The future of B2B marketing is a constant, ongoing debate – as marketers we’re always thinking ahead, anticipating what’s next. At this year’s B2B Ignite we had the privilege of watching those conversations unfold all in one place, where we took in inspiring talks from the industry’s most exciting voices.
From building a culture of innovation to the secrets of psychology in messaging, the upward trends in B2B were as thought-provoking as they were wide-ranging. As you’d expect, technology was high on the agenda too, with a talk dedicated to the metaverse’s untapped potential and how marketers can push things forward.
We wanted to share some of the most useful takeaways from our time at Ignite, where we found lots of fresh thinking and encouraging signs of progress.
Building an innovative culture in marketing
When most people think about business innovation, there tends to be an understandable focus on quantifiable results. The point that too often gets missed is that embedding innovation successfully is a continuous process, the results of which take time to bear fruit. That could help explain why 91% of CMOs struggle to measure the impact of innovation, and 83% say innovation hasn’t delivered to management expectations.
As we’ve discovered at Digital Radish, doing innovation properly requires a lot of agility and a willingness to fail fast. We’ve installed a few things to encourage it, such as:
- an all-agency “innovation kitchen” where we cook up new ideas together
- assigning eight hours a month to each Radish for innovation work
- an hour a week where every team presents ads and campaigns that have inspired them
- brainstorming sessions with beer and pizza for new business meetings
What is the secret of persuasion in marketing?
Every person makes about 40,000 decisions every day. They have about 160 biases. And two internal systems are assigned to handle all of this, but up to 98% of the time they’re reliant on just one.
Take a beat to absorb that.
One of the most fascinating talks at Ignite tackled how marketers, using the power of psychology, should position messages to two consumer groups: customers who need to be persuaded to try something new (and overcome what’s called status quo bias), and those whose existing preferences need to be reinforced.
- 77% of buyers expect to learn something new from sellers (Forrester, 2021)
To dive into the former, the persistence of consumer preferences, the difficulty of choosing, the costs and risks of change, and buyer’s remorse are all factors that keep consumers from taking the plunge. How do we get around that? It’s about overcoming status quo bias by showing buyers the risks of avoiding change.
How could influencer marketing mature?
For B2B marketers, influencers are an increasingly essential bridge between brand and customer. In an era where brand trust is far from guaranteed, individuals with recognised authority on a subject have powerful sway, whether they’re journalists, industry leaders, YouTubers or consumers. We’ve seen for ourselves how influencers’ expertise and credibility can bring an amazing multiplier effect to a campaign.
- 93% of marketers use influencers in their campaigns (Oberlo, 2022)
But now that influencer marketing is pretty established, how do we take it to the next level? We think of influencers as passionate experts – thought leaders who are happy and willing to spread the gospel for a brand’s excellent product or service. That means they’re right in the thick of content creation, with real input on tone and direction, all the while being authentic to their knowledge and impartiality.
Taking Exasol as a recent example, we’ve used data influencers to contribute to thought leadership reports, and in-account influencers to talk about the product specifically for our ABM campaigns, which they can then spread through their own channels independently.
Leading the way forward in B2B marketing
It’s always exciting to talk about where B2B innovation is headed. At Ignite it was great to see the rapid progress around adoption of the metaverse (we’ve already started hosting meetings and running campaigns there). . But navigating the future effectively is also about building on the tools you’re already using. – That’s why the talks on psychology, influencer marketing business innovation struck such a powerful chord – because it’s what we’re all about.
If you’d like to talk to us about the metaverse, applying persuasion psychology to your campaigns or how to activate influencers effectively, get in touch: info@digitalradish.co.uk