Kathy Floam-Greenspan is the President of Pomerantz Marketing, a full-service B2B agency supporting regional, national and global SMBs.
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Another new year has begun, which means it’s time to make some promises and institute some changes. But not the kind of resolutions that we vow to keep on New Year’s Eve and then abandon days later. We need some substantive, tangible resolutions to help us thrive personally and professionally in 2022.
This is especially true when it comes to our marketing efforts. B2B marketing must continually evolve to capture mind share, generate leads and convert sales in an increasingly loud and crowded online ecosystem.
We can’t just keep doing the same things expecting ever more effective results to follow. But where should we begin? With limited marketing budgets and endless roads to follow, what are the marketing tactics we can’t ignore in the year ahead?
To help answer these questions and guide marketing efforts in the new year, here are my five must-keep marketing New Year’s resolutions for 2022.
1. Create authentic content.
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The internet is a crowded place where millions of people, platforms and brands are all vying for attention. Breaking through the noise requires authenticity. For instance, according to one survey, 90% of consumers identify authenticity as an important factor when identifying brands they like or support. Standing out and attracting attention requires authentic content that inspires action and engagement.
However, many marketers suffer from significant cognitive dissonance when creating authentic content. While 92% of markets believe their content resonates as authentic, 51% of consumers feel that less than half of brands actually create authentic content.
In an environment where everything that can be said has been said already, authentic content means harnessing your unique voice, perspective, experience and expertise to create resources that target and resonate with the buyer personas you want to reach.
2. Strive for brand salience.
A highly effective B2B marketing campaign doesn’t create demand; it creates brand salience that drives sales and conversions when the time is right.
Marketing content in 2022 needs to be intensely customer-focused, speaking to your buyer persona while providing interesting, insightful and usable content that’s memorable and worth their time investment.
For many companies, this means creating marketing content that is much less self-focused. Rather than creating marketing materials that resonate internally, take time to better understand your target buyer persona and ensure that all your efforts deliver brand salience.
Brand salience is difficult to measure by clicks and short-term leads, but the long-term payout is worth the wait.
3. Demonstrate expertise with case studies.
Case studies demonstrate expertise, product efficacy and service specialty. They show how you helped past customers and suggest expected outcomes for future prospects. What’s more, they are increasingly crucial to B2B buyers.
One report found that more than half view case studies as “very important” when evaluating vendors. In response, 42% of B2B marketers plan to create more case studies in 2022, making this marketing product more prominent than interviews, e-books and images.
Whether publishing case studies on a company blog, distributing through an email list or presenting on social media, companies can’t miss this critical marketing trend in the year ahead.
4. Prioritize for sustainability.
Too often, companies embark on B2B marketing campaigns expecting immediate, brand-altering results. Just as often, they are disappointed. They burn through their marketing budgets and their patience when results don’t align with their expectations.
The key to an effective B2B marketing campaign is sustainability. According to one report, 60% of always-on, sustained marketing programs are successful.
In 2022, companies need to balance short-term marketing results with long-term outcomes, refraining from jumping from strategy to strategy, looking for a quick win and wasting resources along the way.
Commit to regularly assessing the performance of ongoing marketing initiatives while prioritizing continuity and sustainability in the process.
5. Remain agile and responsive.
The past year was disruptive, disorienting and transformative, requiring many brands to pivot their efforts in real time. While B2B marketing thrives when it’s persistent and sustainable, companies also need to keep an eye on shifting trends and emerging realities.
The Covid-19 pandemic revealed and underscored the centrality of agile marketing. Describing this dichotomy, a Harvard Business Review article reads: “As the crisis has unfolded, a company could quickly find its message was wrong or its supply chain not in a position to deliver, immediately creating an advertising and/or public relations crisis. Imagine a commercial showing people clustered together not demonstrating social distancing, for example.”
Nobody knows for sure what the next year will contain. However, we can be pretty sure that it will require our marketing campaigns to adapt and respond in some way.
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Author: Kathy Floam-Greenspan, Forbes Councils Member
