On June 17, B2B Marketing’s annual summit took place at The Brewery in London… and what an event it was! Having been lucky enough to get a ticket to the sold-out show, I heard a multitude of fantastic speakers over the course of the day-long event. Staying primarily within the confines of the content ‘stream’ of proceedings, I ventured into another room only once to check out the day’s first speakers on multi-channel marketing. The event was an unforgettable experience and one which provided insights that’ll I’ll be implementing and developing for the next 12 months.

For those of you who couldn’t make the event, here’s some key findings from the talks I attended…

• The future of marketing in our industry is less about B2B and more about P2P according to Annabel Rake, CMO of Deloitte. She went on to say that customer centricity is becoming even more important, and to take advantage of this development it’s necessary to understand buyers like never before. Using personas to create an integrated multi-channel approach is now the go-to move.
• During their talk on multi-channel marketing, Giles Peddy, UK Director of Lewis PR and James Smee, Co-Founder, Purestone touched on some major changes in the way decision-makers buy. Firstly, they reported that 40% of people do research during their commute to and from work, typically 6 decision-makers will be involved in each buying process, and 70% of people will do a branded search. They then went on to discuss how the future of targeted marketing will rely on dynamic landing pages that offer the right message to the right person in the right way.
• Heather Chesley, the Marketing Manager at RM Results and Jennifer Reid, the Director of The CommsCo used their speaking opportunity to discuss the work they did on brand repositioning. Their findings included maintaining consistency across multiple channels, clarifying what your company wants to be known for, and using test campaigns before going widespread with an idea. They also highlighted the inherent benefits of using video testimonials from existing clients to show how the product or service changes lives.
• In their case study talk, Sally Pritchett, the Co-owner of Something Big and Katy Starling, the Marketing Communications Manager for DHL Express UK covered some fascinating content marketing tactics. Firstly they talked about the use of social media (a channel that was underutilised when their campaign started back in 2010), partnering with established bodies to gain deeper insight, and using in-house experience and expertise to inform marketing and sales. They also talked about the importance of value added content and buyer’s love of seeing ‘behind the scenes’ footage in marketing materials.

• In one of the highlights of the day, Catherine Toole, the Chairman of Sticky Content provided her best practice tips for landing pages. Along with traditional advice like ‘be engaging’, she delved much deeper and discussed factors such as the 4 pillars of persuasion (attraction, timely, social and easy). In addition to her own experience and expertise, Catherine also provided numerical evidence to highlight how important some of the best practice tips were. For example, a positive approach in messaging can increase conversions by 20% and testimonials can improve landing page conversions by 34%.

This event is a must for any B2B marketer so be sure to keep your eyes peeled for details of next year’s summit. In the meantime, for more insights on B2B marketing…