The last decade has brought many changes to the world of B2B marketing. A slow shift to a more digital marketing environment has been slowly chipping away at the traditional B2B marketing face-to-face interactions taking place at trade shows, and in-office visits. The effects of the global pandemic have only served to accelerate the culture shift within the marketing industry as a whole.

The current state of B2B marketing is still rolling along with one foot in the traditional and one foot in the new digital world, however, the balance is likely to shift towards a more web-based focus over the coming years. The dominant B2B marketing trends rising to the surface for 2023 illustrate this common theme of integrating traditional relationship and reputation-building techniques into a fast-paced and competitive digital environment.

Let’s take a look at some of the top B2B brand-building trends developing now.

Values-Based Marketing

Today, clients have a vast amount of choices in the brands that they choose to partner with. Competition is fierce, and often the difference between choosing to partner with one brand over another comes down to the synergy between the core values expressed by the brand and the client’s own value system. Values-based marketing takes this important factor into account by integrating the brand’s values into the marketing campaign in a significant way. This means shining a spotlight on the various ways that your brand has incorporated the values that you hold.

Showcase your brand’s sustainability efforts, or highlight the inclusive nature of your day-to-day operations to make sure that your brand is exhibiting its strong values in an authentic and tangible manner.

Omnichannel Marketing

Over the past several years there has been a marked increase in remote or hybrid work. The global pandemic served to accelerate the move to more flexible work environments. While the waning public health risk has prompted a return to in-office work, many have opted to continue to work from remote locations at least part of the time.

For those in the B2B world, this shift means that you will need to diversify your efforts to ensure that you are able to reach your target audience wherever they may be working. The adoption of an omnichannel marketing approach may mean creating engaging video content or scheduling zoom calls to establish that personal connection with remote decision-makers.

Research-Based Marketing

While there is much focus on the latest and greatest innovative marketing tools and techniques, the tried and true research-based marketing techniques still deserve a place at the table. With so much effort spent on the wow factor of marketing, a strong data-driven B2B marketing campaign can help your brand find consistent success.

There are several core benefits to incorporating a data-driven approach into your B2B marketing plan.

Target Your Ideal Audience

By taking the time to identify your ideal audience you’re better able to direct your core efforts to reach the specific decision-makers who are most likely to be interested in your product or service. The data can help you to identify, and locate these ideal clients, and discover their core pain points and interests so that your marketing campaign is able to meet your audience where they are.

Hone Your Message

Once you have narrowed your focus to target your ideal clients, you can then create a variety of potential marketing campaigns and test these on a small percentage of the audience to see which campaigns produce the best response. This vital information will allow you to fine-tune your marketing efforts, saving you time and money, and maximizing your positive results.

Thinking Outside The Box

B2B marketing has always required an ability to think outside the box to find new and innovative ways to stand out from the crowd and convince busy decision-makers that your message is worth a listen. This has not changed, however, it has become more challenging to come up with new messaging techniques to wow your audience.

Podcasts, live streams, and virtual events were once considered cutting-edge and are now considered the industry norm. Marketers looking to impress today will need to seek out new tools, or find ways to use old tools in a new way.

Many innovative marketers are looking to connect with their audience using well-written, well-researched, and informative long-form content delivered to their target audience through existing tools like LinkedIn Document Ads, Facebook Ads, and on trade forums. This written content should be useful and engaging while cleverly incorporating the marketer’s message or brand information to help build brand recognition, and establish authority without bombarding your audience with an overt advertising pitch.

Immersive Marketing

When it comes to innovative B2B marketing trends, immersive marketing is definitely leading the pack. Immersive marketing engages your audience’s senses on multiple levels to fully connect individuals with your brand. There are several effective tools to help you develop a truly immersive brand experience for your potential clients.

Virtual Immersion

There are a variety of tools at your disposal that can be used to create immersive virtual experiences for your audience. Consider creating a detailed and engaging product demonstration video that takes your viewer through the unboxing or setup of your product and demonstrates its best features and most useful functions. Virtual reality and interactive web tools will allow your audience to fully engage by allowing them to manipulate and explore a virtual rendering of your product.

Physical Immersion

Just as the name implies, physical immersion allows your audience to touch, taste, smell, or see your product using their own physical senses. This could mean creating a product demonstration, allowing clients to see and experience your product in action, either in your office space, a rented event space, or in the client’s own office.

Personalized Immersion

Personalized immersion brings an extra sensory experience into the equation by engaging the client’s emotions. Personalized demonstrations and product samples and giveaways tailored specifically to each client’s unique preferences or needs help them to connect with your brand on a personal level and assist them in envisioning how your product or service fits into their specific business environment.

Building your Brand in 2023

If there is one core takeaway when it comes to successful B2B brand building in 2023, it would have to be the absolute value of building the human-to-human relationship with your clients. Mix and match the various trends and techniques presented in this post to help establish a solid personal and professional connection between your brand and your potential business partners and watch your business soar.