According to a recent study conducted by the agency 93x with the FINITE community, techno marketers (martech) believe that the channels that have grown in importance during COVID-19 are webinars, SEO and emails.
Not surprising, you might say? Indeed, at least with regards to webinars and other forms of martech channels, such as live events on the Web like Facebook LIVE.
That’s a good thing because we’re doing a survey that deals with the same subject.
In fact, we’ll ask you what content is your favorite in these pandemic times and, which channels you prefer.
This survey is available HERE.
Getting back to the study of US tech marketers, I have to give credit to Ayaz Nanji, an associate at MarketingProfs.
He was the one who published an initial analysis of the study and drew my attention to the results.
Interesting results in B2B
The results were very interesting because they focus on martech in B2B more specifically. And beyond the webinars, what surprises me a little is the resurgence of emails and to some extent, newsletters.
It seems that the Pandemic has revealed a certain “fatigue” of professionals but also, of their clients towards everything that comes from the media and social networks.
Let us turn again to more traditional channels and tools. In fact, our neighbors to the south confirm this:
This is their second biggest concern, the second biggest challenge of 2021, just behind the balance between quality and quantity in terms of content.
«Harder to cut through the noise»
If you read the MarketingProfs study or analysis, it’s clear that this pandemic has pushed companies to turn to the Web and therefore, move away from traditional B2B marketing channels.
Exit face-to-face or “presentations” (I don’t like the word), etc.
«Next, ‘digital fatigue’ received 43.8% of the votes, indicating that a year of everything being digital is taking its toll on engagement and making it harder to cut through the noise. »
Is this why e-mails and newsletters are coming back for many faced with the difficulty of making a place for themselves and engaging potential customers with LinkedIn or Facebook?
Well, it reminds me of 2015 and a certain eBook that we published. To access it, click on the image :
In short, more than 70% of respondents said they had experienced a “digital PTSD” in 2020!
You can read the text in the picture but it’s worth putting it in quotes:
«Lots of feedback we’ve had from marketers has been that ‘digital fatigue’ has become more of a problem over the last few months. From falling digital engagement numbers, to lower webinar turnout as the year progressed.
While we initially saw a surge in engagement off the back of everyone spending more time at their computers, this seems to have gradually been in decline since.
In a world where every business has been investing in digital, it seems as though it’s harder to stand out from the crowd. Quality of content and uniqueness of digital experience are more important than ever.»
The last bold sentence joins the first challenge identified in this study: the right balance between the quantity and quality of content.
Events and websites
In closing this blog, I would be remiss if I did not highlight two of my “chouchous” martech channels that are also mentioned in the study: events and websites.
In the case of events, I wrote about their future in a blog last year.
Just to mention that according to the interviewees, 65% of them believe that virtual events will always be part of their marketing strategy this year.
We are still a long way from the return of traditional events and shows as I mentioned in my blog last year.
Instead, we are seeing the emergence (love that word ) of a hybrid form for events and not just in marketing.
Surprisingly for some and not for others, traditional and/or transactional websites are more than ever part of the B2B marketing toolbox.
Let’s keep it in writing!
In post scriptum: An interesting and especially very recent post on the “saturation of content” written by Michael Brenner on the Blog of Marketing Insider Group
A must read : https://marketinginsidergroup.com/content-marketing/is-it-really-possible-to-create-10x-content-anymore-how/
A less recent one by Mark Schaefer on «Content Shock» written in 2019 on his blog : https://businessesgrow.com/2019/01/07/how-to-use-content-shock/
