As 2014 comes to a close, personalized and relevant content played a pivotal role in Demand Gen Report’s top 15 articles of the year. The importance of identifying what content prospective buyers prefer to consume throughout the buying process shined through various other talking points — including retargeting strategies, social selling and buyer personas.
Here are Demand Gen Report’s top 15 articles from 2015:
1. B2B Marketers Look To Personalize Web Content
B2B marketers are increasingly turning to web site personalization to provide content that is specifically geared towards individual buyers, largely segmented by industry, department, function or role. Some are even taking it to the next level and presenting company-specific content to visitors.
2. B2B Companies Ramp Up Retargeting Strategies
The practice of ad retargeting has been a page in B2C marketers’ playbooks for quite a while. Today, however, B2B marketers are embracing retargeting even more warmly, and for good reason: It is a cost-effective way to keep your brand in front of B2B decision makers during what is typically a long buying cycle.
3. IBM Acquires Silverpop
The IBM-Silverpop acquisition was the most trafficked article of the year, and for a good reason. Growth in the marketing automation space has been rapid, with companies like Oracle and Salesforce making acquisitions to get a piece of the pie. Experts expect more acquisitions in the coming year, as Oracle, Salesforce and other look to fill out their marketing clouds.
4. The B2B Content Preferences Survey
B2B buyers are placing a greater emphasis on visual content throughout the purchasing lifecycle, and are accessing content much more frequently from smartphones and tablets, according to the 2014 B2B Content Preferences Survey. The report highlights these trends, and how they have led to an even higher buyer reliance on content than ever before to assist in research and purchasing decisions.
5. Email Marketing Needs Relevant Content, Timing And Frequency
Message timing and control are crucial factors that marketers are beginning to take into account for effective email marketing. The purpose is to engage buyers at times when they are most comfortable receiving a message, making the collection of buyer data even more vital to the process.
6. Social Selling Tools Play A Bigger In B2B Sales
Once a trend leveraged primarily by B2C organizations, social selling has grown into a tactic that is helping B2B marketers and sales people with their lead prospecting, nurturing and qualification efforts. Now, B2B marketers are learning to leverage social media throughout their marketing campaigns — even when they are closing deals.
7. New Content Frameworks Highlight SiriusDecisions Summit
The SiriusDecisions Summit, held in Orlando, Fla., held a number of sessions covering activities such as measurement, messaging, competitive analysis, teleprospecting and many others. Matthew McKenzie, Chief Content Officer of Content4Demand, covered highlights from the event, focusing on a topic that turned out to be particularly rewarding: content marketing, messaging and management strategies.
8. B2B Buyer Personas Grow More Complex
Today’s B2B marketers extend beyond attributes such as job title, industry and company size when building buyer persona. While complex, these personas are designed to discover how, when and why buyers come to their decisions. Grouping buyers based on beliefs, priorities, goals, preferred channels and previous purchases allows marketers to gain a more accurate read on how they can help solve a certain problem.
9. B2B Marketers Tap Into Advocates To Fuel Sales Pipeline
Prospective buyers consider the recommendations of a past customer to those of a salesperson, and B2B marketers are fulfilling this need through advocate marketing.These advocates can perform a number of tasks, including participating in case studies, acting as a reference for potential buyers and posting on social media.
10. Millennial Buyers Engage With Bite-Sized, Social Content
Roughly one fifth (21%) of the participants in this year’s Content Preferences Survey are part of the Millennial generation, and that number will continue to grow. The Millennial generation is gradually growing into the B2B buyer role, and marketers need to understand what motivates and entices buyers in this age bracket compared to their more seasoned brethren.
11. Marketing And SalesAlignment Requires Quality Content
The sales and marketing relationship once focused on the quality of the leads being generated by marketing. Now, attention is shifting to the quality and availability of content. Quality content helps both sides communicate and work with one another, ultimately creating common goals.
12. As Big Data Evolves, B2B Marketers Focus On Data Management
Although Big Data has been a part of the lead generation and nurturing process for quite some time, many B2B marketers are still developing strategies for managing and leveraging the influx of information they are collecting on prospects.
13. Two Eloqua Co-Founders Launch New Social Selling Platform
Eloqua co-founders Steve Woods and Paul Teshima announced via Twitter that they have left the marketing automation provider in order to start Nudge Software, a social selling platform designed to enhance social engagement with prospects. The announcement made waves in the B2B landscape, building off of an industry where personalized engagement generates greater success.
14. The 2014 KCA Awards Highlight Visual, Multi-Touch Content
What are the key attributes of content that rises above the rest? Of the 25 organizations that were recognized with Killer Content Awards this year, the trend toward highly visual content was evident. Content that speaks to buyers’ needs and reaches them on social media and other platforms that are relevant to them also were key features of successful content marketing campaigns.
15. Content Is No Longer King For B2B Buyers
Carlos Hidalgo, CEO and Principal at ANNUITAS, highlighted in a contributed byline article that while B2B marketers serve the king that is known as content, the question that needs to be asked is: Does our audience, the B2B buyer, have the same king? The short answer is no. The reality is the king has been dethroned and content no longer rules the B2B universe. In looking at things from the B2B buyer’s perspective, the new ruler is indeed relevance.
