coworkers who are great at keeping us in the loop about things to know about as we work with clients, but I’d like to bring some of this learning back to myself in 2020.
