From trenches to the boardroom: How B2B services marketing evolved during the pandemic and is now integral in strategy and growth

Cliched though it may sound, but ‘change is the only constant.’ A couple of years ago, we experienced this in an unprecedented manner. The pandemic affected everything from our individual lives to businesses and even entire governments. As “digital” became the primary mode of communication and transaction, companies began focusing on increasing the share of digital and digitally enabled offerings. A recent report revealed that the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital enablers by seven years. Like most other functions, the sudden, mass shift from physical to digital mode of operations placed tremendous pressure on marketing to play a critical role of a chief storyteller to the external world. Marketers today need to approach reaching out to potential customers as they would seven years into the future. For marketing practices, the next truly is now.

Harnessing the Potential of Key Drivers

Existing and emerging technologies are paving the way for the digital and virtual to sufficiently substitute the real and physical. This led to the emergence of a new normal where the physical and the digital realms have overlapped to give rise to everything ‘phygital’. However, in this changed paradigm, vying for the target audience’s attention has become increasingly difficult amidst growing number of devices, platforms, and connections per person. The transitions that have occurred in the past two years or so have rendered many of the traditionally viable marketing techniques and channels void.

As a result, in 2022 and the near future, B2B service marketers will witness an ever-growing need to propel larger business operations in the current environment by harnessing the following trends:

Metaverse

Over the years, marketing evolved to become a means to provide relevant and contextual communications, hyper-personalized interactions, and omnichannel experience. Today, however, it has gone several notches higher. Increasingly realistic and augmented experience is what consumers want. And marketers must heed. The emergence of the metaverse – a virtual, immersive, inclusive counterpart of the real world – is paving a path towards such a future. Featuring markets, industries, and institutions, like in the real world, the metaverse will support all sorts of transactions we do in the physical realm. The promise of metaverse is visible on the horizon considering that nearly two-third of the Generation-Z consumers have spent some amount on virtual assets.

Gamification

People retain 90% of the information they acquire through some kind of gamified source while only 20% of what they hear and 10% of what they read. Understandably, gamification is quickly becoming the marketers’ favorite child. The best thing about gamification in the B2B sectors is that its effectiveness does not hinge on the material value of the reward. Irrespective of their age, consumers indulge in a gamified experience even if there is just a nominal memento or certificate on the line. A survey revealed that up to  97% of the workforce aged above 45 claimed improvement in the quality due to gamified activities.

Social Media 2.0

We’ve been experiencing the age of social media for about two decades now. Businesses have used them to reach and educate their prospects, convert them into customers, retain them, and, eventually, turn them into brand advocates. The shift that has become prominent in the last couple of years is the social platforms’ inclusivity and their attempt to offer end-to-end experience. Through integrations and collaborations, social media platforms are turning more into ecosystems, which calls for a rethinking of the social media marketing strategy for the near future.

Social media 2.0 is all about how differently you use various platforms to tell your story. It’s about being extremely focused, creating storytellers within the organization and simplifying the message which goes out, and bringing about inclusivity to various ecosystem partners.

A Revolution to Reckon

I will delve deeper into each of the technological advancements and evolution from the marketing perspective in my follow-up blog posts. For now, let’s just say that a revolution is underway. And this revolution has pushed several best practices into obsolescence and carved out many new avenues for marketing and other business functions to the extent that it has even redefined the 4 Ps of marketing. The way I see it, it is no longer production, pricing, placement, and promotion. Today, the 4 Ps stand for productization, personalization, partnerships, and purpose. I shall elaborate my take on this radical idea in another blog post.

The recent disruptions in the marketing landscape have brought in ample opportunities for the services industry. The time is now for marketers in this industry to reimagine their strategies and leverage the emerging ‘phygital’ ecosystem for a profoundly different marketing impact.