L'article
While lead generation has long dominated marketing efforts to the detriment of branding, decision-makers seem to be realising that brand awareness is the main driver of a company’s sales performance.
Because it helps to anchor the brand in the minds of the target audience, whether they have an urgent need or not, working on brand awareness is guarantee of a healthy pipeline over the long term. How do French companies intend to do this in 2024? Here’s how…
Content for brand awareness in B2B: What trends in 2024?
More than 70% of prospects prefer to discover brands they are not yet familiar with through useful content rather than direct advertising[i].
Therefore, content marketing lies at the heart of branding and brand awareness efforts. French B2B decision-makers have recognized this fact.
💡​According to our study on B2B marketing department investments in 2024, the overwhelming majority (80%) of companies plan to invest in content creation to generate leads and build brand awareness, with a peak among industrial firms (90%) and the tech sector (87%). These technical sectors require significant amounts of educational content and expertise.
This year again, marketers will focus on a diversified range of formats, including:
1. Sharp and rigorous content to resonate with an audience of professionals who are increasingly well-informed and demanding. Ebooks, white papers, in-depth articles, and interviews are used to showcase the company’s expertise and provide value to its audience.
2. More playful, digestible, and entertaining formats to encourage engagement and promote sharing on social networks. Even brands operating in historically “conservative” sectors will likely need to embrace producing videos and infographics, at least for two reasons:
- 64 % of B2B buyers are millennials or belong to Generation Z. They have grown up with digital technologies and expect a certain level of “entertainment” in the content they consume, without compromising on the value and utility it provides ;
- According to LinkedIn, 87 % of surveyed B2B buyers, agree that content can be both intellectually rigorous and easy to consume in format.
Social Media: convert and anchor the brand message
In 2024, eight out of ten marketing departments (79%) will continue to focus on social media, particularly LinkedIn, to engage with their audience, whether it’s for:
- Convincing and converting the 5% of their target audience seeking an immediate or short-term solution to their issue;
- Anchoring the brand and its message in the minds of 95% of the audience who will be seeking a solution to their issue in the coming weeks, months, or even years. To delve deeper into this topic, we recommend reading our article: LeadGen vs. Branding B2B: The 95-5 Rule, or the Aston Martin Theory.
In a quest for ROI, marketing departments will likely approach social media channels with a snacking perspective, adapting existing content such as articles and white papers into more digestible formats like carousel infographics, visual quotes, short videos, LinkedIn newsletters, etc.
The rise of co-branded sponsored posts
In March 2024, LinkedIn announced a revamp of its sponsorship system. Now, brands can sponsor posts published by third parties, even if they are not published by their own page or their employees. We will likely witness the rise of co-branded sponsored posts, whether with influencers or specialized media with large audiences.
Email marketing remains essential in the marketing toolkit
In 2024, the email marketing ecosystem has seen tightened regulations governing mass campaigns, notably with Google (Gmail) and Yahoo (Yahoo Mail) lowering spam thresholds.
As demonstrated since the democratization of the web, enthusiasm for email marketing is rarely impacted by technological and regulatory changes. It remains an indispensable pillar in the marketer’s toolkit, whether for prospecting, lead nurturing, or brand building.
According to our investment study, 72% of marketing departments will conduct email campaigns in 2024, with a peak of 84% among mid-sized enterprises (ETIs).
Webinar, a high-valued format
While it exploded during the pandemic, the enthusiasm for webinars has never really waned since. It must be said that this format checks all the right boxes in B2B:
- With its competitive and easily measurable ROI, a webinar typically brings in over four times its cost;
- The format is accessible to all budgets: technically, all that’s needed is a 720-pixel webcam and a good headset;
- It’s an excellent format for repurposing and highlighting existing content;
- On average, a webinar lasts 42 minutes. Rarely does a company get such a quality opportunity to spend extended time with its audience to demonstrate expertise, increase visibility, and gauge market sentiment;
- Beyond the live event, depending on the relevance of the topic to current events, the webinar’s lifespan can be extended through replays;
- Webinars are also powerful lead generators. An average webinar in 2023 generated between 27 and 228 qualified leads, providing the company with immediately actionable information (contact details, interests, specific needs, etc.).
Therefore, it’s logical that more than half of marketing departments (51%) will organize webinars in 2024, with a peak of 73% in the tech and software sectors, particularly to pursue demo requests.
Display and Contextual Advertising on Affinity Media
The imminent disappearance of third-party cookies is steering advertisers towards contextual advertising, displayed on websites that cover topics closely related to or similar to their industry. Specifically:
- Third-party cookies enabled behavioural advertising, which involved collecting granular data to track a user’s behaviour from one website to another. Based on their browsing history and purchase intentions, ads would be displayed to them that align with their interests. The placement of these ads was arbitrary; for example, a user might see CRM ads on a football website simply because they had previously researched CRM solutions.
- With the disappearance of cookies in 2024, brands will shift towards contextual advertising. Ad placements are now themed: users will only see CRM-related ads on websites specifically focused on CRM or related topics.
In 2024, one in three marketing departments (33%) will convey their message through display campaigns on websites massively frequented by their audience.
Market research, a direct lever to gauge the market
Faced with a deluge of unstructured data about their market, marketing departments will explore more direct methods to survey their customers and prospects and better guide their efforts.
To gain unequivocal insights into key themes such as brand awareness, brand perception, or the impact of a post-campaign, companies will seek to create proprietary data through online market research, as it is more flexible and easier to deploy.
đź”— To go further: our interview with Virginie Mollet-Bauer, Client Director for Studies at Infopro Digital Media.
[i] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/role-content-marketing-driving-brand-awareness-pwa-media/