Last updated on August 16th, 2017 at 04:12 pm
In our final Hashtag Team report of 2015, we look forward to the year ahead, examining topics, trends and technologies that will dominate the B2B space in 2016. We’ve sifted and sorted through all the trending B2B tweets to bring you the best of what lies ahead in B2B marketing, focusing only on content that can help you prosper and grow in 2016.
As usual, we use the leading social analysis platform Nexalogy to help us make sense of the dizzying array of content out there. As we close out a banner year at B2B News Network, we wish you all the best in the year to come. May 2016 be a healthy, happy and high ROI year for you and your company!
TRENDING TOPICS
B2B Marketing
Top Email Marketing Platforms for 2016 – https://t.co/0mK3cRUPm7 #sales #b2b
— Miles Austin (@milesaustin) December 27, 2015
A company’s ability—or lack thereof—to effectively market itself has more of an impact on revenue than product or service quality when it comes to net sales, writes Jake Newfield at tech.co. Newfield notes that marketing and sales are making a transition to digital platforms and communications, with email marketing ascending in importance as consumers grow more and more wary of cold callers, and physical ads like billboards and posters lose effectiveness.
Email marketing platforms such as GetResponse, MailChimp, A Weber and Constant Contact stand out in an increasingly crowded field. Expect email marketing to be a powerful tool that can help your B2B business grow in 2016.
B2B Digital Advertising
Top 2016 Predictions for #B2B Digital Advertising by @susanborst https://t.co/0VMagZt0km #OnlineAdvertising — Jose Javier Garde (@jose_garde) December 23, 2015
Susan Borst, director of industry initiatives at IAB, gathered the top 2016 predictions for B2B digital advertising from industry leaders. Borst forecasts “2016 will be the year that B2B marketers ramp up digital advertising efforts based on marketplace advances and greater understanding about areas such as programmatic, mobile and more.”
Some trends to watch:
- Randall Tinfow, CTO at Click-Video, predicts AdTech innovation will lead the industry away from Assault Advertising to Consensual Advertising.
- B2B marketers will embrace the account-based marketing model, effectively building it into their 2016 strategy, says Michael Goldberg, Global Director of Content Marketing at Dun & Bradstreet.
- B2B ad dollars will continue to shift to digital, although the majority of spend will not yet be through programmatic buying, believes eMarketer analyst Jillian Ryan.
- DWA Media president Robert Ray says 2016 will be the year that buying addressable TV through a programmatic platform becomes real and opens up broadcast TV to B2B brands at scale.
B2B Marketing
New Study Suggests Top B2B Marketing Strategies For 2016 via @skyword https://t.co/s1goxBSYo0 #B2B #marketing
— Jeff Sheehan (@jeffsheehan) December 26, 2015
Kyle Harper at Content Standard analyzed a new study from KoMarketing offering insights into the trends, surveys, reports and practices that dominated the B2B market in 2015, giving a clear picture of this year’s B2B marketplace and suggesting the top trends in the year ahead. B2B marketers looking to improve their strategies should develop separate funnels for leads who respond to professionally-oriented and personally-oriented content, set behavioral goals that inform on your primary marketing goals, and diversify content and test new channels or styles every quarter of the upcoming year. The study notes you should use the data from these tests to improve your workflow or better serve the interests of your audience.
“B2B marketing may never look exactly the same as B2C, but remembering that there are always people behind brands can help B2B content marketers make contact in ways they never have before,” writes Harper. “Technology will continue to change, but audience’s interest in meaningful content won’t. Find your brand’s story, and tell it— and of course, collect data with every new chapter you share.”
TOP MEDIA
B2B Infographic
The Top 8 #SEO Trends in 2016 #Infographic https://t.co/jxUKwy8UXi #digitalmarketing #digital #marketing #b2b — IceSugarMedia (@IceSugarMedia) December 16, 2015
What are the top SEO trends to look out for in 2016? Jomer Gregorio at Business 2 Community says digital marketers should brace themselves for major changes in search in the coming year, with eight trends dominating the B2B space. Among these are an increase in rich answers, Google’s move toward delivering search results that utilize user behavior as a significant ranking factor—the double-algorithm approach, greater competition with SERP elements, improved mobile optimization and more.
B2B Podcast
Our prediction for how the #sales industry is going to look in 2016 – https://t.co/qKszShC7hN #podcast #b2b #saas #ai
— Wilson Peng (@wilsonpeng8) December 28, 2015
What will the B2B sales landscape look like in 2016? In this informative podcast, Alex & Wilson from InspireBeats discuss where the sales industry is going in 2016. They examine the latest trends, upcoming apps and how sales and selling will evolve in the coming year. Look for AI’s continuing ascendency, the death of the sales script, more alignment between sales and marketing and, for better or worse, a decline in professionalism as emoticons, gifs and other informalities permeate the professional workspace.
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B2B News Network wishes you and your B2B company all the best for 2016. We’ll see you again next week. Until then, you can catch up on last week’s Hashtag Team report by Sarah Dawley here. As always, if you have any B2B content you think we should share next week, let us know below or via @b2bnewsnetwork.
