19.10.23

Do you remember when...?

To celebrate our 20^th anniversary, we’re taking a trip down memory lane. Here’s a taste of the content that was working marketing wonders in the days when mobile phones were just becoming ubiquitous, offices were filled with desktop computers and Google Maps didn’t even exist.

Traditional print media

The world wide web was still a baby back in 2000, so digital didn’t hold the marketing mettle it does today. Aside from the odd pop-up ad or email, traditional marketing dominated. Print was the go-to channel as marketers churned out research papers, flyers and branded flip calendars for office desks. Rather than being posted online, content was used at events and business meetings and shared via CD-ROMs.

Direct mail advertising

We’re not talking about LinkedIn here, we’re talking direct mail in the form of postcards, letters, brochures and catalogues that used to drop right through your letterbox or onto your desk. Personalisation was on the rise thanks to better data processing, helping marketers to understand audience behaviour. Like today, these pieces of content were usually integrated into a wider, strategic marketing campaign.

Telemarketing

Back in the early noughties, the Nokia Tune was more recognisable than the Coca-Cola theme and that’s partly thanks to the proliferation of telemarketing. Getting a call on your mobile phone was still novel and people typically responded well to a direct, personal approach. Trust, rapport and relationship building were all foundational to this method of marketing, but as time went on scams and overuse of the channel meant it wore thin with customers. Do-not-call lists and a preference for digital channels among younger generations meant it was soon replaced with the more modern approaches we’re familiar with today.

Getting to grips with Google

Digital marketing was just becoming visible on the horizon, with Google's AdWords platform launched in 2000. This service marked the beginning of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and SEO - and the most forward-thinking organisations were just beginning to put together web-based marketing strategies. In just 20 years, the burgeoning area of digital marketing has grown exponentially across both B2B and B2C with once unknown concepts like ‘going viral’ securing a place in our collective psyche.  

Why we’re still here, 20 years on

While the methods we use to reach your target audience might have changed, our creativity and dedication to strategic, effective marketing hasn’t. Get in touch today to see how we can work with you to create content and campaigns that will keep your audience coming back for more.

20.9.23

Storytelling is part of who we are. It’s been around for millennia as folklore, old wives’ tales, cave paintings, ancient scripts, poetry and song. Stories have a powerful, innate purpose. Not only do they entertain and enthral and create a sense of community, but they're a survival tactic. These nuggets of wisdom are used to pass down vital knowledge from generation to generation. And so, story forms the basis of religion, philosophy, art (books, film, paintings, music) and the fabric of society in general.

Interestingly too, stories often carry a warning or a moral. They teach us important lessons. The most effective storytelling speaks to our needs, desires and weaknesses. It grabs the audience’s attention and taps into our emotions. As an exciting story unfolds, it takes the reader on a journey. It activates our imagination, encouraging us to guess what is coming next.

These are some of the features of the ancient art of storytelling that make it a compelling and effective medium to connect with your audience.

Resonating on a personal level

Stories invite us to identify with characters or aspire to be like them. Take, for example, the personal journey that rock climber Shauna Coxsey documents through her social media as she recovers from a knee injury. She has a huge following, with thousands of people cheering her on, admiring her courage and empathising with her pain. It’s easy to feel connected to her even if you’ve never met her. Her struggle feels real and her words are authentic. Her followers engage with what she's saying and many even try out her recovery tips.

Identifying with characters or situations in stories like this builds a bond and develops trust. It elicits an emotional rather than logical response, inspiring the reader and sticking in their memory. This is undoubtedly a factor behind the rising popularity of influencer marketing.

Giving structure and narrative

The best way to structure your ‘story’ when writing content is similar to structuring a plot line: start with setting the scene, then introduce a challenge or some kind of tension and explore this. Finally, explain the solution and come to a resolution. You may have seen a plot line represented visually as a peaked graph with climax – this kind of structure keeps the reader engaged and excited.

By starting with the challenge and then introducing a resolution, you are compelled to focus on the audience and their needs, rather than immediately writing about how great your product/service/brand is, which can turn people off.

Providing a greater sense of purpose

One final aspect to storytelling which appeals to our collective consciousness is the idea of belonging – being part of a bigger narrative. Donald Miller, author of Building a Story Brand, explains “brands that give customers a voice in a larger narrative add value to their products by giving their customers a deeper sense of meaning”. He uses Tesla as an example, one of the most talked about brands of the 2020s. They don’t just offer their customers a car, they invite them to be part of something bigger, a futuristic sci-fi style narrative that focuses on saving the environment through new technology.

Weaving a story that positions the audience as part of a greater and united cause gives purpose and meaning to what you are saying. Words by themselves only have so much impact, it’s the story you tell with them that will leave a lasting impression.

If you think you need some more storytelling pointers or you’d like some support creating content, please get in touch.

21.08.2023

There's enormous value to ensuring your team is a multi-skilled marketing taskforce, with all the diverse talents and expertise to take on a range of different projects.

Across a single department, this could span content creation, digital marketing, data analysis, event planning, social media management and video editing to much more.

Here are just some of the many benefits of having a versatile, well-rounded and well-informed marketing team:

1. Enhanced adaptability and resilience

Multi-skilled teams have a knack for rolling with the punches. When challenges come knocking, they adjust their approach without skipping a beat. If someone calls in sick? No problem – there's always someone else who can pick up the slack. And when the unexpected happens (we’re looking at you, COVID-19), a multi-skilled team can pivot and adapt.

2. A culture of innovation and creativity

Having wide-ranging talents in your team fosters a greater culture of creativity and innovation. Diverse skills mean diverse ideas and in marketing, that's pure gold. More angles, more insights, more 'eureka' moments - your campaigns will have the innovative edge that gets your audience clicking, reading and buying.

3. Greater efficiency and cost-effectiveness

Having a team of marketing all-rounders is smart economics. Projects that would typically involve several departments can be completed within one, saving time, reducing communication bottlenecks and cutting down on everyone’s favourite – unnecessary meetings.

4. Comprehensive understanding

A multi-skilled team delivers a 360-degree view of the marketing landscape. From SEO to content creation, social media to event planning, every aspect can be covered. This holistic view leads to smarter decisions and more integrated and effective campaigns.

5. Fostering continuous learning and growth

Perhaps one of the most exciting benefits of being part of a highly competent, multi-disciplinary team is the golden opportunity for self-improvement. When you're surrounded by teammates who each bring something unique to the table, learning becomes a daily routine. This constant exchange of skills and knowledge doesn’t just make the team stronger, it also promotes individual growth, which in turn leads to increased job satisfaction, loyalty and enhanced team morale.

A word of caution

A multi-skilled team doesn't mean everyone needs to become an expert in everything. That could lead to a "jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none" scenario, diluting the overall value of your in-house expertise. Instead, it's about fostering enough overlap in skills to enhance collaboration, understanding and the ability to step in when necessary.

The aim isn’t for your SEO specialist to turn into a graphic designer, but to understand enough about design to contribute ideas and collaborate more effectively with the design team. This approach promotes a culture of continuous learning while avoiding unnecessary skill acquisition.

Our unique and diverse marketing skills

These are just some of the reasons why building a multi-skilled marketing team is a considerable and worthwhile investment. Encouraging your team to start learning new skills and gaining experience in new areas takes a considerable amount of time, trial and error and even extra-curricular dedication. But in the long term, the returns will be enormous. Once harnessed, it’s a powerful weapon for any business.

For twenty years now, we’ve been developing our marketing team’s skills and experience across a range of areas. If you’d like to find out more about what our diverse team of experts could bring to your organisation, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

20.07.23

Can’t decide what to eat at a restaurant? Not sure what colour to paint the living room? Torn about which movie to watch tonight? Indecision is part of life, and for most of us, it’s not a significant consideration. But what happens when it’s a potential customer who’s wavering on whether to enlist your services?

When you’re dealing with a prospect who’s grappling with uncertainty, the right marketing is key to helping them commit to a purchase. Carefully crafted marketing messages, deployed as part of a campaign that systematically reinforces and builds on these, are key. In this blog post, we’ll unpick some of the science around indecision, and look at powerful, proven ways marketing can help people overcome it.

Defining indecision

Starting with the basics, if a customer’s facing indecision, they’re experiencing a type of chronic procrastination that happens when someone has to make a choice. Overwhelmed by the number of options or the nuances of just a few choices, people typically end up either spiralling into extensive research or simply putting the impending decision out of their mind. At this point, the individual reaches a stalemate, unable to make a call and move forward.

Driving indecisive audiences towards decisive actions

Indecision isn’t all bad. There’s a growing body of evidence that suggests indecisive people are less likely to be swayed by confirmation bias. That means that, rather than favouring pieces of information that support their previously held views, they’re better at taking the information presented to them and weighing this up to make a more balanced decision. They’re also more likely to be perfectionists – and therefore scared of making a ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ decision.

These traits can be a win for marketers. One of the most common methods that indecisive people use to come to a decision is to consider their goals and the pros and cons of various options. Armed with this insight, you can gear your marketing to help them out. Prioritise concrete information that sets you apart from your competition and highlight the ways that you help customers to reach typical goals in their industry. Use stats, facts and clear language and deliver these at regular intervals to keep momentum behind the decision-making process.

Keeping things fresh for the future

Another useful insight to have up your sleeve when marketing to indecisive customers is that people typically experience greater satisfaction if they “choose the action that represents a change, rather than continuing the status quo”. New products, services, versions and additions to your current offering can all help to replicate this feeling of change and progress – meaning current customers don’t have to move on to another B2B relationship to keep things fresh. It’s vital your marketing capitalises on this by regularly updating messaging, highlighting additional benefits and drawing attention to new uses in the marketplace.

Keeping marketing engaging and persuasive – even for the most indecisive audience members – is at the heart of what we do here at asabell. We’d love to speak with you about how we can help ensure your marketing is successful, so please get in touch with one of the team to find out more.

22.6.23

‘Award winning’ is a powerful statement, and being shortlisted or nominated for a prestigious accolade brings public recognition of your organisation’s hard work and expertise.

Participating in industry awards is a valuable marketing opportunity for your organisation – helping you to connect with other key industry players, benchmarking your achievements against others and upgrading your peer-to-peer status via a third-party public endorsement.

In many cases, a well-executed award strategy can even elevate industry awareness, strengthen relationships and boost credibility – whether you actually win or not.

Here are some of the key benefits of entering your organisation into industry awards:

Persuading the panel

Most businesses are ‘in it to win it’, entering awards because they want to take home the top prize. But winning isn’t always about how hard you worked, as much as how persuasively you told your story to the panel of judges.

Costly, complex and often requiring screeds of information related to specific categories, award entries require significant time and skill. So, unless storytelling is your strong point, it’s worth bringing experienced support onboard to craft a relatable, emotive and inspiring submission that will significantly increase your chances of winning. Similarly, many awards also allow visual elements to be included, like graphics and photographs. Bringing an experienced design team into the equation will help you create an eye-catching entry that grabs the full attention of the judges.

Marketing along the road to success

If you’re a viable candidate, you’ve already done all the hard work. Once you’ve brought external marketeers onboard, make sure you share all the details of your project with them – including anecdotes, resources, facts and figures. From here, they’ll work with you to carefully analyse the criteria and find where your efforts best fit, selecting your best candidates and categories.

After this, they’ll conduct interviews and research to build a bigger picture of the nominated individuals or pieces of work. Building a compelling case will be about uncovering powerful human-interest stories, impressive figures or stats and showcasing the unique details that make an entry stand out from the crowd.

Maximising the timeline

While it’s tempting to sit back and relax once you’ve submitted an entry you’re proud of, there’s still plenty of work to get on with. Working with your marketing partner, there’s a wealth of traction to be gained from capitalising on key opportunities during an award timeline, starting with the shortlist releases and moving towards the final ceremony.

Use a carefully coordinated programme of strategic marketing to capitalise on prime moments, show off your brand and gain maximum attention. For example, shout about your shortlist on social media, use your nomination to promote a related case study or discuss the project you’ve entered in a blog post. Videos, web banners, newsletter entries, press releases and other content can all be used to highlight your participation, qualifying accomplishments and successful milestones in the competition. While the ultimate goal is to win, use the entire award process as a springboard to create a positive focus on your brand.

Congratulations, you’ve won

Of course, this mileage extends considerably further if you win. Winning an award is a lightning rod for positive attention. Your prospects and clients will be looking to you, so use this  to outline the solutions and people that helped you win how support  and  other services or products that  relevant outstanding feedback from the judges or awarding body

And as soon as possible after the announcement, start notifying partners, customers and potential new leads about your success. This will help with the process of transforming your win into new revenue streams and income. Something as simple as including the award logo underneath your email signature is a subtle way to keep reinforcing your brand’s credibility long after the occasion.   

Put your entries into safe hands

We have twenty years’ experience crafting award-winning entries for our clients. Whatever the industry and award criteria, we know how to gather the unique stories, impressive stats and strong testimonials to develop submissions that succeed. And while we’re proud of our impressive success rate, we also know it’s not all about winning.

Once the entries are in, we can help you seize this golden opportunity to coordinate organisation-wide marketing efforts that maximise the benefits for your brand and garner positive attention from clients and prospects.

If you’d like to find out more about how we could create award-winning entries for your organisation, please get in touch.

25.5.23

No business is an island - especially not in B2B.

Very few B2B organisations would survive without a network of collaborators, strategic alliances and supply chain partnerships. These successful relationships are one of your business’ strengths, but many organisations are missing a trick by failing to share them with their target market.

Strategic partner marketing is a growth area in the B2B space. Whether celebrating distribution channels, resellers or new collaborative products and services, many organisations recognise that combining their marketing efforts offers a range of mutual benefits, including:

Key considerations for partnership campaigns

Delivering a successful and cohesive partner marketing campaign requires considerable communication and understanding. Before embarking on a partner campaign, there are some critical areas to establish:

1. Find your partnership story

Why did your partnership come about? The most effective B2B partnership campaigns have an engaging origin story like a pressing challenge or shared customer pain point. From here, you can use your marketing to illustrate how, together, you were able to successfully solve the problem before explaining how it brings benefits to both sets of customers.

2. Consistency is key

Alongside getting your stories straight, your brand values and messaging must be aligned, too. It’s vital both organisations are clear and consistent about what they want to mutually achieve, how they’ll work together to achieve it and how the relationship will evolve from there. Clear aims will keep your marketing on track and ensure every piece of content is used strategically to further your partnership goals.

3. Keep messaging simple

Cobranding can be complex. Ensure that both teams start out on the same page and have a thorough understanding of each other’s brand guidelines, target audience, preferred content and tone of voice. This might mean creating shared brand visuals and examining each other’s house style to prevent clashes over things like logo placement.

Throughout the partner campaign, both parties will need to stick closely to these agreed rules to avoid overcomplicated or off-brand content. Simplicity is key to ensuring consistency and continuity across both organisations’ marketing teams.

4. Recognise your combined strength

At the heart of your joint marketing efforts there must be a clear message: how your partnership benefits customers. Outline what each organisation brings to the table and how your different experiences, solutions and services complement each other and add value for your target audience.

5. Understand your new audience

Partner marketing campaigns should expand each brand’s audience by offering access to each other’s customers and followers. Carefully consider which sector of your partner’s audience you want to reach and devise a clear strategy to target them. If possible, consult your partner for support – they should know their audience well.

6. Integrate your campaigns

To generate the most value, be strategic and plan the marketing materials you’ll jointly create and share. There’s a wealth of potential for collaborative thought leadership - think guest expert articles / blog posts, video interviews, joint webinars, co-hosted events, even combined whitepapers and case studies.

Celebrate your partnerships

The benefits are clear but there’s a lot to consider before setting out on a partner marketing journey. An expert steer can help. We have plenty of experience creating content marketing that celebrates our clients’ valuable partnerships and strategic alliances – helping them to illustrate to their customers the value of their partnerships while attracting new audiences in the process.

If you’d like to find out more about our strategic partner marketing strategies and what we could do for your organisation, please get in contact.

19.4.23

Hi AI, we’ve been avoiding you…

Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and automation are blazing a trail through industries like manufacturing and logistics, upending decades-old practices. But for creative industries like marketing, their potential is less clear. The idea machines could be creative is unnerving; innovation and ingenuity have long been considered uniquely human characteristics. This apprehension means that, unlike other sectors, creative industries have been largely shielded from the transformational power of AI technologies. But is it time for marketing to embrace the step-change this technology could bring?

AI’s supporting role

ML, AI and automation have been working behind the scenes to optimise marketing activities and take over repetitive tasks for years. They enhance marketing activities by assisting with digital ad placement, completing sales forecasting and optimising a huge range of digital outreach strategies. It’s when these technologies take a step-up, as they did almost eight years ago with the launch of the first outdoor AI marketing campaign, that their creative potential becomes more evident. As Saatchi and Saatchi’s poster optimised based on how long people looked at it, this experiment revealed how AI can help marketing shake off its inherent biases. It raised the possibility that technology, not marketing professionals, would give a more accurate indication of the creative outputs people want to look at.

Bringing value to the sector

In marketing, our core purpose is to understand and persuade customers. Thanks to its ability to process vast quantities of data, ML can help further this aim, as the poster optimisation experiment proves. By building a comprehensive picture of its subject, it’s a powerful way to understand customers and make predictions about their behaviour. For creative choices, it can augment decisions about font selection, image placement, word choices, colour schemes, sentence length and more to ensure collateral has the strongest impact on viewers. AI’s potential to optimise creativity means that, according to Harvard Business Review, marketing decisions should be automated “wherever possible”, because “this is where the greatest returns from marketing AI will be found”. In this future, only “the most consequential questions” would be decided by a human.

Should marketing professionals be worried about AI?

For those of us who’ve built careers out of honing our creative marketing skills, should we be worried by this shift from human to machine? The answer is nuanced but, in all likelihood, no. Like other technologies throughout human history, AI will be something innovative individuals adopt as part of their creative process. For many, it will be another tool in their creative arsenal, not a replacement. Consider photography which, far from replacing other forms of artistic expression, is now a creative industry and artform in its own right. As the Artificial Intelligence Review predicts: “maximum benefit from AI will be derived where its focus is human-centric — where it is designed to augment, rather than replace, human creativity”.

To speak to a human about your next marketing campaign, please get in touch! We’d be happy to talk through how our team of creative and personable marketeers can build a powerful campaign strategy that best fits your organisation’s needs.

13.3.23

Every year, the importance of a standout social media presence in B2B increases. By 2025, 8 out of 10 B2B sales interactions will happen across digital channels. To stay competitive and relevant, B2B brands need to keep their finger on the pulse of emerging social trends and behaviours.

If you’re reviewing your social strategy, or carrying out your annual social media refresh, read on for some of the key areas we recommend you take a look at in 2023.

Exploring shorter-form videos

With the rise of TikTok and other ‘snackable’ video platforms, public appetite for short form video content is at an all-time high. Lasting between 21 to 34 seconds, social media algorithms increasingly prefer this type of video content, so it’s going to be critical for marketers. Once regarded solely asa form of consumer-based marketing, it’s likely this type of content will increasingly converge into B2B - especially as more Gen Zers become decision makers and business leaders.

So, what types of shorter-form videos should B2B marketers look to create?

Some ideas to get started include product demonstrations, case studies, video testimonials, expert interviews, webinar promotions and news updates. In the coming months, B2B brands will be looking to harness the reach of rapid-fire visual story telling and those who successfully engage their target audience in this way will no doubt see a considerable boost to their profile.

Prioritising LinkedIn

Like asabell, LinkedIn is turning 20 this year. Still the most commonly used social media platform in B2B,B2B organisations post on LinkedIn 2.5 times more than on Twitter and other platforms. With 75% of B2B marketeers using LinkedIn, and 80% of B2B leads generated on the platform, it’s arguably the best place to establish relationships with B2B professionals who are interested in your services or solutions.

Start experimenting with paid advertising

These days, 84%of B2B organisations are using paid distribution channels for their content marketing efforts. If targeted effectively, paid advertising and sponsored content can generate rapid results, increase exposure, and deliver high ROI.But harnessing paid targeting can take considerable time and fine-tuning. To achieve this, brands must clearly define target audience members, including their specific industry, professional role and department. Wherever possible, use the provided website demographics and analytics tools. Look at who is engaging with your content and then tweak your messaging, spend and format to optimise results. Over time, this should refine your advertising strategy and help you to find what spend and content is most appropriate for each intended purpose.

Maximising value from long-form content

B2B marketing often prioritises longer form content – whether that’s webinars, whitepapers, brochures, articles or even podcasts. But this focus can make it easy to overlook opportunities to repurpose content in ways that diversify your marketing cache. Many long-form materials can be reconfigured into shorter pieces of collateral. This can help attract interest in different ways and via different channels.

Not sure where to start? To help you, we put together a handy guide of key considerations when repurposing content.

Increasing use of carousel posts

Carousel posts are another example of the B2C sector spreading its influence. After first originating on Instagram, they’re becoming increasingly common in B2B marketing. A recent study found that carousels are the most engaging type of post and that they even outperform videos for engagement levels. Using up to ten slides, they can tell complex stories in bitesize pieces, incorporating multiple voices and testimonials. And, crucially, they can also include multiple products and calls to action.

Shaping your future social strategy

These are just some of our predictions for 2023’s B2B social media landscape. If you’d like to find out more about how we can support your social media strategy, please visit our social media page. We’re also offering a limited number of free social media audits until the end of March. Check out our LinkedIn page to register your interest.

9.3.23

Video marketing is an integral part of the B2B toolkit – helping organisations convey complex, compelling messages more efficiently than static text and imagery.

Making sure your videos stand out in today’s crowded marketplace is vital. Videos drive better search engine results and – thanks to the rise of visual search engines like Google’s Shopping Graph and Lens – are increasingly favoured by social media algorithms.

To get the best-possible results, it’s important to be strategic about which type of video marketing suits your specific needs and furthers your short and long-term business goals.

1. Animations

A versatile tool for conveying simple, yet visually exciting stories and messages – animations are a powerful way to attract buyers’ attention.

Often fun, sometimes even fantastical, they embed easily into social media pages. A powerful way to drive user engagement, they can also offer interactive features like embedded links, sub menus and questions that branch into different content. Using animation intros, outros, cutaways and overlays, it’s possible to liven up less visually striking footage with much-needed colour and action.

Check out our guide for producing amazing animations here.

2. Interviews

Whether featuring business leaders or subject matter experts, interview videos are a great way to convey thought leadership and authority to your target audience. Today, with the comparatively high video standards available through camera phones and remote collaboration tools like Teams, creating high-quality videos is easier than ever. But remember, the best B2B interview videos are professional, engaging and flow like a real conversation between relaxed participants.

Read our top tips for self-filming here to get started.

3. Social sharing short

Driven by the likes of TikTok, Snap Chat and Instagram, short, sharp, ‘snackable’ videos have gained prominence over the last decade. Thanks to their growing popularity, they’re now a staple B2B marketing tool, particularly on channels such as LinkedIn and Twitter. Often as short as 20-60 seconds, these videos push brands to refine their messaging while also keeping it persuasive, captivating and informative. With short social videos, the aim is to create something that will be reshared by peers, driving brand awareness and making new inroads into your target market.

4. Webinars

Powerful forums for discussions about the latest insights and research, webinars should offer customers thought-provoking and industry-leading insights around key topics. Usually broadcast live as a launch or hybrid event, they also have considerable value as a piece of long-form content or as a ‘visual podcast’ when hosted online after an event. In fact, 73% of marketers consider webinars to be the best way to generate quality leads.

To help you get started, we’ve created a handy guide for planning and promoting webinars, here.

5. Explainers

If done correctly, an explainer video can condense a variety of different and longer form content into concise and powerful messaging. Generally, these videos focus on how to solve a customer’s problems – beginning with challenges or pain points before suggesting a solution and outlining its benefits. Explainers are about straightforward storytelling, so don’t overcomplicate the messaging and include a clear CTA to encourage buyers along your purchase journey.

6. Case studies and customer testimonials

Case study and customer testimonial videos can validate your products and services by showcasing a client’s experience and displaying the result of a successful project. By enabling a satisfied customer to tell their story, these videos build brand credibility and provide a less biased, more client-focused overview of your USPs. For extra validity points, ask your most recognisable, household name clients to be part of the video so you know it will instantly have traction with your target audience.

Take a look at our blog post for planning your perfect video case study here.

7. Event films

From teasers to post-event outreach content, event films are a great way to showcase the action and key messaging of your brand’s events. These could include clips of key speakers, footage of any activities that took place, short interviews with attendees and even testimonies that celebrate the event’s success.

8. Website banners

Website banners add movement and life to webpages. With this tool, it pays to think carefully about what might enhance your website or embellish the messaging of a particular page. For example, you could showcase a recent event, promote your latest content or celebrate an anniversary. At any time, these banners can be updated to regularly reflect what’s going in your organisation’s story.

Capturing your story

Across all its different forms, video marketing can drive engagement, entertain audiences and allows you to experiment with your brand’s messaging, while reaching new audiences. For these reasons, its popularity as a B2B marketing strategy will only increase.

With almost 20 years’ experience in B2B, we’re experts at crafting purpose-built and visually engaging video marketing to suit our clients’ campaigns. If you’d like to find out more about what we could do for you, please get in touch.

12.1.23

As we enter 2023, what key trends and innovations can we expect to see shaping B2B campaigns?

Refreshing SEO strategies

We’re all familiar with over-optimised, near impossible-to-read articles where the author has tried to maximise SEO by shoehorning in too many keywords. These robotic and repetitive pieces of content are something B2B agencies work hard to avoid, but many find it difficult to tread the fine line between being readable and search engine friendly.

Luckily, some key changes were made to the Google algorithm last year, eliminating the need to repeat key terms to increase search visibility. Instead, the algorithm has been refined to connect users to quality and relevant content that answers users’ needs more effectively. The result is that many marketeers and content creators will be refreshing their SEO strategy and moving from a ‘keyword-first’ to ‘people-first’ approach.

Experimenting with video length

In MarketingProf’s 13th Annual B2B content survey, 78% of B2B content marketers said they will continue to invest in video throughout 2023, a 9% increase on the previous year. And 90% of B2B marketeers said they’re now heavily reliant on video for their online promotion.

It’s been impossible to ignore the surging popularity of short ‘snackable’ video content in the past few years – especially in the consumer sector, where we’ve seen the rise of social media platforms like Tik Tok. Increasingly, we expect to see this model move into B2B, as brands experiment with new forms of video to augment their marketing toolkit. But to do this successfully, business-orientated brands must refine their visual storytelling and hone their core messaging to create engaging and easily digestible short form content.

Increasing that personal touch

Every year, more digital natives move into professional buying and decision-making roles. This tech-savvy demographic expects relevant, tailored content at every opportunity but Gen-Z buyers also valueauthenticity and personability when making purchasing decisions. So instead of steering marketing towards big data and AI-driven targeted campaigns, we expect to see increasingly personalised B2B marketing in 2023.

To win buyers over, B2B brands will need to adopt a more personable and direct tone of voice. It will also be vital to start delivering hyper-focused campaigns that target specific roles, localities and even individual. In 2023’s crowded marketplace, connecting with this target audience on a personal level and demonstrating that you understand their interests, behaviours and needs will win business.

Recent studies have shown that 71% of people now expect personalised interactions and content and 76% of customers today now feel frustrated when their content isn’t personalised.

The rise of hybrid events

Since the pandemic, the way we attend and participate in events has completely changed and a combination of virtual and physical is now the norm for a range of different marketing events. Towards the end of last year, several major advertising and media outlets reported a significant rise in the revenue they were generating from hybrid events – Forbes, for example, saw a 60% rise in revenue as it embraced hybrid event formats.

As a result, we’re expecting to see more B2B organisations embracing this model and combining remote and physical conferences, webinars and networking events. This hybrid approach will give businesses greater scope to connect to a wider, international audience than their traditional reach. And a rise in event blogs, podcasts, videos and whitepapers is likely to follow for those who couldn’t attend.

In fact, 86% of B2B organisations are now achieving a positive ROI from hybrid events that continues to increase up to seven months after the initial launch date.

If you’re considering your own hybrid event, our guide on webinars has some great tips for generating long term value.

Counting on quality

Throughout 2022, as with many other years, mailboxes, inboxes and social media pages were awash with generic, unexciting B2B content.

But despite growing adoption of marketing automation and multi-channel management tools, we’re confident that 2023 will be the year quality triumphs over quantity. It’s a belief reflected in the Content Marketing Institute’s annual survey which found that ‘producing better quality content’ was still the top differentiator for successful brands. As we move through the 20s, organisations that value thought leadership, originality and creativity will continue to stand out from the crowd.

To find out more about how to make your marketing as strategic as possible in 2023, get in touch with the asabell team. We tailor campaigns our clients’ specific needs and always have an ear to the ground to ensure everything we create is impactful for today’s audiences.