Show Notes
This one is for all you B2B folks.
Because we like you to be in the know, we’re sharing what’s trending in 2020.
Facts: Bears eat beets. More than 70% of millennials are included in B2B buying decisions.
Why should you care? The B2B game is changing (clearly) and you’re gonna want to be ahead of the curve. Here are some tips.
- Engage Your Prospects With Personalized Communications: Think that templated email is gonna close a sale? Think again. You need to tailor your message to the individual you’re selling to. Tip: Check out their LinkedIn profile or Facebook page. Maybe you have something in common. Roll with it.
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- Reenergize Your Email Marketing: Email isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it still remains the preferred channel of communication among decision-makers. With 2020 upon us, it’s time to take a closer look at your email marketing. Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor, and Klayvio are great places to start. On a budget? Check out MailerLite.
- Invest in your B2B Social Media Strategy: Don’t post on social media just to post on social media. Determine WHAT you’re using social for and build out your strategy accordingly. What’s your objective? Who is your audience? What platform is the right platform?
- Refine your Content Marketing Efforts: ‘70% of B2B buyers research their potential purchases by watching videos, and 45% of marketers plan to add YouTube to their marketing repertoire by next year.’ Takeaway: Ramp up your video efforts (like now).
- Use Chatbots: Whether you’re trying to book new demos or resolve customer issues, Chatbots can help. We recommend setting up custom chatbots as soon as you can.
What do you think about this episode? We’d love to hear from you! Share us your suggestions, comments or questions. And we’d love to include that on our next show.
Connect with us:
Hope y'all enjoyed this episode! We'll see you guys next week for another episode of The Marketing Natives!
Transcript
Aaron [00:00:00] Hey, guys. On today's episode, we're going to talk about B2B trends in 2020. If you own a business and you're trying to talk to other people who own a business, we have a great tactics that you can use. Implement today to help your business grow in 2020. That's what it's all about. We're about growth.
Aaron [00:00:16] And these are some tech. The goal and actionable tips that you can use today. Take a listen.
[00:00:23] This is the marketing natives providing ways to grow food and succeed in your business.
[00:00:31] And now your host, Christian.
Christian [00:00:37] All right. So number one, and probably most one of the most important in here is engage your prospects with personalized communications.
Christian [00:00:48] I think like.
Christian [00:00:49] I mean, you see every day now, not every day, but more and more where businesses are doing.
Christian [00:00:56] They're actually talking specifically to you.
Christian [00:01:00] AARON PEARSON, MARATHON RUNNER, BALL LAW and that's all we're talking about here, is making sure that you're not using necessarily like a template email or something. Not all they can to attract prospects that you're using a more personalized way and actually researching them, too.
Aaron [00:01:22] Right. And we also have to think about. There are a group of demographics that people are like. They're also the people who fall into that conspiracy. You know, we've talked about them where they think that people are listening to them and then they're like, oh, my gosh, how did they hear this and or see this ad? And it may be the fact that they actually Google on a Web site and that they're not listening to them. Who knows? But that personalized approach. Some people love it and some people are a little afraid. I feel like it's a minority that are afraid. But, you know, I guess me personally, it's like, hey, if you know that I was looking at these shoes or you know that I do or if I, you know, do these types of activity activities and you're giving me an offer, you're talking to me like, this is good for me.
Aaron [00:02:03] I think the only time that I'm upset is whenever you 're giving me these things like, hey, do you want to go horseback riding, which nothing gets horseback riding, but that's irrelevant to me. I wasn't necessarily interested in that. So that personalized communication. I guess it's better for everybody because if you're going to see a bunch of ads, he'd rather it be about stuff that you care about.
Christian [00:02:20] Yeah. Now, when it comes back to B2B business to business, you know, checking out their LinkedIn profile or even their Facebook page. Just finding out something that makes them tick or something that maybe you have in common with it with that person. For example, I know Aaron and actually Danielle and I actually we both well went to kill you. And it's surprising the amount of people who, you know, we talk to that it's almost every week Daniel comes in the offer.
Christian [00:02:53] We go to the office and they're like, hey, so-and-so, that lady that has this business bla bla bla. Well, guess what? What, she wants to kill you, which you've got to know is your cancer is kind of all in there. I just wonder for your shadow.
Aaron [00:03:10] No, no.
Aaron [00:03:12] That's a good point, because there is like a client of ours that we're like, oh, her assistant went to you. And then a lady that I met with yesterday, she didn't go to K you, but her parents did. And then now her kids do. So it's like you get to your point. It's like those little does little ends. You just need something that common ground to talk about with somebody that, you know, you're like, oh, my guards down there not trying to sell me something. They're just trying to talk to me like a real human.
Christian [00:03:37] Yeah, exactly. All right.
Aaron [00:03:39] Let's number those number twos re energize your email marketing. I feel like people talk about email marketing like it's dead. A lot of times or it's something that's old and maybe not used as often, but it really is. I mean, I think decision makers and people high up in businesses, that's all they use to communicate is e-mail or they're one of their primary tools to communicate is e-mail. Yes, there is slack. Yes, there is WhatsApp. Yes, there's Facebook Messenger. But when it comes to it, like, again, decision makers and business owners.
Christian [00:04:13] They do rely on e-mail to, you know, to communicate. So I think that e-mail marketing and using those tools for email marketing is something that it's still going to be trending for 2020 with business to business.
Aaron [00:04:29] Yes. Actually, there was a I can remember as a maybe traffic conversion conference or something like that. And they were doing like all these things up on the board and like it was in the middle of 2019 or middle of 20, 19. What are the trends for 2020 and beyond? And it's like it's not Facebook ads. It's not Instagram ads. It's not LinkedIn. It's not whatever. It's something that you've been neglecting because you're changing that you're chasing those shiny objects, things like the number one thing that's going to work for your business in 2020.
Aaron [00:04:59] Email marketing. And it was like it wasn't just like, you know, you and I is here now in Texas. So it's not like we're not necessarily authorities, but these are like very well-known names and very well-known brands. And like all of them, we're talking about the fact that email marketing is still absolutely important. Like, you know, I guess for us early on, we weren't now so focused on that as much. You can grow an agency without email marketing. But now as we're scaling, it's like there's no way we can't grow and grow our clients without email marketing. So. Absolutely. Email is if you do nothing else. The email is one of the biggest ways to help you be to be business and the beginning.
Christian [00:05:38] We use mailchimp as one of the tools to attack email marketing, but now we've recently switched to active campaigns.
Christian [00:05:49] Which allows us to automate a lot of things and there's just a more robust IMO marketing platform along with the CRM, CRM and a bunch of other really cool things that we can do with that. And that's why we made that switch. But you're just starting out with evil marketing. You know, you need to start somewhere. You know, mailchimp campaign monitor. There's a suggestion here for Mailer Lite, which does mean a lot of these places do have software to have free versions. So just pick one and just get started with it. Don't wait another day. It's definitely something that everyone every business should be using in marketing.
Aaron [00:06:31] Right. And I guess one last thing to point out there is you should check out Sin Fox, too. That's another one. That's actually no Kagan's if you're familiar with him, but shout out to him. He does some really cool stuff and he has it's a really cool way to just it's I guess he says it's emo marketers like creators and entrepreneurs like agency owner. So if you're one of those types of people, this would be a good app for you as well called Sin Fox. Cool.
Christian [00:07:02] All right. It's 20 20 if you're a business owner or maybe a marketing person in charge of the Web site of your company and you're thinking 2020 would probably need to remember a Web site. It looks like it's from 2008.
Christian [00:07:19] And funding to revamp it. Now, then, what you need to do ready to do first is figure out how much it's going to cost you. Budget for that. Right. So what we created is a Website calculator or cost calculator. So you fill out. I think it's 13 or 14 questions and we get a general idea of the type of website that you need. We answer questions like how many pages it will have. Maybe some of the features that you know that you will need for that website and we'll give you an estimate of how much that will cost you. There's really no strings attached. It's just us helping you figure out how much a Website will cost.
Christian [00:07:57] These are prices that are generally acceptable for agencies like ours. So if you're looking for a brand new Website in 2020, you need to figure out first how much that's going to cost you. Highly encourage you to use our Website cost calculator and to do that.
Christian [00:08:14] Go to Instagram and just must just say, hey, I want that Website calls calculator and we'll send the link to you. It's under my eye. It's in our bio, too. Yeah, actually, it's in our Instagram bio. So you can click that link, but you can message just to be kind of nice to chat a little bit beforehand.
Christian [00:08:32] Eventually, this will be something that we'll have on our Web site as well. So be on the lookout for that.
Aaron [00:08:40] All right. We are back. Our third tip here for you guys is to invest in your B2B social media strategy. And I guess the overarching tip from this and what you should take away is that you shouldn't just post on social media just to post. And I've gone back and forth about this as far as frequency and then quality of content. And really it should be both.
Aaron [00:09:03] But that being said, you should have a purpose behind posting it. So it shouldn't just be like, hey, sometimes it can be sometimes it can be that really funny dog gif or it can be about the storms or whatever else. And it's just random and has no point. And people like that. But if you're being strategic about it and you're spending time and effort on like creative content and not just sharing an article, there really needs to be a purpose behind it. I want somebody to watch this video and when they watch it till the end, it has a call to action. And when they do, it is called action. They get onto my email list and then they start some kind of series. So I think it's just that strategy part that, you know, we're guilty of this, though, as well, I guess.
Christian [00:09:39] Yeah. I mean, it's more of a just literally asking a few questions, you know, is a for what values are going to bring to them. And yeah, trying to either I mean, it doesn't always have to be about the action.
Christian [00:09:53] Well, you were talking I was also thinking like maybe it could be if you create an infographics, let's say and it's really highly targeted for this particular audience and it just keeps the interest just because it has a really cool statistic, then I you've I think you've achieved your goal.
Christian [00:10:11] You know, Peter, interesting to you know, I read something like 80 percent of millennials are using chatbots and you're like, that's all you say in the pose. You're not leaving a call to action to hey, join my chat about course or whatever.
Christian [00:10:22] But you're just saying that, well, you want to do is get people started going and talking in the comments and and engaging with that post from just that. So that's also like a good way. So it's just investing a little bit of time and asking the questions about, OK, what is this post going to do for me when I actually put it on social media?
Aaron [00:10:42] Right. And more so the messaging, what is the right platform for you? And, you know, for Bitbranding, for business to business, you know, LinkedIn is probably going to be a really good platform for it.
Aaron [00:10:55] I mean, as a business owner, we can't get around to other places are good as well, places that are probably not good for B2B or I want to say that because let's just say not as many of them are on there are the newer platforms. So I'm not going to mention them because this may change. I want us to be more evergreen, but platforms that have a little bit more you know, people and users like Facebook, Instagram are also still good places for you to do to focus on your B2B strategy. But LinkedIn, I feel like, is one of those ones where as we're recording this in 2020 is still undervalued as far as the ability for you to reach people and get a lot of organic push.
Aaron [00:11:36] So and those people who are on there, it's more of a professional atmosphere. So I'd definitely be thinking about which platform you're on and the way you talk on LinkedIn. It's gonna be more professional. So going to be, you know, just a less I guess you wouldn't use the same kind of words.
Aaron [00:11:52] You would. It's more of a complete sentence. It's more of a not just throwing around and trying to be hip and cool and everything like that, which is fine, probably more so on Facebook or Instagram. And LinkedIn is more of that business professional spot for sure.
Christian [00:12:07] So the fourth thing that we have here on what's trending for B2B marketing for 2020 is to refine your content marketing efforts. And again, literally do more video.
Christian [00:12:19] And we've been talking about video and doing video for the longest time, but it's something that businesses really need to look at and see where they're doing videos, whether it's Facebook, YouTube linked in Tik tok and literally just ramp up their efforts when it comes to creating video, incredibly on a consistent basis. I think we've done a pretty good job doing that and tweaking, you know, every single month probably, or we kind of look at it and say, OK, what can we do different here or how can we improve the thumbnails or how can we do this? So definitely video is something that's still gonna be trending up going into this year, 2020 and then obviously on different platforms because LinkedIn last year, two years ago, recently ad added video platforms like Tiktok, which are taken off insanely huge, very popular among younger demographics, but it's all centered around video. So you'd need to be making some sort of video if it's just to practice, you know, for the future, you know, to start today.
Aaron [00:13:37] Yeah, absolutely. I think there's much else to say about that other than just encouraging words. Everybody had to start with video somewhere and nowhere in there, probably nervous or whatever else, but just think of it as a hey, do I want more business in 2020? Think of it that way. If I do these videos, I'm going to get more business. And if I do not.
Christian [00:13:57] And I was actually thinking about this, you know, quote, this is 70 percent of B2B buyers research through potential purchases by watching videos. How many times we sat down with people who said, oh, there's Aaron.
Aaron [00:14:13] Oh, there's Christian the first time they've seen us. Yeah, yeah. What's your guy's video?
Aaron [00:14:18] It happened two weeks ago. That was a brick lab.
Christian [00:14:21] I went to that meeting. So it's kind of cool to you know, there's people watching our stuff before. You know, they're probably not probably they're people who want to partner with us and do work with us. They're watching our stuff to see if we know our stuff. So video, I think it's a great way to introduce yourself online and be transparent and show authority and show authority and expertise and all this stuff.
Christian [00:14:46] So you think about another agency where maybe they don't show their faces much. And this is kind of why they're about page.
Aaron [00:14:54] There's so many people on the page they like they don't even have a headshot. Yeah. So it's like a headshot. It's kind of like you need that. That was like your 2008 thing that we're talking about earlier. But like 2020, you want to stand out a little bit, like put a video on there, like let's do an about video shot out to Bitbranding. Heads up if you want it about video. But more importantly, like you should have something on there that, you know, kind of defines who your company is. And 60 seconds to a minute. I mean, I'm a minute. I mean, in half. Yeah, exactly. All right. Last one we have here is to use chat bots. Most people know like Facebook Messenger. And if you're in the B2B world and you're not as familiar with marketing, maybe this is like some new year. Listen to this podcasting. Like, I don't know, like awareness necessarily. Start Facebook Messenger has its own version of I'd like a chatbot that. You can use something a little bit better or more robust would be something like mini chat. I think there's what is called chat fuel.
Aaron [00:15:50] Chat fuels another one, but these are all ones that you could use in your business and you may have been a part of a chatbot before and not realized it, which that's when you know it's pretty good.
Aaron [00:16:04] But this is a great way for you to communicate with your customers. Say they watch that video or say Christian is watching that video. He is a business owner and he's going to buy some new H.R. software. He's watching a video about H.R. and how it can help employees and how it can help the company and whatever else. And then like a book a session, and it takes them to messenger where he can answer any questions, give feedback, see testimonials, maybe scheduled the demo, all of it can be done in Messenger And it's that I guess as more business owners become millennials, they don't necessarily have to jump on the phone or anything like that. So like, yeah, let me just handle this over messenger. Let's, you know, let's do this. We want to schedule a phone call now. Let's get everything scheduled for later.
Christian [00:16:46] Yeah. I mean there's really a lot of even selling your products through messenger and chat, but it's something that's definitely growing and getting better and better every day.
Christian [00:16:59] Qualifying leads automating your FAQs and just different things like that are things you can do with your Chaput to just make the customer during joining customer experience a lot better.
Aaron [00:17:11] Would you say you could do with people like this through We talked about this previously thing where if somebody leaves or your review, you can respond back to them. Is that true with chatbot?
Christian [00:17:20] That's just I mean, secondly, through Facebook, some Facebook does have it's not really a chatbot, but they do provide you with some automation, you know, within messenger. OK. So someone leaves you a review or a recommendation on your Facebook page. And this is what you're talking about. You can have it set up where as soon as they leave you a good review or a good recommendation, then the chatbot will automatically message them saying, hey, thank you for leaving us a review. You're awesome. Maybe you would like a little picture of the team and what not and vice versa. They leave a bad review suck. It would be like sending an automatic message saying, hey, what can we do better for you?
Christian [00:18:00] Ball Well, like let's jump on a phone call. I think those are the ones that require, like, you know, an immediate push for like, okay, let's jump on a phone like somebody is not happy or so I think beyond just chatbots.
Christian [00:18:12] Even creating does little automation. And this is like completely free and available within Facebook messengers and it's that easy to do. Yeah, super easy to do. And they have some other options in there as well. That refusal was just one of the options. They probably have 10 or 12 things that you can do.
Aaron [00:18:27] Is that a video tutorial that we've done?
Christian [00:18:32] No. That was part of the local marketing academy.
Aaron [00:18:36] OK. Check out a local marketing academy. Someone marketing data here. When I joined to check it out there and doing that thing. OK. So we need to do a tutorial about that one, because I feel like that's one of those things that we mentioned. But they may have some questions on how to do it. So does a side note. We don't want to get too off of them. But if you're interested in that, just shoot. Isn't it a message on Instagram and be like, hey, can you make that choice for me? We'll show you. All right.
Aaron [00:19:01] Thank you guys so much for listening. Happy 20 20. This is the first one we're recording in 2020. We know you're listening to other podcasts before them, but this is our first one. We hope you enjoyed the break and hope you are enjoying the podcast if you've been listening for a while. Please make sure to leave us an honest rating and review. This helps us grow. And for those of you who are new, please make sure you hit that subscribe button. We're going to be doing some revamp to the podcast this year. Revamped, not necessarily in the content. I mean, maybe, but really changing some cover photos, having a better description. Like we're hopefully we'll be documenting our process of making our podcast better. And you guys can get some insight into that as well. So really appreciate you guys listening. And like I said, if you guys have any questions at all, any podcast, you're like, hey, can you do something about this? Or I got a friend who is killing it in this industry and I want you guys to talk to them. Hit us up on Instagram at bitbranding. Love to talk to you guys. Have a great week.
[00:20:00] The marketing native's podcast is a production of bitbranding.
