IF 2020 HAVE TAUGHT US ONE THING, IT IS THE NEED TO QUICKLY ADAPT TO CHANGE AND REINVENT OURSELVES. RESILIENCE HAS BEEN ONE OF THE CANDIDATE WORDS TO BE THE WORD OF THE YEAR. TO CONTINUE GROWING AND IMPROVING THIS 2021 WE HAVE TO APPLY THIS RESILIENCE COMBINED WITH OUT OF THE BOX STRATEGIES. LEARNING FROM THE PAST WE WILL GROW AND BE BETTER IN THE FUTURE, AN INICERT FUTURE BUT SLIGHTLY PROFILED ALREADY. 

The long-awaited 2021 has finally arrived. A part of us longed that with the sound of the 12 chimes, we could erase everything that happened in 2020 with a stroke of the pen and wake up from a dream, a bad dream, like in science fiction movies, or the most  made in Spain  final of the Los Serrano series . I wish it had been like that, I have to confess that when I went out on January 1, I hoped not to come across people with a mask walking around, or a bottle of hydroalcoholic gel waiting for me at the door of any establishment. But it has not been that way. Here we continue, in the same surreal reality that we have been living since March 2020. So, at this point, why don’t we explore the good things that we have learned from this past year, that we will never forget, and what do we use to improve 2021?  

Fear, hope, uncertainty, expectation…. These are some of the feelings that assail us as people facing this new year, and as a company, we cannot help feeling the same. We rely on metrics, data, analysis and forecasts, but the truth is that no one can predict the future … yet. But we can use all the information and experience we have from the past to grow and improve our future. We are going to think  Out of the box , to risk taking on new challenges, to propose different strategies, to take a big leap with our eyes open and lose our fear.  

Trends in B2B Marketing for 2021 

As we have already commented on other occasions, B2C marketing techniques are increasingly applicable in B2B. Brands and their values ​​are increasingly important, they are the vehicle through which to create confidence to make any decision. In addition, the pandemic has created for us the need to connect in a more humane way, to generate stronger interpersonal relationships, based on authenticity and lasting over time.  

We can say that the main trends in B2B marketing for 2021 inherited from 2020 are:  

1.- SEO positioning 

SEO generates traffic. 57% of B2B marketers say SEO generates more leads than any other marketing initiative. Global b2b marketplaces are using SEO to generate leads. SEO is not a new tactic, but it is becoming more and more refined. There are many aspects to take into account to have a good positioning, and offer users relevant and quality content. Being a set of free techniques, anyone can carry them out, but it is not a simple strategy, since it requires a lot of time and knowledge. Some of the aspects to take into account for a good organic positioning are:  

1. Keyword study. It is an essential aspect to which you have to dedicate some time. Know how your users search for you, what is relevant to them and how you want to be found. There are several free tools that can help you in this task, such as Google Keyword Planner  or  SemRush. 
2. Image optimization. Search engines also crawl images for rankings. Adding title and alternative text to the images with the necessary keywords will make the search engine, especially Google, better understand and add to your positioning. 
3. Title, URL and meta description. These 3 elements are the ones that the user first sees when performing a search, therefore, we must try to position the keywords that interest us in these elements. Choose a simple and easy to remember URL with a creative description that puts our company in the  top of mind  of users.  
4. Internal links. When designing our website, we must take into account that internal links will help us improve the usability and navigability of our page. A good structure of internal links will help to achieve a better positioning in SEO, let’s not forget to check the links to check that they are not broken or do not work, since Google penalizes it. 
5. Be responsive. Our page has to adapt to any device, since the majority of users increasingly use the smartphone. We must also take into account the loading speed of the web, if the loading time is slow, we increase the chances of abandoning the page and we lose  leads . 

2.- E-Mailing

If SEO generates traffic, email generates sales. 77% of B2B companies use an email newsletter as part of their content marketing strategy and 79% of B2B marketers consider email to be the most successful channel for content distribution. Active email accounts exceeded 5.6 billion in 2019; In 2020, this has continued to increase, and will do so for the foreseeable future. Millennials prefer business communications to come through email, and they will be the B2B buyers we are trying to reach in the not too distant future. 

3.- Advanced segmentation 

We have been talking for a long time about the need to offer and personalize communications with our different audiences. The more segmented we have our audience, the more we can personalize our messages according to the individual interests of each one. Digital marketing allows us to be able to make these segmentations and present the right message to the right person at the right time.   

We talk about segmentation in everything: in e-mailing campaigns, social networks, advertising, personalized landing pages, product recommendations, online sales … 

4.- Social networks to generate engagement and loyalty.  

In these moments of physical distancing, our window to the world is social media. Through it we connect with other people, we look for products and brands with the same interests as us.  

Developing a good content strategy in social networks, quality and based on  storytelling  will help us to reinforce our brand values ​​and connect in a lasting way with our audience.  

5.- Consolidation of voice searches 

The way people search the Internet is changing significantly in recent years, with more and more voice search being used on tablets, smartphones and voice assistants. Written search is still the main way, but we should not rule out SEO updating our website so that it appears in voice searches.  

And it is that, for the written search you compete to appear in the first positions, but in the voice search, users do not see the entire page of results and then click on the option that interests them the most. In voice search, the user receives only the number one result, the one that Alexa, Siri, Ok Google or Cortana finds first.  

To adapt or develop the SEO of your website to voice search, you have to take into account several factors. On the one hand the intonation and semantics. Technology and Artificial Intelligence will be able to identify the user’s mood. The number of words that we use for a voice search increases, when asking complete questions, therefore,  long-tail keywords become  important. On the other hand, geolocation and Google My Business files are becoming increasingly important, as users search for a product or service in a certain place.  

SEO, e-mail marketing, segmentation or n and strategies contained in social networks are inherited B2B marketing trends in 2020; the Account Based Marketing is the bet m to s innovative and safe to explore in 2021. 

Account Based Marketing as the strategy to follow in 2021 

But without a doubt, if something is going to set the trend in B2B marketing for companies for 2021, it is Account Based Marketing. Account-based marketing is a strategic marketing technique that treats a single account as if it were a single marketplace, which involves identifying and targeting the specific accounts you want to sell to. According to Cepyme news, 60% of companies using account-based marketing (ABM) saw a revenue increase of at least 10% in 12 months, while 1 in 5 companies experienced a 30% revenue increase or more.  

According to the definition of  Sum | The Sales Intelligence Company, the leading B2B Marketing and Sales consultancy in Spain and LATAM, “ABM is the structured execution of our B2B marketing and sales actions through messages and personalized, appropriate and relevant content, for those ideal target accounts, to which that we can help solve their business needs with our value proposition ”.  

Why does the ABM work? In the very definition of SUM we find the key to its success: because it reaches a planned audience, identifying accounts with large clients, without wasting time with misaligned prospects; because it allows you to personalize your message and because it incorporates multiple points of contact, engaging the selected target accounts with consistent marketing that generates conversions.  

What are the benefits of Account Based Marketing  for your company?  

1. The Marketing and Sales Department works in an aligned way. With the ABM, the strategy between marketing and sales is worked together in a more personalized way, so that the effort of the marketing department to get  leads  will generate more conversions translated into sales, eliminating   lower quality leads .  
2. Improves the probability of closing sales on   quality leads . Quality matters, not quantity. The success of a campaign is not measured by the number of  leads  generated, since in many cases they are clicks that we have received for different secondary reasons, not for a direct interest in the purchase. With ABM we get   qualified leads , with whom we will build long-term relationships.  
3. Customers feel better served by offering them a personalized experience. Only highly qualified information is sent to the client and of interest. In addition, since the marketing and sales strategy is aligned, there are no inconsistencies in the messages. 
4. The efficiency of your actions is increased. The ABM is proactive, we are going to look for the target accounts that we know can be clients, we do not wait for them to reach us as in Inbound Marketing. We know what the people who make decisions in companies are like and what they want, that is why our efforts are focused on them, with personalized messages, where we do not spend resources and time on accounts that are not our objective.  

So, we welcome you to 2021, a year from which a lot is expected and a lot will be demanded of you. We are not going to leave you alone, our responsibility is to live up to it, to give everything to go one step further, proposing new strategies, new challenges and new  out of your box experiences.