The shift to digital events in the last two years has been very rapid, and for many organisations, the learning curve has been steep. The accessibility and relative ease of producing digital events also means they’re appearing in abundance – and many B2B tech customers are inundated with invitations. So how do you make your digital events stand out in an increasingly saturated market? And once you’ve attracted an attendee, how do you then capitalise on their interest in your brand?  

Here are five things B2B technology brands should be doing in 2022 to engage customers: 

IT marketing is getting more complex, and challenging, by the day. Budgets have shifted, even some of the most popular channels have become less effective due to an over-saturation of content, and there’s more marketing noise and competition than ever before.  

The majority of customers are also incredibly time-poor, and while 62% said they’d be prepared to provide their contact information to download an eBook, they also need compelling reasons to bother in the first place.  

In a content-rich world, marketers need to find new ways to get cut-through and to stand out. New(ish) techniques – like account based marketing, marketing automation and AI-driven content development – can help. But at the same time, they require a level of expertise and insight that many marketing teams don’t necessarily have in-house. As such, many businesses are looking to specialist outsourced partners who can provide the expert advice and support they need.   

ABM can be resource intensive, so it’s important to be clear from the outset what you expect from your new ABM strategy, and how you plan to achieve it.  

Our previous posts established a useful definition of ABM and set out a framework for planning. This latest post will help you implement and manage your own ABM program. 

No longer viewed as a ‘nice to have’, Account Based Marketing (also known as Target Account Marketing, or Strategic Account Marketing) has seen a resurgence and cemented its role as a mainstay of the B2B marketing mix. 

Splendid Group's Ronit Jackson reckons you absolutely can. 

You may not be consciously thinking about it as you move through your world, but a User Experience frames every product and service that we buy and consume on a daily basis. How you feel about walking through a flagship retail store or supermarket, or when you're clicking to buy something online or checking in at the airport kiosk (remember that?), is the end product of a User Experience process. 

From a business perspective, its important to recognise that your customers will feel (often strongly) a certain way about your brand, regardless of whether or not these experiences are intentionally designed. User Experience (UX) Design is conscious effort to improve how your customers interact with your business by removing friction and building customer trust, which can translate to lead generation, loyalty and profitability. 

That's all well and good in the obvious arenas of a physical store or online commerce, but what about the true battlefield of B2B Technology marketing: lead generation? Can better UX improve your lead quality and conversion rates?

Your business has a Twitter account, a LinkedIn company page, Facebook page, and a YouTube channel. You have a social scheduling in place and publishing tool like Hootsuite or through HubSpot. You're creating a calendar, filling it with high quality B2B technology content like whitepapers and case studies. Your brand's customer journey is optimised for conversion and you’re ready for the leads to roll in.

Marketing is becoming an increasingly stressful endeavour as marketers are tasked with doing more with less. True marketers, have access to an ever-increasing array of channels for engagement, marketing tools to deploy campaigns, and data to provide insights. Yet the opportunities offered by these digital advancements are usually  accompanied by shrinking budgets and smaller teams. This leads to limited effectiveness, which can, in turn, reduce marketing budgets further - a vicious catch-22.  

The most effective circuit-breaker is for marketers to demonstrate their value back to the business. A key opportunity resides in tighter relationships with sales. By working in partnership, marketing can deliver more value to sales, leading to better results and revenue – and virtuous relationship circle between marketing and sales. 

But how to get this circle spinning? Here are five key ways marketing and sales can work together to optimise lead generation campaigns. 

Engaging attendees at a face-to-face conference is hard enough, let alone in a virtual environment where distractions, and opportunities to multitask, abound.  

When was the last time you gave an online session all of your focus? Resisting the temptation to get through a busy workload – while also tuning into a webinar – is difficult.  

In fact, according to a recent LinkedIn survey, a whopping 92% of people admit to multi-tasking while on a video call.

So when you’re organising a virtual event, what can you do to keep people engaged? Here are our top tips:  

One of the big positives to emerge from a virtual event is the level of data it can make available to us as marketers. With the right tools and metrics in place, it’s possible for an event host to capture a great deal of information from a virtual or hybrid event, and in particular, its attendees: where they signed in from, how long they stayed, which sessions they attended, whether they interacted with any content or asked any questions, and much, much more.  

The way we engage with and sell to buyers has changed. The disconnectedness many are feeling due to Covid-19 is leading organisations to put real, human needs at the centre of their sales and marketing activities – offering immersive experiences where buyers are accompanied by a seller rather than funnelled to one.  

This strategy, known as Account Based Marketing, or ABM is gaining traction, due to four key factors: