The annual State of B2B Digital Marketing Trend Study from Wpromote provides insight into the industry at a critical juncture, as the pandemic-driven rapid digital transformation crests, data protection advances accelerate, and budgetary worries emerge.
Wpromote, recently named Adweek’s second-fastest-growing agency, worked with the research company Ascend2 to interview 321 B2B marketing professionals from American organizations with at least 50 employees and annual sales of more than $5 million. The customized survey examined broad strategic goals and concerns as well as specific channels, methodologies, and trends.
Overall, things appeared to be going well: 74% of B2B marketers expect budget increases in 2022, up from 68% in 2021. 50 percent of respondents named social media as the channel that provides the most revenue, and 52 percent want to increase their social media spending.
However, significant differences were discovered among other groups, including top-tier marketers, CX specialists, CEOs, and others, including:
- Only 36% of marketers as a whole feel entirely equipped, compared to 67% of best-in-class B2B marketers who are fully prepared for upcoming data privacy reforms.
- First-party data is prioritized by almost half (48%) of B2B marketers who deliver the greatest customer experiences compared to only 17% of other marketers.
- Retention wasn’t even among the top five priorities for the remainder of the field, despite executives ranking it as their second-most essential goal behind revenue.
“B2Bs that are putting the proper strategies and technology in place to establish sustainable, long-term development are separating themselves from the rest of the sector in terms of competitive advantage from the 2022 figures,” says Christine Schrader, Head of Content at Wpromote. They’re investing in full-funnel marketing, prioritizing first-party data, and making lifetime value a key performance measure. Such businesses will be difficult to overcome since they compete with the top B2C marketing teams.
