You’ve most likely heard the saying “here today, gone tomorrow.” Nothing stays the same for long in the world of digital marketing and it can feel overwhelming trying to keep up. It’s a good thing you are here. We’re going to break down some of the digital B2B trends we’re seeing for the remainder of 2023 and into 2024.
Overall, digital spending in the B2B industry is slowing down after a boom during the pandemic. And it’s expected to take some time before we see pre-pandemic growth rates. eMarketer predicts that the 2023-2025 growth rates for certain industries, such as tech, finance, healthcare and telecom, will average 13 percentage points lower than 2017-2019.
However, this isn’t stopping channels such as mobile, social, and display from growing. This shift in digital media mix is being driven by a younger audience who spends their time differently and expect a B2C experience from their B2B brands.
YOUNGER AUDIENCES SPEND THEIR TIME DIFFERENTLY
As the audience for the B2B industry gets younger, we’re seeing the impacts of this on how we plan media. This younger cohort is digital-first and on the go, communicating and checking emails and social activity on their mobile devices. They’re best served by media that delivers to them on the devices they operate business from.
This is something we strategize for in the agricultural space as we see farms being passed down to younger generations. In the past few years, we’ve shifted our thinking around media mix. Where we were once heavily reliant on traditional, offline mediums, we’re becoming less so to meet the media consumption habits of our younger audience. We’re often asking ourselves how we can meet in the middle—speak to the new generation of farmers, while still reaching the older.
The first step in answering this question is to truly understand where your audience spends time consuming media. This is ever-evolving, always changing, and we’re dedicated to keeping up with it.
What we’ve seen so far in 2023, and forecast to continue into 2024, is that this younger audience is more technologically savvy and, just like their predecessors, they’re very mobile. As a result, we’re seeing gains in social, mobile, and display channels; all areas that can easily be accessed while on the move, in-the-cab, or walking the fields. Let’s look at each of these channels in a bit more detail.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media platforms are a top destination for B2B buyers. Two platforms that are crucial to include in B2B strategy looking ahead are Meta and LinkedIn. eMarketer estimates that these powerhouse platforms will capture a combined 37%+ of all US B2B ad spend in 2023.
Believe it or not, Facebook debuted back in 2006 and changed the way companies reach target audiences through organic and paid outreach. Chances are you already have a solid strategy with Meta, which owns and operates Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp. It remains important to continue leveraging Facebook and Instagram to connect with the large audiences that Meta boasts.
If you aren’t already spending ad dollars on LinkedIn, be sure to consider adding it to your media mix. This space has tremendous reach and room for growth as we see other text-based apps such as Meta’s Threads and X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) struggle to maintain their audiences. And LinkedIn users are getting younger. While both millennials and Gen Z are increasingly scrolling on LinkedIn, the largest growth is with Gen Z, with 20% year-over-year user growth. With this growth opportunity, LinkedIn has rolled out several new features and ad placements to help meet the demands of its audience. Be on the lookout for:
Brand Partnership tags that are geared at helping to label sponsored posts on the platform to connect brands together. This is similar to tags on Instagram or other platforms.
Newsletter updates will improve the user interface and assist with discoverability to help creators grow audiences.
The new Copy Suggestion Tool which leans into AI to leverage data from LinkedIn pages and Campaign Manager settings (objective, targeting criteria, audience) will help to suggest copy headlines that are geared to jumpstart your campaign.
Document Ads allow advertisers to serve documents in-feed publicly as an awareness builder or privately, secured with a lead gen form, to capture those interested in your content.
Thought Leader Ads allow brands to sponsor posts from their thought leaders as a way to authentically communicate and bring additional credibility to the brand.
Knowing that the B2B audience is younger, it feels remiss not to mention TikTok. This is an underused platform for B2B with only 10% of B2B marketers actively creating content specifically for the platform. However, it is estimated that more than 100 million people use the platform monthly in the US. B2B marketers should start to consider how they can play in the space as it can be an effective top-of-funnel tactic and enhance influencer partnerships.
As we move into Q4 ’23 and beyond, ensuring you have a sound social strategy including organic and paid will be imperative to reaching the younger B2B audience.
MOBILE
It’s no surprise we are seeing growth in the mobile space. After all, Americans on average spend 4 hours and 25 minutes on their mobile device each day. eMarketer forecasted that approximately 50% of all US B2B ad spending will go to mobile advertising in 2023. We expect this percentage to only increase into 2024 and beyond.
Where previously our recommendations have been device agnostic in our digital buys, we are rethinking this approach and looking at what makes sense for a strategy geared toward mobile devices. This will help capitalize on the future increases in mobile usage.
DISPLAY
Similar to mobile, we’re also seeing an increase in the success of display advertising. The growth is partly being driven by video. The eye-catching visuals and storytelling draw in younger audiences. According to eMarketer, B2B video accelerated this year, representing more than a quarter of all US B2B ad spend with YouTube accounting for 15% of B2B ad spending in 2023. The effectiveness and engagement potential that video lends are driving its growth. We expect video will continue to drive display spending up and potentially represent a larger percentage of digital B2B media mix than search.
B2B EXPECT A B2C EXPERIENCE
All of these trends are also reminiscent of what we’re seeing in the B2C space and it isn’t a coincidence. It indicates audiences are expecting a more consumer-like experience, which includes more personalization, more digital components and experiences that can feel more self-serve.
The B2B space can often lose sight of the need for personalized communication. Though we’re business-to-business, people are at the heart of all transactions. Creative needs to resonate with buyers as people first. Even if you don’t have an in-house creative team that can curate personalized advertising for your audience, we’re seeing the rise of Generative AI helping B2B deliver this B2C touch. Platforms such as Chat GPT or Bard are impacting content creation, making ads more personalized and engaging for the consumer. We do caution the use of AI in content creation as it may not deliver the personalization that you are looking for.
BRAND AWARENESS IS STILL IMPORTANT
While keeping our thumb on the pulse of the newest digital trends is important for brand growth, it’s also important to keep brand awareness in mind.
The trending channels of social, mobile, and display are often seen as lower funnel drivers, but they can also be used in brand awareness which is still crucial in the B2B space. By focusing solely on performance metrics, B2B brands run the risk of losing awareness among this critical audience. A drop in awareness can turn into irrelevance for a brand.
A media strategy that considers all aspects of the marketing funnel will drive success in the digital age.
For us, in the agricultural space, we can’t forget that we’re often still talking to two generations of farmers. While the older generation may be taking a step back, they’re still coaching and guiding the next generation. It’s important, in these cases, that we not lose sight of the traditional tactics that can drive brand awareness. They may reach an older generation, but the impact is lasting and provides a strong foundation for brand relevance.
WHERE TO GO FROM HERE
There’s so much to keep track of in today’s ever-evolving world of marketing. Knowing what strategies you should consider and how to put them into play can feel overwhelming. Looking ahead we recommend keeping your eye on the strength of social, mobile, and display as we look to reach a younger audience.
In addition to the varied digital mix we recommend, it’s important to remember that there are learnings B2B can take from B2C with regard to personalized, self-service-oriented messaging for those operating on the go. You can read more about that in a previous post that offers use cases and tips of applying B2C tactics into ag and B2B marketing. Above all else, the marketing funnel should be driving all media decisions. As audiences get younger it’s just as important to maintain brand awareness as it is to drive performance.
You may not get it completely right immediately. It’s important to be flexible and open to testing new channels and strategies to find the right mix for your brand.
For more information on other learnings from the consumer space, check out our blog post for navigating the digital landscape and applying consumer strategies to your B2B mindset.
And if you need help with your digital marketing, we’re here to help. Drop us a note to get the conversation started.