With a face-to-face event in Scottsdale, Arizona that wasn’t scheduled this year, the B2B Marketing Exchange 2021 kicked off on Monday, February 23, in a virtual format. The B2BMX Online Experience 2021, hosted by Demand Gen Report, focused on informative sessions to help marketers refresh their thoughts, renew their creative focus, and remix their format and channel mix to navigate 2021.
More than 3,000 participants virtually gathered to connect with and learn from their peers as they discovered the latest strategies and tactics for modern marketing. The virtual event explored these strategies in six different tracks: ABM In Action Live !, Channel Marketing, Marketing Summit, Content2Conversation, Sales Impact Summit and Demand Gen Summit.
Two keynotes were released on the first day of B2BMX, focusing on the impact marketers can have on their buyers and the changing roles of B2B executives. The keynotes highlighted how B2B has evolved into a closer buy-sell relationship, how CMOs increase the success of their teams, and how empathizing with the buyer can build better relationships and lead to higher revenues.
Use empathy for effective B2B storytelling
In the morning keynote entitled: “Leading With Empathy: Let Your Customers Become Your Best Brand Storyteller,” Miri Rodriguez, storyteller and head of internship programs at Microsoft, discussed the importance of empathy on the buyer’s path.
Rodriguez explained that brands that create marketing content for buyers and prospects often make the mistake of using only facts and statistics for their storytelling. In marketing to people, she explained that empathy enables brands to engage with buyers on a cognitive, emotional, and compassionate level.
“People act on a human level,” said Rodriguez. “Storytelling is not just telling stories, but a creative approach to how we conjure up with emotions in order to lead with empathy and inclusion in a space in which we interact from person to person. Essentially, brand storytelling in B2B is about telling your story so convincingly and networked that your customers do it with their own buyers. “
Empathy Positions Brands are thought leaders both in their respective industries and among people. Rodriguez explained that Millennial B2B buyers try to buy from companies that have important stories to tell and understand their needs and beliefs. Brands that market their stories in this vein will build better buyer-seller relationships.
She highlighted a five-step process for developing B2B stories that resonate with buyers with empathy. The process includes:
- Empathy – When marketers know who their buyers as individuals are, they can define and consider their content and marketing strategies in a way that resonates with them and builds deeper levels of trust.
- Define – By defining the story mission, “characters”, “plot” and “conclusion”, marketers can tell stories that are hyper-focused and impactful for their target audience based on specific points of interest and degree of relativity.
- Ideate – Empathy helps marketers, who know their buyers, determine which types of content (blogs, videos, webinars, etc.) are most effective.
- Prototypes – Marketers with multiple creative concepts for high-impact storytelling should keep repeating and repeating ideas, concepts, and topics that will resonate with buyers, and not be afraid to deliver new types of stories. and
- Testing – By testing the stories among the target buyers, marketers can determine how impactful their story content is, whether the emotion evoked was the target reaction from the early stages, and get feedback for future content creation.
“Stories are for your audience, not your audience,” explained Rodriguez. “What your audience means is that as a thought leader in your field, you take the time to package these stories and deliberately pass them on to your customers so they can hand them over to their customers. It does this through empathy. Take your time for ideas and get creative! “
CMOs are again focusing on agility, content and customer data
The evening keynote entitled “Reimagining Teams & Roles For The Digital-First Age: CMOs Sound Off” included a number of CMOs moderated by Winning By Design CEO Megan Heuer. Panelists – Jacqueline Woods, CMO of NielsenIQ, and Heidi Bullock, CMO of Tealium – examined their changing priorities and provided insights into their plans for 2021.
The role of the GMO has changed since the pandemic began, and many companies are placing more emphasis on marketing to guide them through success.
CMOs had to get creative with keeping their teams motivated and marketing up to date despite the overabundance of virtual events, email campaigns, and more. Proper leadership is required to ensure the success of a marketing team, according to Woods.
“Face-to-face marketing is what most B2B companies do to market,” said Woods. “It was the job of the marketing directors to understand how this shift could be made to create environments and experiences that simulate this personal world. As a result, CMOs have become more important. “
Bullock spoke of the importance of staying agile in the coming year as the move from physical to virtual and hybrid formats has forced marketing teams to adapt to the ever-changing expectations and needs of buyers. One of the ways CMOs have adapted is to revamp the interactions between internal teams, encourage marketers to collaborate, and brainstorm to adapt to the buyer’s needs.
“People had to be more agile in their marketing over the past year,” explained Bullock. “The teams that are able to do this become leaders. CMOs needed to be more thoughtful, both externally and internally, determining how to motivate their marketing teams to be more creative and confuse this. “
Woods also emphasized the importance of revising marketing content in 2021. Over the past year, CMOs have made significant strides in creating content that provides actionable insights that buyers can leverage, but the content is still too vague and unrelated.
She explained that CMOs need to focus on delivering relevant storytelling for thought leaders that buyers can identify with, reduce the fluff, and target buyers with specific needs in order to not only educate buyers but also improve the brand’s reputation.
“The only thing that will stand for you is your content,” explained Woods. “There needs to be a deeper connection between the information and the insights you want to offer your customers. Your content must be what attracts people and meets the needs they have or solve for their vulnerabilities. “
Finally, the panel discussed the impact of data on marketing initiatives in 2021, with Bullock citing the different types of third-party and first-party data that CMOs have relied on to understand all aspects of their buyers. CMOs use customer data to gain the insights necessary to not only market their needs and preferences, but also to respond to changes in their behavior.
“The more ways you have access to customer data, the more fully you can see who your buyers are,” said Bullock. “With customer data platforms, we’re really getting closer to that, and the number of sources will only increase. Companies that take this seriously will succeed even if it’s not perfect. “
With both marketers and staff-level executives shifting their focus to improved brand storytelling, it’s clear that B2B marketing is slowly becoming more human. Marketers who empathize with their buyers and who are responsive to their needs, struggles, and goals will not only have stronger buyer relationships, but will also have a greater impact on their entire industry.