The B2B Barometer Report Analysis - Part 2

Last week, the ABBA and IDM released the second installment of their findings for the B2B Barometer Survey. It does worry me that many marketers still feel they don't need to measure their activity, perhaps this is why a lot of them think they will be increasing their social media spend. In B2B for anyone not selling to techies or marketers, social media is still to prove itself. Marketers have to remember that it is more important to align themselves with the business strategy rather than the latest channel. Don't get me wrong, I love twitter, but I am not targeting the C suite through it - I pick up the phone and meet them. If you had to evaluate the time you had spent on twitter to your FD , what would you say? And what would they say? As a marketing team you must have a clear understanding about what success looks like for you this year, carefully manage expectations, understand exactly what your board expects from you and also be realistic about what is achievable. If you can do this, I think you will have a very good year in 2010.

Key Findings of the B2B Barometer 

• Despite the gloom about the economic situation (around two-thirds of businesses expect the downturn to last for at least a further 12 months) a majority of B2B marketers are confident about the outlook for their own organisation. This suggests a natural resilience on the part of B2B marketers and confidence in their ability to manage their business in challenging times

• New media (primarily website development, email and online advertising) has captured a significant share of B2B marketing budgets and is expected to account for nearly 40% of spend. However, traditional media such as direct mail and trade shows continue to be important. Key challenges facing B2B marketers are to fully leverage their digital capabilities and successful integrate these with the more traditional marketing channels

• Looking ahead to the future there are clear winners and losers in terms of channel or area of spend. Albeit from a low base in terms of current usage, most marketers predict a rapid increase in usage of social media in B2B. A bright future is also predicted for email campaigns, company website and online advertising. By contrast, traditional media such as print advertising is expected to take a hit

• Given pressures on budgets and the increasing requirement for B2B marketers to justify and substantiate marketing investment, one would expect that measurement would play an important role. But this is not always the case, with only half of B2B marketers claiming that they actually measure the return on marketing investment. Where measurement is undertaken a variety of tools are used, many of which are more concerned with sales as opposed to marketing effectiveness

• Key priorities identified by B2B marketers are:
  • strengthening their online presence (especially website content, visibility and interaction and better email marketing);
  • deriving the maximum value from budgets given recent constraints; improved database management; and understanding how best to integrate
    new and traditional media

• As a profession B2B marketers face a number of challenges and opportunities. The industry is definitely maturing and is increasingly recognised as a specialist discipline in its own right. New media has become and will remain relevant in B2B. But there is a sense that marketing still plays a secondary role to sales; B2B marketing practitioners have neglected branding and must pay as much attention to this as their consumer counterparts; but the real prize is the ability of B2B marketers to fully leverage the exciting opportunities in new media

Read more about the B2B Barometer

Commentary by Edward Weatherall.