There’s an age-old debate about whether to be a sheep or a shepherd, a follower or a leader. In business, you should be both. Industry trends and expert recommendations act as an anchor for business stability and growth while pointing businesses towards success. A trend that was relevant last month might already be old news, and that’s why it’s essential to consider the ever-changing B2B trends and how they influence the market.
Below, we will explore some of the current B2B incentives and trends industry experts are going crazy for.
B2B loyalty programmes
We should consider B2B customer loyalty programmes the holy grail of customer retention. There are reams of statistics that back up the importance of a B2B incentive program. For one, customers taking part in high-performing business to business loyalty programs are 80% more likely to pick that brand over a competitor and are twice as likely to recommend the brand to others. Furthermore, customers enrolled in a B2B loyalty programme or B2B rewards programme are 62% more likely to spend money and 59% more likely to ignore competitors.
Why? Because loyalty programmes generate loyal customers. A loyalty program for B2B customers can lead to a 30% rise in company profit for every 10% of customers retained. Still, these figures won’t be replicated for your brand if you cannot offer a high-performing loyalty programme, meaning one with improved rewards. The more you offer, the more you get.
B2B marketing trends
A major B2B marketing trend is digital marketing. In terms of marketing, B2B hadn’t quite reached the digital sphere that B2C had. B2B brands utilised field marketing, in-person events, and outside sales. There’s been a shift towards digital marketing, with 76% of B2B marketers saying their focus is on digitising their marketing efforts in 2021.
Social media is a great focal point, with 75% of B2B marketers using social media as part of their marketing strategy. Many see social media as a B2C marketing technique, but using each platform in the right way with captivating content works well for B2B brands. Creating consistent and engaging social media content can generate leads, and 66% of marketers who spend a minimum of 6 hours a week on social media get more leads. It’s one of the simplest forms of digital marketing.
B2B sales trends
CRMs are nothing new to B2B. CRMs have been used to create a central space for customer data for years. It’s the advancement towards cloud-based CRMs that are proving beneficial. Technically a glorified organiser, a cloud-based CRM allows you to manage the information coming from sales, emails, website traffic, social media, and marketing, giving everyone one place to access the information.
The benefits? B2B brands can harness the information to create a complete picture of customer behaviour to create a hyper-personalised targeted sales approach. Interestingly, 79% of organisations that surpassed their revenue goals used a hyper-personalised sales strategy.
Those are just a few of the tried and tested trends that industry experts recommend for 2021. As B2B rapidly develops, new trends are paving the way for innovative solutions to once troublesome problems. A quick Google search of B2B industry trends will reveal many other ideas that might interest you.