Every successful business owner knows how important it is to keep up with trends. If you want your B2B business to stay competitive, you need to keep an eye on new trends constantly.
With new technologies coming out every year and all the challenges the B2B sector is facing, it takes a lot of effort to stay in the game and be profitable. Keeping up with trends is the only way you can make strategic decisions and get your business to where it needs to be.
Let’s take a look at some of the biggest trends in the B2B industry.
IT services
Every business that operates in the 21st century is working in the digital age and as much as 61% of B2B transactions start online. Since you need to work online, you also need to have a way to be safe and secure while doing so, which is exactly why you need help from IT services.
While keeping personal and corporate data is one of the biggest reasons why B2B businesses need IT services, it’s far from being the only one. Other reasons include:
- Saving time and money. You need an IT professional, and while you can hire someone to be on your IT team, it takes a lot of time to find the perfect employee. Also, that employee will require a salary and other employee-related expenses. And if you hire an IT service, you just have to pay a monthly fee.
- Higher client satisfaction. Your clients want to know the data they entrusted to you is in safe hands. If you work with IT professionals, you’ll prove to them that you’re serious about data security. This will build trust, increase client satisfaction, and lead to client loyalty.
- More time to focus on your business. If you have to manage a team of in-house IT experts, it will leave you with much less time to focus on your business and find new ways for growth. But if you outsource all IT responsibilities, you will have more time to focus on what’s important – growth and profitability.
Monitor your competitors
The market is tough and your competitors are always trying to get clients to go to their business instead of yours. This isn’t malicious, it’s just business. But if you want to stay on top of the game, you need to know what your competitors are doing so you can build a competitive edge.
When you monitor your competitors, you won’t only understand why they’re doing well but also how they’re doing it. Here are some of the things you need to know when checking out your competition:
- What’s being said about your competitors. Keep track of the news to see when your competitors are mentioned and in what context. You can conduct Google News searches regularly to see what’s being said and if it’s positive or negative.
- What your competitors are saying. Numerous companies release a number of press releases on their website or in their monthly newsletter. You can also see what they’re writing about on their blog to see how much experience each competitor has and how much they’re growing.
- How engaged and active your competitors are. By following press releases and blog posts, you can see how active your competitors are and how much they engage with their customers. Additionally, follow their social media accounts to see the level of engagement they’re receiving.
To make competitor monitoring easier, you can use a tool like reverse Whois to look up domains that belong to your competitors and see their performance that you can use for market research. This performance includes features such as raking comparisons and customer views.
Social media platforms
When it comes to reaching B2B customers via social media, LinkedIn remains the main tool. Since it’s a business-related social media, B2B businesses can have the biggest chances of finding new clients and making meaningful connections.
But you also need to pay attention to newer platforms such as TikTok. This video platform has gained a lot of traction last year and its popularity is still rising in 2021. If you join the platform now, you can use its video-centric model to create innovative marketing campaigns and even go viral.
Account-based marketing
Account-based marketing is a marketing strategy where both marketing and sales teams work together to find the best possible leads and turn them into paying customers. This trend has really exploded this year and 46% of B2B organizations plan to invest in account-based marketing in 2021.
One of the main goals account-based marketing aims to achieve is prioritizing ROI and showing clear results. This is easy to do with this marketing tactic as you’re dedicating most of your time and resources to leads that have the highest chances of converting.
Additionally, when you use account-based marketing, it will be easier to see how effective your campaign is because you’ll measure a small set of target metrics.
Final thoughts
Finding success in any niche is an uphill battle. Keeping up with trends has always been the best way to build a successful business, but in today’s digital age, trends are changing more rapidly than ever. If you want your company to thrive in 2021, you need to keep a close eye on B2B trends and follow them all the time.
