B2B opens the 'Pandora's box' of digital

That business-to-business (B2B) companies would shift into digital spending and away from events and other channels during the pandemic was to be expected, but Jon Miller of Demandbase is surprised at the resilience of that spending. 

What it means

Demandbase is a targeting and personalisation platform for B2B companies, and at the recent B2B World Fest, Miller reported that even as people were beginning to think about in-person events again, he didn’t see any decrease in the growth of digital spending.

“Once we opened up [the] Pandora's Box of digital and people saw that this can work – I don’t think it’s going back,” he said. 

The challenges and opportunities

• A growing number of signals that indicate buying interest and intent are happening off the Demandbase website which makes it harder to identify those leads and accounts that are sales ready; new tools and technology are needed.
• B2B has certain advantages over business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing in that the focus can be on the account rather than an individual. That allows marketers to do things that don't require cookies or personally identifiable information. 
• While better accounts intelligence will inform greater relevance and automation in digital marketing activity it’s important not to neglect the human touch – which could be as simple as a personalised email.

Final thought

“Things that don’t scale stand out, and, especially for valuable accounts, that makes an impact” – Jon Miller, chief marketing and product officer at Demandbase.