If you read my last post, which spurred this follow-up post, then you know that you have nine business days to get your B2B marketing plan done for 2015. Get on it, slow guy. Like now.
While the discussion of the five content marketing trends that should fuel your B2B marketing plan was an active one, it was limited to content-driven marketing. Yes, content should be a major part of your 2015 marketing plan, but it’s not the be-all and end-all for many organizations.
So let’s go broader. Here are the five somewhat-misunderstood B2B marketing trends that everyone ought to be paying attention to in the planning process.
1. Truly Integrated Marketing: Not Social. Not Content. Not Search. All of Them. Together.
For a while there, companies were disproportionately focused on search marketing. And then, they were focused on social media marketing. Next, content marketing. All with a little mobile mixed in.
What in the hell ever happened to the old marketing mix, where everything was supposed to fit together? It’s as if the Internet bubble (all eight of them) turned marketers and business strategists into sheep. Follow the proven formula, and you will be safe, Mister or Miss Marketeer.
Fortunately, it seems that brands, both mainstream and independent (a nicer way of saying “small”), have finally recognized the power of truly integrated, online-meets-offline, digital-meets-print, let’s-make-it-all-hum-together “campaigns.”
It’s about f-ing time.
My suggestion: Go old school. One message. Multiple mediums and formats.
If you’re at a loss for how to do this, take a look at what Airbnb is doing with integrated campaigns. This is not JUST content marketing, people.
