B2B marketing is an especially competitive segment of marketing. Failure to adequately understand developing trends and how they can affect your potential industry can make the difference between inevitable success and failure. Unfortunately, all too many B2B marketers fail to anticipate the changes that are ongoing in their own niches, making it all too easy for savvy marketers to gain ground. The need to understand underlying data-points remains as valid as ever – perhaps even more valid – due to the effects that technology and a fast-paced world are now having on the overall ability for marketers to engage with new and existing clients. Today, we’ll discuss some important stats to keep in mind about the nature of today’s B2B marketing.

What Marketers Consider Important

In order to know where the nature of B2B marketing is headed, it’s often a good idea to survey those involved with it. This allows us to get a bigger picture of what is currently being implemented and experimented with in the industry.

The most important priority in B2B product marketing appears to be the creation of marketing collateral, which 4 out of 5 surveyed ranked as highly important. Seventy percent stated that sales enablement, position definition and the creation of marketing plans were also important. Roughly 85 percent of all B2B marketing firms invest in product marketing for themselves; it is certainly a bit shocking to find out that more than 10 percent of all B2B marketing firms are not pinging servers with marketing for their own efforts!

How Marketers Measure Success

What do B2B marketers use in terms of metrics in order to determine overall success? The answers are nuanced, but there is a clear front-runner. The number one measurement for marketing success by B2B marketers who were surveyed is customer and client acquisition. Coming in second place was overall revenue generation, which many might think would be the number one metric in this category. Oddly enough, it wasn’t even close – roughly 90 percent ranked acquisition as an important metric, while only 70 percent ranked revenue as an important metric.

Which Marketing Mediums Are Valuable

Practically any marketer will tell you that multiple mediums and valuable and necessary for successful marketing, and this includes B2B marketers. Among those surveyed, the website narrowly took the first place slot in terms of the most important medium, while email came in as a close second. Following closely behind these were webinars / interviews and social media. Another interesting component in the world of surveyed B2B marketers is that SEO ranked last of all of the mediums polled, with only about 65 percent of respondents pinging servers with this answer. To some, however, this may not be surprising, as many individual marketing efforts are short-term affairs that cannot rely upon the gradual and slow growth of SEO.

Conclusion

As the nature of marketing continues to change for everyone, it will be incumbent on B2B marketers in particular to stay abreast of current trends. With particular focus on marketing medium shifts, the metrics of success and individual considerations of importance, any marketer or firm can maintain a solid foothold of dominance in the future.