Top 5 B2B marketing trends for businesses in 2024 - a year of rapid AI transformation
The last year was marked by fast-paced change, with rapid technological advancement amid economic uncertainty, and brands and businesses stayed agile and devised new strategies to stay top of mind. Despite tighter budgets and fewer resources, B2B CMOs leaned into the challenge and made big strides.?
2023 proved to be a turning point in B2B marketing as CMOs honed their financial fluency to demonstrate the impact of marketing on the bottom line. By strengthening their ability to speak the language of business, they developed close alignment with C-suite leaders, especially the CFO, which helped them showcase the need to prioritise brand building to enable long-term growth, secure more budget, and leverage creativity to drive competitive advantage.?
And this is the strong foundation upon which marketers will build from next year. It will be the year marketers strengthen their commitment to a marketing approach that strategically balances the art and science of marketing, and one where they continue to evolve the measurement framework to maximise impact.?
In the age of AI transformation, CMOs are optimistic about how the technology will power their strategy and enable their teams. Marketing in 2024 will be underpinned by the potential of AI, and how it promises to free up time to allow professionals to focus on work that matters - investing in creativity and nurturing customer relationships to unlock new opportunities.
As technological changes accelerate, brands are feeling a strong need to connect with their audiences authentically, and we will witness marketers doubling down on ways to humanise their brands to build brand equity and trust.
Top 5 B2B marketing trends for 2024:?
?1. CMOs will prioritise improving the measurement framework
?With continued economic uncertainty and budgets under increased scrutiny, the biggest priority top of mind for CMOs in 2024 is to continue demonstrating marketing’s impact on the bottom line. Over the last year, the CMO role has evolved to have a more direct role in driving revenue and growth, and marketers are focused on proving the impact of their work on sales metrics - like revenue won and return on ad spend - to help strengthen budgets and improve stakeholder understanding about the value of brand building. And while these outcomes are far more difficult to measure, they are the real drivers of B2B growth. Experimenting with new measurement tools such as LinkedIn’s Revenue Attribution Report and CMO Scorecard can help marketers build the financial fluency that’s needed to showcase brand marketing’s direct impact on revenue.
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2. Savvy marketers will balance brand and demand to drive growth
?Adapting to a rapidly changing landscape while doing more with fewer resources may now be the norm for B2B marketers. According to LinkedIn’s research, 76% of B2B CMOs globally have felt the pressure to prove short-term ROI, which has pushed them to overly focus on performance campaigns. But lead gen only captures the impact driven from the 5% of buyers who are in-market. According to the 95-5 Rule, 95% of buyers – the source of future cash flows – are out-of-market today. These buyers are best primed by brand advertising, which drives outcomes over longer time horizons. Savvy marketers will push to balance brand and demand marketing, cleverly leveraging the art and science of marketing, to drive memorability, preference, and growth in the long-term. They should follow the 60/40 Rule that states that brands should spend roughly 60% of their budget on brand and 40% on demand.?
?3. Marketers that move fast and start small with AI will get ahead
Customers around the world are excited by the potential of generative AI, as 8 in 10?
B2B marketing leaders globally plan to increase their use of technology in the next year, according to LinkedIn research. But many feel stuck about where to start, and what investments to make. Marketers who start small and simplify the process by focusing on the use of AI in 2024 instead of 2034, will succeed. They should experiment within the tools their teams already love - and how they can integrate AI within these existing tools. Familiarity will make the transition easier, and this approach can also help maximise tech investments.
4. People skills will create a resilient and agile marketing team of tomorrow?
In the age of AI, marketing leaders will foster a culture of learning - not just to boost AI literacy, but to build innately human skills like leadership, problem-solving, and creativity that will create resilient and agile marketing teams of tomorrow. Generative AI will give marketers more time to focus on the most valuable - human - parts of their jobs, and open more time to exercise skills such as innovative thinking.??
5. Authentic, human-to-human brands will earn trust
?In 2024, B2B companies will double down on humanising their brands to drive growth. In the age of AI, marketers are recognising the importance of investing in new ways to connect with their audiences authentically, and they’re doing this by leveraging creativity, emotion, video, and humour in their campaigns. They’re also putting people - executives and employees - at the heart of their thought leadership strategies by leveraging a credible voice to build brand equity. Many B2B companies are finding great success with one of LinkedIn’s fastest growing ad formats, Thought Leader Ads, that allows brands to sponsor posts from their executives and employees to drive engagement and reach.
?The coming year will be marked by rapid AI transformation, and marketers who balance the art and science of marketing, move fast and start small with AI, invest in developing people skills, and strategically partner with the C-suite will find success.
Proven Marketing Leader | Product Marketing Director | GTM Strategy | 3x IPO | Data & AI | Cybersecurity
1 年I think your last point is spot on. In my B2B interactions, humor is a game changer. One of my key partners effectively uses humor and funny current events in their LinkedIn posts. It really drives up their engagement %s.
Sales and Marketing Manager at LOF Office Furniture
1 年Interesting points. I think there's going to still be a heavy focus on training and educating for B2B marketers, the past couple of years has been largely focused on transitioning to GA4 and now looking into how AI can support your marketing team. If you haven't already started learning about AI, you already have a lot of catching up to do!
MD at Eskimoz ???? | Global reach. Local expertise
1 年Thanks for sharing Tom, the Revenue Attribution Report looks interesting. I still think CMOs will need CRM based attribution, not only to show value but almost more importantly, improved optimisation across channels!
Master’s in Marketing with a Focus on: Social Media Marketing & Content Strategy.
1 年Today I downloaded an app that asked me to create an A.I. image of myself and profile of me that would communicate with my clients in my "Tone" and with my avatar. Five minutes later I deleted it and realized that I still want to connect with human beings.. every one of those clients to me matter and I think that would work best on a much bigger scale perhaps. Don't get me wrong, I love A.I. It helps me be super creative and create amazing content everyday! but it will take time for me to adjust to changes this big.
VP of Marketing @Platforce| Building cheap demand engines| Fractional Marketing Services
1 年Love these insights into B2B marketing trends for 2024! Excited to see how brands adapt and thrive in this fast-paced AI transformation. ??