Top 10 B2B Marketing Trends in 2024

A successful marketing strategy is a game changer for businesses. Surprisingly, according to research, B2B companies are more eager to run a marketing campaign compared to B2C companies. A successful B2B marketing strategy means staying updated with the latest trends in the market.

To help marketing teams and businesses in their marketing efforts, we gathered top 10 B2B marketing trends in 2023.

1- Social media marketing is the #1 channel for B2B and B2C marketers. 

Figure 1. Top marketing channels in 2022, where social media marketing is the leader

Source: HubSpot – State of Marketing Trends Report 2022

Social media has become the number one channel for both B2B and B2C marketers (see Figure 1) due to several reasons:

• Social media platforms offer a vast and diverse audience, with millions of users on platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, allowing businesses to reach a large and varied audience with targeted messaging.
• Social media provides an opportunity for B2B companies to engage directly with their customers, partners, and industry peers through conversations, comments, and shares. This engagement leads to increased brand awareness, loyalty, and trust.
• Social media platforms provide rich data and analytics that allow B2B marketers to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns and optimize their strategies accordingly.

2- Podcasts are turning into popular marketing channels. 

Figure 2. Podcast advertising spending in the United States from 2019 to 2024

Source: Statista

Podcasts have emerged as a popular and effective channel for B2B marketing campaigns in recent years (see Figure 2). With the explosion of the podcast industry, many B2B companies are leveraging this medium to reach their target audience uniquely and engagingly.

According to LinkedIn, 44% of C-Suites, department heads and owners know what a podcast is by listening to podcasts.¹

Podcasts are becoming a popular channel for B2B marketers as they provide an opportunity for businesses to:

• Share thought leadership
• Showcase their products and services
• Connect with potential and existing customers on a deeper level

3- LinkedIn is gaining importance in B2B marketing. 

LinkedIn is not a popular social media platform for everyone as it is a social network focusing only on business. However, for B2B marketers, LinkedIn is the number one social network for lead generation (see Figure 3). According to Gartner, 95% of B2B content marketers use LinkedIn for organic social marketing.² 

Figure 3. Visit-to-lead conversion rate for each social media platform

Source: HubSpot

Insider reports that, according to Microsoft, advertiser demand on LinkedIn has nearly returned to its pre-COVID levels and has shown a 40% increase in 2020 compared to the same period the previous year.³ 

4- Video creation is increasing in B2B marketing strategies. 

With the rise of remote work and virtual events, videos have become an important tool for B2B marketers to connect with their audience and deliver compelling content. In 2022, 35% of marketers reported that they planned to use video in their marketing strategy for the first time.⁴

Videos will be trending in 2023 for various reasons:

• Videos are highly engaging and can capture the attention of the audience quickly. 
• They can also convey complex information in an easy-to-understand format. 
• Videos can be easily shared on multiple platforms, including social media and websites, increasing their reach and potential impact. 

Marketers are using video content mainly for (see Figure 4):

• Driving brand awareness
• Product education
• Driving customer engagement

Figure 4. Distribution of goals for marketers in using video marketing

Source: HubSpot – State of Marketing Trends Report 2022

5- Competition rises in B2B content marketing. 

As the popularity of content marketing continues to grow in B2B, the industry is becoming more competitive. B2B marketers are under increasing pressure to overcome the challenges in their content marketing strategy (see Figure 5), to produce high-quality, targeted content that stands out from the crowd and provides real value to their audience. 

Figure 5. Current content marketing challenges for B2B businesses

Source: Content Marketing Institute

Nevertheless, new technologies like generative AI and data analytics are helping marketers better understand their audience and create more personalized content efficiently. You can learn more from our article on the use of generative AI in marketing.

6- The impact of automation will increase in B2B marketing. 

According to a Deloitte report, just during the pandemic, 77% of chief marketing officers adopted AI technologies to automate repetitive tasks (see Figure 6).⁵ Most probably, the rise of generative AI automation will also be highly effective for automating marketing tasks.

Figure 6. AI automation is the leading change in how CMOs changed their talent models during the pandemic

When executed properly, marketing automation results in: 

• Increased email open rates
• Click-through rates
• Lead generation 

7- Chatbots are becoming an important element in B2B marketing. 

When it comes to converting B2B website visitors into leads and sales, chatbots have become a commonly used marketing channel due to their several benefits and cost-effectiveness (see Figure 7). Chatbots are increasing customer experience as they provide:

• 7/24 service
• Instant response
• Answers to simple questions
• Detailed answers

Figure 7. Potential annual US salary savings created by chatbots

According to a survey done with 800 chief business decision makers, 80% of the respondents reported that they had already implemented or had plans to implement chatbots by 2020.⁶ Gartner estimates that, within 5 years, chatbots will become the primary channel for customer service.⁷

8- Collaboration with influencers is increasing brand awareness.

The pandemic has caused a significant change in consumers’ shopping habits, with most of them now preferring to shop online. Thus, influencers on social media platforms are playing a huge role in shaping consumer choices.

Marketers are aware of this trend. In 2022, 71% of B2B marketers planned to invest more in influencer marketing and will continue to do so in 2023.⁸ Moreover, the budget allocated for influencer marketing is increasing annually (see Figure 8). Influencers will play a significant role for marketing and sales in the future with the rise of digital marketing.

Figure 8. Influencer marketing spending in the US from 2019 to 2023

Source: Shopify

9- Marketing budgets are shifting to digital channels.

Gartner says that, after the pandemic, 72% of the marketing budget is invested in the purely digital channels, including owned digital, paid digital and earned digital.⁹

More traditional channels like partner marketing or event marketing are on the decrease, where digital marketing channels like social media, websites, SEO are on the rise in terms of budget allocation (see Figure 9).

Figure 9. Share of budgets allocated to online marketing according to CMOs worldwide as of March 2022, by channel

Source: Statista

10- Traditional metrics and analytics are transforming.

The changing needs of customers are leading to a transformation in the marketing practices of businesses. As a result, many B2B marketers are altering their traditional analysis and metrics approach to measure and report on marketing performance.

According to Gartner’s estimations, a constant shift from traditional metrics like ROI to new ones such as third party cookies, marketing attribution and customer retention will take place in the future.¹⁰

If you have questions or need help in finding vendors, reach out:

External Links

• 1. “Who listens to podcasts – and why they matter to marketers.” LinkedIn, 12 October 2016, https://www.linkedin.com/business/marketing/blog/linkedin-ads/who-listens-to-podcasts-and-why-they-matter-to-marketers. Accessed 5 March 2023.
• 2. “Top 5 Emerging B2B Software Marketing Trends for 2022.” Gartner, 27 January 2022, https://www.gartner.com/en/digital-markets/insights/b2b-marketing-trends-2022. Accessed 5 March 2023.
• 3. “Microsoft Shows Strong Growth for LinkedIn and Azure in Q3.” Business Insider, 29 October 2020, https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-shows-strong-growth-for-linkedin-azure-in-q3-2020-10?r=US&IR=T. Accessed 5 March 2023.
• 4. “State of Inbound Marketing Trends 2022.” HubSpot, 12 August 2022, https://www.hubspot.com/hubfs/2022_State-of-Inbound-Marketing-Trends_V08122022.pdf. Accessed 5 March 2023.
• 5. “2021 Global Marketing Trends: Find your focus.” Deloitte, https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/insights/us/articles/6963_global-marketing-trends/DI_2021-Global-Marketing-Trends_US.pdf. Accessed 5 March 2023.
• 6. “80% of Businesses Want Chatbots by 2020.” Business Insider, 14 December 2016, https://www.businessinsider.com/80-of-businesses-want-chatbots-by-2020-2016-12. Accessed 5 March 2023.
• 7. “Gartner Predicts Chatbots Will Become a Primary Customer Service Channel Within Five Years.” Gartner, 27 July 2022, https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2022-07-27-gartner-predicts-chatbots-will-become-a-primary-customer-service-channel-within-five-years. Accessed 5 March 2023.
• 8. Supra note 4.
• 9. Supra note 2.
• 10. Supra note 2.