B2B Marketing 3.0 – It’s a (r)evolution!

There is a new sheriff in town and its called: people. B2B Marketers will need to adjust their thinking from MQLs, SQLs, LMNOPQLs to consumer / customer experience. We’ve seen the backlash on LinkedIn as automated intros in the message queue go unanswered and the robot follows get eliminated to the halls of inhumanity of marketing automation. 

That’s the (r)evolution – The transformation of B2B marketing from drip-campaigns and tech stacks to well orchestrated human interactions. Sure those interactions are still aided by technology and the insights tech brings, but Skynet must be subservient to humans.

So what does that mean for us B2B marketers. It means we must become empaths for our various constituencies to deliver an elevated experience that drives business.

Digital First Leadership

The New B2B CMO will need to be a digital-first strategist. One that knows how to harness the power of the tech stack to deliver exceptional user experience at scale. Yet, personal enough that every interaction feels authentic. This leadership will require rethinking: marketing team structures, management business objectives, the role of creative and User Xperience Designers, etc. Everything is now a consumable product whether its employee advocacy platform for social marketing or a robust sales enablement tool to drive better deal close rates. It’s a tall order in a fast moving environment.

Video First Thinking

As B2B marketing 2.0 was about white papers and infographics, 3.0 is about video. It’s human. What used to be a 20 page white paper is now a 3-min video articulating insight. Video is more transportable across distribution without losing its authenticity. And now with the volume of Zoom calls we’ve all experienced over the past year, we have accepted video as the content type in our user experience. So for B2B marketing leaders it means transforming your content team into a video content studio. It means thinking video first for content development. It means applying video infrastructure to everything, your site, your sales enablement, your public and industry relations efforts, your email. Everything.

Communities not Targets

The third leg of the 3.0 stool is the elevation of the role of communities in your marketing. And I don’t mean creating a group on LinkedIn. I mean strategically growing your business through communities. In our remote world folks will gather at a virtual town hall to commiserate, share ideas and thought leadership, collaborate, and so much more. These communities are global yet tribal, broad yet deep, and select yet infinite. This means that community management will be the way of influencing your stakeholders and impact the way you market to customers, partners, employees and your industry-at-large. It’s not just a distribution strategy but a messaging and audience development framework to drive business outcomes. Use it smartly and your firm won’t need to worry about your topline.

So there it is: B2B Marketing 3.0: digital-first; video-savvy and community-led. What are your thoughts? Am I wrong. Share your reactions in our community the Swarm.

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