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2023 is here and the marketing world is all set to undergo its annual overhaul and welcome the trends that will be prominent this year.
So, here we are, forecasting a new set of B2B marketing trends that will rock 2023, especially for manufacturing companies.
Our predictions for the B2B marketing trends for manufacturing companies this year include:
- Higher investment in the latest technologies
- AI and predictive analysis will be in focus
- Revenue operations too will be in focus
- Interactive and advanced CRM platforms
- Marketing efforts focus on the overall customer experience
- Instagram- New ad platform for social media marketing
- A major shift in the CMO position
- Video marketing to remain in trend
- A hybrid business landscape
In this article, we will discuss each trend and see how it might impact B2B manufacturing businesses this year.
9 marketing trends forecast for manufacturing companies
Trend 1: More B2B marketing companies are willing to invest in technologies like AI to evolve better in their business
Experts say that it is not easy to be a part of digital transformation. Many companies fail to achieve their digitization target as they mostly get lost in transition. This is why most companies will now focus on the betterment of their digitalization efforts. Digital marketing is the new world order as more customers are becoming digital natives. Businesses will now focus on strategies that give more importance to digital-first over other marketing strategies.
How can you put digitalization to better use for your business? Let’s find out more:
Better brand personalization
With the competition growing stronger every day, it is important to have a unique brand identity. Personalizing your brand of business will enable you to stand ahead of your competitors and also gain an edge over your customers. Personalizing your brand of business thus is one of the major trends for B2B marketing this year.
Catch the attention of your target audience by reflecting their demands in your brand voice. It will help you in relating to your customers better than before. Having a voice for your brand with the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI) can humanize the way you do business with your customers.
AI is already being used for streamlining various business processes that include digital marketing. Repetitive tasks like reporting of various data and analytics, keyword searching, and others can easily be done with AI. AI can also be used for creating business models for understanding the requirement of the target audience and in predicting their future behavior towards the brand.
In 2023, thus brand personalization with a voice with AI will set the trend for better B2B marketing for all industries, including manufacturing businesses.
Great quality of content
Most B2B businesses miss out on good quality content for their websites and their digital marketing purposes. Most businesses do not create customer-focused content. But it is crucial to create content that is of great quality and that focuses on answering the queries of a potential customer. The content of the website and all other associated marketing materials should be such that is readable, understandable, and helps the audience in finding the solution for their searches. Only then your marketing efforts will add value to your efforts and business. Good quality content will enhance the overall experience of your customer.
Mobile-friendly approach for your business
More customers tend to search and do business on their tabs and smartphones. To tap the potential mobile-friendly customers, all major businesses will want to create a good and effective mobile-friendly digital marketing strategy that can enhance and maximize customer engagement.
You too should focus on creating mobile-friendly content and website that are responsive to tablets and smartphones alike. Smartphones these days are the go-to device for most people even for their daily activities like shopping and socializing video streaming and learning. When you use mobile responsive content and a website for your business, it will help your website to rank higher on the search engine pages and also drive more traffic to you.
Search engine optimization to remain on-trend
Search engine optimization or SEO is an ongoing trend for businesses that have lasted years and will still be in demand. As more people become comfortable with virtual life, you wouldn’t want to miss out on doing business with them. Unless your business ranks on the top of the search engine pages, it will be difficult to make your mark online. No business would want to miss out on gaining better online traffic when that can be done by using good and effective SEO strategies for your business.
Trend 2: The focus will be on AI and the predictive analysis
Implementing AI for predictive analysis is one of the main marketing trends for 2023. It can improve the overall performance and reliability of your business and enhance the safety of your assets. All major B2B businesses are leveraging AI for predictive analysis to save millions of dollars of their capital.
Predictive analysis can spot any errors and anomalies in your business process and operations. It performs advanced pattern recognition that is powered by AI and machine learning. It is imperative to say that early detection of anomalies and errors can prevent equipment failure and process inefficiencies.
Many manufacturing businesses would thus be investing a budget amount for predictive analysis in 2023.
Trend 3: Revenue operations too will be in focus
Empowering revenue operations hold the key towards growth for all B2B businesses in 2023. If you leverage the data-driven insights for the revenue operations, it will only reward you with better opportunities for your business. Use growth initiative strategies for your revenue operations that are centered around the high in-demand products.
Trend 4: Interactive and advanced CRM platforms
To enhance your digital marketing efforts, you must invest in a better and advanced CRM platform for your business. For instance, with the help of an advanced CRM, you can make use of email marketing automation for your business. CRM platforms are great for boosting your customer retention along with generating new revenue for your marketing efforts.
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Trend 5: Marketing efforts to focus on the overall customer experience
Every year is the year for customers – this can truly summarize the motto for all businesses, big or small. Marketing is no longer about convincing the audience to purchase from your company. It is more about providing excellent customer experiences both in reality and virtually so that people can keep coming back to you for more, and bring more traffic with them.
As a business, if you focus on building a positive environment for your customers and employees, if you focus on great service delivery, the marketing for your business is almost always mostly taken care of without any extra effort.
The customers look for a seamless experience as soon as they land on your website as potential customers to your business. It is your opportunity to create an everlasting impression about your brand to these visiting potential customers. You can start by helping them in solving their queries and take it from there. When you have a customer-centric culture, it makes for an excellent customer journey where the focus is on treating the customer like a king.
When you use personalized messaging and find ways to listen to what your customers want, you are providing them with a high-quality delivery experience. It will always give you back more than you expect in terms of your business and revenues.
You will be amazed to know that 73% of consumers say that customer experience falls under a necessary experience, but only 49% of the companies in the US focus on it. So, focusing on customers and what they want would be a trend for this year.
But how do you ensure a great customer experience? Here’s how.
How can you offer a great customer experience?
With convenience and efficiency, with knowledgeable and cordial service, and not to forget a seamless payment option – all these fall into the category of good customer experience. People value these efforts more than the products that they buy. If you ensure these are in place for your business, they can all add up to a great customer experience and lead to brand loyalty for your business.
Trend 6: Instagram- The new ad platform for social media marketing
LinkedIn still holds the top position as the go-to social media platform for B2B business networking and marketing. However, Instagram is growing in popularity amongst the old and the young alike. It seems to be the most popular social media platform around the world. Needless to say that Instagram is also fast becoming the chosen social media ad platform for digital marketers.
TikTok is also a popular app but is not fit for several industries to date. Facebook seems to have lost its popularity with several controversial decisions taken in recent times. Hence Instagram almost has no rivals in the social media marketing context.
However, it is also worth mentioning that while LinkedIn and Instagram take away the focus of the B2B digital marketers in 2023, there is no harm in using other social media platforms like TikTok and Facebook for your marketing efforts.
Trend 7: A major shift in the CMO position
The CMO title holds a lot of responsibilities. But in 2023, as per a Forrester report, some of the CMOs will be sidelined by the ones who relegate to the marketing tactics that involve the branding and promotion of the business. Some of the high-class CMOs with a greater rate of customer experience and high data insights and products chops will be able to capitalize on expanding their remit within the newly designed and strategized marketing mix. As per a prediction by Forrester, CMOs will now move on to become customer experience leaders and would be able to influence the manufacturing circuit with their customer experience that is equivalent to brand experience.
Trend 8: Video marketing to remain in trend
Video marketing is an ongoing trend. It is a great way to capture the attention of your target audiences. As per a recent report by Cisco, around 82% of the online traffic will come from watching videos in 2023. More users will likely invest in a product after watching the video of the same. It proves how important video marketing efforts are going to be for 2023.
Trend 9: The hybrid business model landscape is the future
Businesses will now see a steady growth towards creating a hybrid business landscape. You can expect to see several new hybrid marketing strategies coming into trends. More people will be comfortable in embracing virtual events and shows. To tap the potential of such a virtual audience, more B2B businesses will embrace hybrid marketing strategies that will focus on digital as well as offline marketing.
For instance, several companies will prioritize their investments in social responsibility as that can impact the offline marketing tactics for their target audience. Social responsibilities along with other value additions like ethics and transparent business propositions matter to the target audience.
Potential consumers now tend to support brands that show their care and concerns for their customers and employees alike. So social responsibility and associated causes will hold the trend in 2023 for the B2B manufacturing industries.
Utilize the forecasts to grow your manufacturing business in 2023
When it is time to prioritize your marketing tactics based on the latest trends, it is important not to overlook the basics of the marketing strategies. This is where you need to look ahead to what you can expect in 2023 for creating your annual marketing strategies for your business. You already know what worked for your business previously. Now you know what your target audience is looking for. With the latest marketing trends, now you can know how to make your business stand apart from your competitors.
