According to the B2BEST Barometer, the willingness of wholesalers and manufacturers to invest continues unabated, despite all the price pressures. Increasing efficiency and selecting the right channels were given as the greatest challenges. Read here which marketing opportunities in B2B are being used the most.
B2BEST Barometer: explanation and focal points in 2022
The results of the sixth B2BEST Barometer (German), which illustrates the topics trending in wholesale and B2B operations, shows that B2B marketing is indeed seen as being important, but companies are facing numerous challenges.
The focus of the current survey, in which 130 managers from B2B companies participated, who are responsible for sales, marketing, business development, digitalisation or e-commerce, was the experience with various marketing and communications opportunities as well as their measurement of success.
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Despite rising prices: investments continue in B2B marketing
Like in other departments, the inflation in the second quarter of 2022 is posing to be a major challenge. For instance, the booking fees for ad spaces and other activities have increased significantly compared to last year. What’s more, 90 per cent of those surveyed have also raised their own prices. Whether this will have a negative impact or not waits to be seen. But all in all, roughly one-third have stated consistently high sales to date.
The economic uncertainty can be felt everywhere, yet the willingness to invest in marketing activities continues to remain high and comparable with the first quarter of 2022. There’s a reason for this: 89 per cent of companies give their B2B marketing high or the highest priority, according to the survey. Only investments in social media and fraud prevention have shown to slightly decrease.
The biggest challenges: increasing efficiency and selecting the right channels
In addition to the limited budget, companies participating in the survey named other challenges. Namely, the selection of the right channels as well as the increase in efficiency across all channels. After all, a measurement of success on which channel performs the best is only established systematically in one-third of the companies, as the survey’s participants noted. And this is the case although four out of five responsible persons are absolutely aware of the relevance of this measure. But mainly the high amount of time needed (33 per cent) and the lack of personnel (27 per cent) prevent this from being implemented.
All in all, the topic of increasing efficiency across all channels is a problem for nearly two-thirds of the companies surveyed. This relates to the question of which part of the overall budget should be allocated to which channels. Marketing automation tools could maximize this efficiency, but even among the wholesale companies, only about one-third of them actually leverage such software solutions. But in contrast, another one-third have invested in this area in the past months.
The Top 10 marketing and communications opportunities in B2B
Which channels are we talking about here? Where are the digital marketing activities in the B2B segment taking place? The B2BEST Barometer investigated these questions and lists the numerous marketing and communications opportunities being used by wholesalers and manufacturers. These are the Top 10:
1. The company’s own website (83 per cent)
2. Social media (73 per cent)
3. Email marketing / Newsletter (71 per cent)
4. SEA and SEO (60 per cent)
5. Content marketing (66 per cent)
6. Online shop (66 per cent)
7. Campaigns / Landing pages (66 per cent)
8. Company blog (58 per cent)
9. Lead generation via content only accessible via registration, such as white papers or e-books (53 per cent)
10. Company app (52 per cent)
