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What’s on B2B marketers’ minds?

Graeme Cade EVP 20/02/2020

Will marketing automation, voice search and GDPR be a priority in 2020?

As we strive to create ever-more personalised experiences on our websites, voice-activated technology is not falling behind"

We recently partnered with marketing specialists B2B Marketing, on a trend tracker exploring what’s next for B2B marketing —including what’s currently at the forefront of B2B marketers’ minds and which trends we should be keeping an eye on for the future…

Marketing automation

With the increased use of third-party vendors and the rapid evolvement of technology over recent years, it comes as no surprise that marketing automation appears as a key driving force across the industry.

Automation has always been relatively high on marketers’ agendas, however, when asked to rank how focused their marketing teams were on marketing automation in 2019 , a third (33%) rated it at least nine out of ten— placing it at the top of the 2019 B2B marketing trends list.

The focus on marketing automation is predicted to drop in 2020 as more focus shifts to less developed areas such as growth marketing and voice search.

Voice search

As we strive to create ever-more personalised experiences on our websites, voice-activated technology is not falling behind.

Most smart devices are already skilled in voice recognition, with the likes of ‘Alexa’ and ‘Siri’ being able to differentiate a user’s individual voice from others in the room.

Although the popularity of voice-tech has been soaring in the consumer world, it appears to only just be gaining traction in the B2B world.

Although it’s still low down on the list of priorities, the results suggest B2B marketers are starting to think about how they can build voice search optimisation into their digital marketing plans, as it provides a relevant way to get in front of prospects and can improve brand recognition if done successfully.

Simply appearing on the first page of search results doesn’t cut it, businesses need to be aiming for the top spot in order to be heard by the ever-growing ‘smart user’ population.

Brands should be focused on developing their UX and, in particular, page load times on both web and mobile if Google are to grant them the number one spot.

Industry players getting ahead of the game

Big brands, such as Salesforce and Google, are already taking advantage of voice-tech in the B2B space.

Back in 2018, Google unveiled ‘Google Duplex’ – an added feature to the famed Google assistant.

The AI system incorporates concatenative text to speech (TTS) along with a synthesis TTS engine enabling it to control tone of voice as well as handle interruptions and elaborate during conversations.

Further to this, the Duplex can adjust the speed of its responses to meet participant expectations, making it almost impossible for users to know if they are talking to a robot or a human being. Provided the Duplex undergoes detailed customer management training, it’s capable of supplying quick solutions to initial customer support problems and delivering internal services to employees.

More recently, Salesforce introduced ‘Einstein’, its conversational platform for CRM – compatible with both Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s voice assistant.

Instead of sending emails or manually entering activities and conversations, sales and marketeers can simply speak them, as Einstein transcribes and updates the relevant fields with the latest information, creates follow-up tasks, and notifies teammates.

GDPR: a right to be forgotten

The GDPR legislation has now been with us since May 2018.

Many businesses entered a period of panic as we saw many big brands receiving hefty fines after failing to comply with the regulation. It rocketed from 3rd (2017) to 1st (2018) place in terms of what marketeers were focused on.

Fast forward to now and GDPR is lower on the list of priorities than it was before its introduction. After overcoming the initial period of worry and hastily changing anything that didn’t adhere to the legislation, perhaps marketeers have seen the opportunity in GDPR.

As customers, we are rarely presented with a simple ‘opt-in’ or ‘opt-out’ choice. Often there is a long list of different types of marketing material that we can chose to receive or not. Here lies the chance for marketeers to gather information about their customers; through consent they can identify consumer interests and preferences, and thus deliver comms that is both targeted and relevant.

Get in touch to find out how we can help you run your own surveys and reach the audiences you’re interested in.

Research was conducted on behalf of B2B Marketing, find out more here.

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