by tradespeopleinsights | Oct 19, 2021 | Tradespeople Insights
By Matt Sonnhalter, Vision Architect
Digital channels play an important role when it comes to advertising. I’m sure this is no surprise to most marketers given the pandemic the world has been facing the past 18 months.
According to Emarketer, the forecast for this year is expected to grow almost 25% and by 2023, the total B2B digital spend is forecasted to almost double to be close to the 15 billion mark.
Another stat that surprised me was that LinkedIn is forecasted to account for nea
rly one-third of the total B2B display ad spending in 2021. And I’m sure a majority of these ads are for job openings, but there are still plenty of promoted posts I’m seeing on LinkedIn.
On the other hand, digital ad investment accounts for 32% of total B2B digital ad spend. This is mostly due to Technology Products and Service companies. With digital channels being vital when marketing to your customers, B2B marketers are investing more in digital ads than display.
How has your company’s digital advertising grown over the past year?
by tradespeopleinsights | Oct 15, 2021 | Tradespeople Insights
By: Matt Sonnhalter, Vision Architect
Entering 2021, companies anticipated to have budget growth of more than 5% as they expected to have a swift recovery. A recent report from Gartner reveals that the share of company revenues allocated to marketing expense budgets has fallen drastically this year.
The survey of 400 marketing leaders across 5 global markets found that marketing budgets as a portion of revenue have fallen to 6.4% this year. The previous lowest year was 10.2% back in 2014. From the results we can see five trends happening.
Trend Number One:
The first trend that reflects this decrease is from the downward pressure on marketing spend induced by the pandemic. When budgets are getting cut, marketing budgets are usually the first ones to be on the chopping block.
Trend Number Two:
All nine industries analyzed had cuts in budget as a portion of revenue. Manufacturing experienced the biggest percentage-point drop in revenue allocated to marketing…12.7% in 2020, but only 5.8% for 2021! With the digital enterprise accelerating investments, spending priorities began to shift.
Trend Number Three:
With digital commerce dominating, marketing budgets started to spread across all different channels. 72.2% of investments were split between marketing channels like websites, digital ads and social channels.
Trend Number Four:
A lot of external agency capabilities are now moving to in-house strategic tactics. The three that have moved focus are brand strategy, innovation and technology and marketing strategy development.
Trend Number Five:
Lastly, with the shift to digital commerce that meant companies needed to change their spending on analytics. With having to invest in online programs to fuel digital success, this ended up taking 12.3% of the total budget.
I know manufacturers across the board are struggling with supply chain, labor shortages and other issues, but hard to believe marketing spending dropped so much in just one year.
Where is your company’s marketing budget share trending as a percentage of the company’s revenue?
by tradespeopleinsights | Sep 20, 2021 | Events/Trade Shows, Tradespeople Insights
By: Matt Sonnhalter, Vision Architect
In 2020, companies and businesses turned to online events as an alternative to in-person events due to COVID-19. With those who previously held face-to-face events, 4 in 5 or 78% of people converted to online. Although online events were successful, people are starting to feel burnt out from them.
According to Activate Marketing Services in partnership with MarketingCharts, 9 in 10 or 90% of Demand Gen marketers agree that buyers are becoming fatigued with online events.
We all had to pivot last year to replace in-person events (tradeshows, association and industry meetings) … and most of us tried to fill the gap by replacing them with some sort of online/virtual event. With buyers becoming fatigued, and that will only be growing, companies are starting to redirect their focus. Instead, high-quality lead programs have risen up the ranks when respondents were asked to choose their top 3 options. That being said, companies are starting to focus more on content and engagement with their audience.
This doesn’t mean virtual events are going away anytime soon. Although I don’t know about you, but most of the online events I attended were pretty much busts.
What does your company have planned for the remainder of the year? Any in-person events? I know I’m scheduled to attend at least half a dozen trade shows between now and the end of the year and I can’t wait to continue to see people “live” and in person!
by tradespeopleinsights | Aug 17, 2021 | Tradespeople Insights
by Matt Sonnhalter, Vision Architect
Virtual selling will continue to be around after COVID-19. Over the past year, there has been a shift of moving things to be done virtually or remote. In a recent report, State of Sales, LinkedIn looked at the top deal killers for B2B buyers.
When looking at the report, some of these concepts seem so obvious, but if they made the list, then they must be happening out there.
Here are the Top 3 B2B seller behavior deal killers for buyers:
- Delivering misleading information about a product, its price, etc. – taking the top spot at 48%, I guess my question is why 52% of B2B buyers would buy from a vendor that gives them inaccurate info about the product and its price! Tell the truth; representing a trusted brand can make outreach more successful and gain you customers.
- Not understanding my company and its needs – this seems like “Sales 101,” but it’s amazing how many salespeople are too focused on their own product/service and not the customer. A sales professional needs to be focused on the consumer’s need rather than pushing a product.
- Not understanding their own product or service – with the amount of information on the internet and the amount of time buyers spend researching prior to reaching out to the company, shouldn’t be a surprise they sometimes know more than the salesperson.
Sales professionals are taking note of these deal killers and trying to improve. Knowing and identifying deal killers is important when targeting your audience, so you can adjust your outreach and effectively build trust.
Looking into the future, how will you change as a sales professional?
by tradespeopleinsights | Aug 10, 2021 | Marketing Trends, Public Relations, Social Marketing, Tradespeople Insights
by Kylie Stanley, Public Relations Technician
Influencer marketing is one of the top forms of marketing, especially in 2021. With influencer marketing being in demand, marketers must use it to seek their target audience.
In a recent report from Linqia, “State of Influencer Marketing,” they outline some of their key findings. While this report is focused on enterprise marketers, these broader B2C influencer marketing trends eventually make their way down to the B2B market.
Here are some of the key highlights:
- Interest in using TikTok in influencer marketing campaigns rose 325% in just one year
- 90% of enterprise marketers wanted to work with micro-influencers
- Marketers are working with significantly fewer influencers than three years ago
- 86% of respondents are already using shoppable links to allow consumers to go from inspiration to purchase instantly
- 65% of respondents indicated that measuring ROI continues to be the biggest pain point in influencer marketing
It’s no surprise that the top two platforms are TikTok and Instagram as video content is continuing to grow within influencer channels. In fact, one in three marketers said it is extremely important.
Influencers are more than just their audience; they also create compelling content across channels and this is why they’re so effective.
What changes are you making to your Influencer Marketing Program for 2021?
by tradespeopleinsights | Aug 6, 2021 | Tradespeople Insights
By: Matt Sonnhalter, Vision Architect
After 2020, we can see a change in what types of content are most effective. In a recent report from Activate Marketing Services, they surveyed 72% of B2B tech marketers and demand gen decision-makers for a report on effective content.
In this blog, we will look at each tunnel tier and each type of content.
Top of the Funnel:
At the top of the funnel, we have blog posts that are considered most effective. Whereas next we have 66% of people who consider infographics the most effective. Lastly, at the top of the funnel we have videos. Blogs, infographics and videos are great sources of content as buyers are engaging with more digital content especially after the pandemic. When crafting content for your company, keep your audience in mind to optimize business.
Mid-Funnel:
In the mid-funnel, we can see virtual events and webcasts were most effective. Last year, we saw an increase of virtual events and webinars due to COVID-19 and the cancellation of in-person events. Online events are great to expand your audience and let anyone listen from anywhere.
Bottom of the Funnel:
In our final tier, we have data-driven content. For example, this type of content consists of white papers, e-books and case studies, with white papers at 41% effective, e-books at 9% and case studies at 16%.
And while this study focused on B2B tech marketers, these content pieces would work for the general B2B marketers.
What’s been your most effective content type at each stage of the funnel?
