For the ninth consecutive year, Advancement, marketing services agency specializing in B to B, and the Tech Marketers Club (CMIT) present the results of their B to B marketing barometer. This study focuses on the choices of marketers, in the information technology sector (IT) especially, to the privileged media in their plans, to the trend of their budgets, the place of CSR and AI in their strategy.
“This new edition confirms the preponderance of essential media such as e-mailing and social networks, and the emergence of AI and CSR in B to B operations”, underlines Laurent Azières, associate director of Adelanto. First of the five trends to remember from the B to B marketing barometer : if general management and purchasing have priority for non-IT sectors, it is the IT and general management couple that remains the No. 1 target for Tech marketing decision-makers. Thus 262 respondents, operating in all sectors except IT, target CEO populations, CEO and manager (40,5 %), purchasing departments (39,3 %) and commercial departments (34,4 %). The 111 respondents from the Tech sector, as far as they are concerned, announce that they are targeting IT functions at 71,2 %, CEO, CEO and manager at 57,7% and purchases at 45%.
LinkedIn, first social network
Second trend : the LinkedIn tidal wave which is confirmed on social networks. The top 5 social networks favored by marketing decision-makers change between Tech sectors and other sectors. For Tech, LinkedIn comes out on top with 98%, followed by YouTube (52,5 %), Twitter (36,4 %), Facebook (13,1 %) and Instagram (13,1% also). For other sectors, LinkedIn is still in the lead (94,3 %), followed by YouTube (43,2 %), Instagram (41 %), Facebook (35,2 %) and Twitter (22 %). Third trend : a balance between online and account-based marketing *. on the choice of B to B actions. In the Tech sector, more than 95% of marketers say they choose sending emails as their actions, participation in events, content creation, the organization of webinars or the use of account based marketing *. No big difference to note in other sectors.
Return events
Fourth trend : events are back in marketing strategies. “The events, after being absent from strategies for obvious health reasons, are making their comeback. We feel a real desire to get together to exchange and do business together. Also this year, we see the tidal wave caused by CSR in B to B marketing strategies. It’s a safe bet that this trend is a real groundswell rather than a vague surface trend.”, observe Laëtitia Baret (CMIT). Tech marketing decision-makers have, it seems, a different view of the actions that generate the most ROI**. Indeed, these ranked in their top 3 : the lounges (59,4 %), search whether paid or natural (45,8 %) and finally the corporate website and webinars, tied (41,7 %). In other sectors, events stay in mind (52,8 %), social media following (48,2 %) and e-mailings (40,9 %).
The cost of leads
Fifth trend : more expensive leads for Tech marketers. While 35,5% of marketing decision-makers, all sectors combined, do not know how to estimate the cost of their leads, they are only 24% in this case in Tech. The cost of the lead seems higher in Tech since 60% of decision-makers who know how to evaluate its cost in this sector estimate it at more than 100 euros (40% estimate it at this price in other sectors).
Survey carried out between March and April 2023, in which 451 decision-makers participated, including 117 from the IT and telecom sector.
* Account based marketing : key account marketing.
** ROI : return on investment.
*** Lead : first commercial contact showing interest in a company.
