In this blog post, we will go through the challenges and opportunities that we at Contitude believe B2B companies will face in 2022. We'll also go through the advice and tips that we think will be most valuable for digital marketing success in 2022.
But let's start with a look back to 2021
Digital marketing for B2B companies
Since the discovery of the Covid-19 virus in early 2020, all companies, whether B2B or B2C, have been given a serious wake-up call when it comes to how businesses should be conducted in everything from sales, marketing, deliveries, etc. However, I would venture to say that the biggest change has been for B2B companies where many have had to make a complete shift from working exclusively with physical customer interactions to finding new solutions. This shift had already partly started in most B2C businesses with e.g. home delivery of food and a large share of e-commerce. But for B2B companies, this shift had not started in the same way before Corona and all the restrictions that followed.
Now, after almost 2 years of on-and-off restrictions, working from home and social distance, the digital meeting and working method is as natural as the physical customer meeting was. This has put a different pressure on digital marketers and marketers in general to pick up new skills and find new ways to market themselves and their business.
Data driven digital marketing
Becoming more data-driven is something that has been talked about and praised for many years now but the truth is that few have taken the leap or even begun to take the leap to become more data-driven. This is primarily true for digital marketing in B2B companies. In 2022, there are still plenty of opportunities to move up the ranks compared to industry peers when it comes to becoming data-driven. It also doesn't have to be a year-long project and run away in investment. For most B2B SMEs, just setting up basic tracking in the form of Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google Tag Manager and possibly Google Optimize is enough to make big strides towards becoming more data-driven. The information that can be gleaned from these tools, which are also free of charge, goes a long way in determining which activities are producing results and which are not.
In addition, there are several slightly more helpful tools that help aggregate data from different types of digital marketing sources that may be worth exploring further in 2022 to make better digital marketing decisions. Here's a small selection of these tools, Informind (which is focused on B2B companies and assumes to calculate lead-acquisition-cost LAC ), Funnel (which is good at connecting lots of tools and platforms to gather all the data in one place), Oribi (which is focused more on conversion optimization and analytics).
So the advice is to take 2022 and the tools become more data driven, whether it's set tracking or learning a bit more around analytics of the data you collect doesn't matter the important thing is to take the plunge and dare to see the data for what it is.
Increased competition in digital marketing as more B2B businesses go digital
One of the biggest challenges facing digital marketers is the increased competition as more B2B companies go digital. The shift that has occurred as a result of the pandemic of more digitized businesses and more people finding digital marketing as a way to acquire more leads and customers is creating more competition. SEO will never have been as difficult to succeed with as it will be in 2022 and I believe this trend will continue. A few years ago, writing a small short SEO tailored blog post a month might have been enough to pick up rankings on several sought after keywords but that has already started to shift as more people are producing good and SEO tailored content. Preferably, if you want to get into SEO in 2022, think a little creatively when it comes to which keywords to focus on and find those with a little more competition to start with and really give it a serious go.
The same concept as with SEO will apply to all digital marketing channels and activities. SEM, Social Media, Influencer Marketing, etc will see increased competition and only those with long term vision and a well executed plan will succeed.
Long-termism and a structured plan based on data is a winning concept
Our advice for 2022 is to see digital marketing as a long-term and continuous effort that should be optimised on an ongoing basis. It will be difficult to achieve quick results in 2022 and you should take that with you throughout the year. Otherwise, there's a good chance you'll give up in the first quarter. If you have set up proper tracking and try to be data-driven, you will get value out of the activities undertaken even if they don't produce the great results you hope for right away. Any activities you implement, track and follow up on will help you make better digital marketing decisions going forward. That's why it can even be beneficial to carry out several different activities in different digital marketing channels on a small scale to start with, to gather data that will allow you to focus where you have the best results and quickly rule out activities that don't deliver.
Summary
2022 is a year where you can outrun your industry peers when it comes to digital marketing. However, it won't be easy and will require patience, perseverance and control. If you haven't already taken steps towards becoming more data-driven, the time is certainly right to take that step. Lay out a plan and execute the plan with ongoing evaluation using data and you'll be standing victorious when 2022 rolls around.
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