While there are many tried and true methods for B2B marketing, it’s important to keep in mind out-of-the-box and innovative marketing trends and test them out – it’s becoming more and more difficult to stand out from all of the competition, and any edge that you can get by trying other options, will be key to expanding awareness of your brand.

To help get your creative juices flowing, here are 5 Innovative B2B marketing trends for you to try out in 2019.

1. B2B Podcast

As of April 2019, there are over 29 million podcast episodes in existence, and these numbers are growing fast. In the US alone, 51% of the population has listened to a podcast. There are also 14 million more weekly podcast listeners this year compared to last year, which is almost half the population of the entire country of Canada.

Does thought leadership play a key role in your content marketing strategy? If so, perhaps it makes sense to create a scheduled, recurring podcast that includes experts in your industry – both within your company and your customer network – to share their stories and to help you reach a new audience.

As podcasts are listened to when people are cooking dinner, driving cars during their commute, or going for a walk or a run or working out, they can be absorbed in sizeable chunks during otherwise idle time.

2. Alexa Skill Flash Briefing

If you’re looking to get into the mix when it comes to Voice Search, a great way to do this is by creating an Alexa Skill. The platform is not yet inundated with the various skills on offer, and thus, it could be a good way to get ahead of the competition and create more awareness for your brand. If your business offers a Hotel Property Management System, perhaps it makes sense to produce a Daily Flash Briefing, targeting hotel owners with specific and related news in the hospitality industry or hotel-related service tips. Get your prospects listening to your thought leadership, and it will keep your business top of mind!

3. Account Based Marketing

Also known as key-account marketing, Account Based Marketing (or ABM) targets companies versus individual personas. In a more complex B2B sale, this allows for businesses to market to multiple people within a single prospect company with relevancy. This allows you to flip around the traditional buyers funnel so that you identify the appropriate target companies instead, and expand your engagement within that specific company.

4. Artificial Intelligence

Many businesses are now successfully using AI in the form of chatbots as an important customer touchpoint for servicing client needs and answering questions.

AI also plays a key role in programmatic advertising, which helps with ad buying techniques, and connecting buyers and publishers with more efficiency and relevancy. It also allows important data sets to be pulled out, using machine learning to help form insights into future content strategy that will resonate with target buyer personas.  

Although this form of AI isn’t yet sophisticated enough to actually do the work of using that information to create the content itself, it will continue to play a larger role over time, as we improve how to use all of that data and have the resources to convert it into actual content.

5. Instagram Storytelling

There is now the ability to create your own filters in Instagram Stories. https://www.toprankblog.com/2019/05/b2b-social-media-news-2019/ This provides an opportunity for B2B businesses to establish a visual brand identity regardless of the fact that they don’t have actual physical products.

As there is also the option to create links and Calls To Action, this is another great avenue for Lead Generation that didn’t exist before, providing a platform for all sorts of businesses to become more and more creative. Because you can have multiple pieces of connected content, companies now have the opportunity to create living buyer funnels that lead to a conversion, all in one place.

Beyond that, since you can showcase a more real and authentic side of your business, Instagram is a suitable place where thought leadership and a ‘behind-the-scenes’ view is more relevant to those watching. This leads to the ability to build trust with compelling storytelling, as long as the target audience of your brand is directed towards younger audiences already present on the platform.

Summary

To summarize, here are 5 innovative B2B marketing trends for you to try out in 2019:

1. B2B Podcast
2. Alexa Skill Flash Briefing
3. Account Based Marketing
4. Artificial Intelligence
5. Instagram Storytelling

Now that you know more about some innovative B2B marketing trends, please check out our recent blog posts covering useful Inbound Marketing tips. If you liked this video, subscribe to the Umami Marketing YouTube Channel and the monthly Digital Marketing Postcard.