B2B audiences crave greater amounts of high-quality information earlier in the buying process
Rapid change and increasing complexity across industries have made investment decisions and purchasing more challenging, with multiple stakeholders involved. As a result, B2B audiences require greater amounts of high-quality information earlier in the buying process and seek it from numerous sources across multiple channels.
Information engagement behaviour is evolving, with a growing appetite for more dynamic and interactive formats. In general, audiences want compelling content that helps educate and inform decisions.
Marketers increasingly struggle to reach and engage target audiences
Furthermore, marketers increasingly struggle to access and engage with specific audiences throughout the buyers’ journey. Targeting the right audience profile that is actively exploring a relevant solution with the appropriate content and messaging is challenging. It is becoming more difficult to capture audience eyeballs and stand out from the crowd, particularly through traditional channels. Marketing budgets are under increasing scrutiny. Marketers need measurable and targeted solutions both to generate demand and produce high-quality leads.
These trends create a significant value opportunity for B2B media providers
There is an increasingly valuable role for B2B media providers, who can access and engage with their audiences through deep knowledge of the industry and multiple direct touchpoints.
B2B media providers can collect and leverage first-party data across different audience sub-segments, enabling marketers to:
- segment their audience to multiple target profiles
- produce more compelling and timely content
- tailor campaigns to each target segment
- time campaigns to audience purchasing intent
- engage with a defined audience segment through a suite of multi-channel marketing solutions.
The advantage of deep industry knowledge, broad industry coverage and a suite of multi-channel lead generation solutions places B2B media providers in a unique and highly valuable role in the B2B information ecosystem.
The value creation potential is significant. Substantial uplift can be achieved in average spend per customer (ARPC), as marketer spend shifts to a higher value, content-led and data-driven solutions. Average spend with large customers can be in orders of magnitude higher as providers adapt their offering to multi-product, multi-channel solutions across multiple audience segments.
How B2B media players can successfully transition to a higher-value business model
Traditional B2B media organizations have an inherent media and advertising sales-driven culture, often with a transactional go-to-market approach. As a result, little attention is paid to audience or the broader strategic marketer’s needs. There tends to be an absence of audience data historically and a lack of ability to collect and process it. Products tend to be individual point solutions rather than integrated solutions across the funnel. The inability to target specific audiences means that these products cannot deliver on outcomes, therefore providing only limited value to the marketer.
Best-in-class B2B media players that have successfully transitioned to higher-value digital solutions tend to go down a tried and tested path that focuses on key development levers:
- Establish a coherent strategy and systematic approach to audience development and content
- Develop custom content creation capabilities
- Optimize the go-to-market approach and sales effectiveness of the organization
- Create a repeatable model that enables growth into audience sub-verticals and new verticals
- Develop higher value outcome-based solutions which address audience and marketer needs
