Here are some of the best B2B online marketing trends and statistics which have been compiled from many websites. I hope that some of my readers who are b2b marketers might find these links interesting.While there might be many sites which i may have missed, I would appreciate if you could send me more b2b resources which would be web marketers. Special thanks to Adam Bache of Socialmedia b2b and Sarah Chong
Usage:
- 86% of B2B firms are using social, compared to 82% of B2C.
- B2B firms aren’t as active in their social media activity with only 32% engaging on a daily basis compared with 52% of B2C firms.
- More than half (53.5%) of marketers surveyed said they currently use social media as part of their marketing strategy. as compared to 45% in 2009
- 81 % of B2B companies have accounts on social media sites compared to 67% of B2C
- 75% of B2B brands participate in Twitter versus 49% of B2C
Forecasts:
- Annual growth in US B2B online marketing is set to reach 14% by 2012. and to $54 million in 2014.
- B2B advertising spend on social media and lead generation sites is to grow at an annualized rate of 21% and 17% respectively in 2013.
- Online accounted for 7% of the B2B marketing mix in 2008. This is set to reach 12% by 2013. (Source)
- Two thirds of B2B marketers believe that online must be complemented by traditional marketing activities. (Source)
- Only 50% of B2B marketers formally analyze metrics to judge ROI – B2B marketing spending on social networking sites is predicted to rise 43.3%. (Source)
Decision Makers Interest:
- 36% of B2B execs surveyed said there was low executive interest in social media in their company, compared with 9% of B2C marketers who said the same. (Source)
- 46% of B2B respondents said social media was perceived as irrelevant to their company, while only 12% of consumer-oriented marketers had the same problem. (Source)
- Eight out of Ten IT decision makers said word of mouth is the most important source when making buying decisions
Focus:
- According to an eMarketer study, B2B online marketers focus on lead generation (38%), retention (34%) and awareness (28%). (Source)
- The top applications for the use of social media for b2b marketers are thought leadership (59.8%), lead generation (48.9%), customer feedback (45.7%) and advertising on sites (34.7%). (Source)
- 93% of B2B buyers use a search engine such as Google to begin the buying process
- 81% of B2B companies maintain company-related accounts or profiles on social media sites versus 67% of B2C
- 75% of B2Bers participate in microblogging (eg. Twitter) versus 49% of B2Cers
- Just 16 of the FTSE 100 companies are using Twitter, despite the fact that 20% of Tweets contain a reference to a product or brand
Distribution Channels:
- Asked to rate the effectiveness of specific social media sites in their marketing efforts, more than one-half of respondents said that
- Facebook was “extremely” or “somewhat” effective. Somewhat fewer said the same of LinkedIn, and just 35% considered Twitter effective.
- In contrast, when Hubspot surveyed B2B companies in North America about lead generation through social channels, 45% rated LinkedIn effective, compared with just 33% who said the same of Facebook.
- Methods generating the highest B2B ROI are topped by advertisers’ own websites, followed by conferences, exhibitions and trade shows; direct mail; search engine keywords; and e-marketing/e-newsletters.
- 7 out of 10 buyers say that they start their buying process at vendor sites, not Google
- 89% of journalists make use of blogs while conducting their online research and 96% turn to corporate websites
Measurement
- 34% of B2B marketers said they were not measuring social success at all versus just 10% of B2C respondents. (Source)
- Website traffic, brand awareness, engagement with prospects and engagement with customers are the leading metrics used to measure the success of social media for B2B companies. (Source)
- 54% of CIOs prohibit use of social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, while at work
Resource Allocation:
- 60% of B2B firms have no staff dedicated to social media compared with 54% of B2C players.
- Just 10% of B2B firms use outside agencies or consultants compared with 28% of B2C firms.
- B2B product marketers were spending an average of 3.4% of their marketing budgets on social media in February 2010, and B2B services marketers were spending 6.5%.
- Within online marketing, the top areas that will see spending increases include Web site development (70.7% plan increases), email marketing (68.6%), search marketing (62.3%), social media (60.3%), video (50.7%) and webcasts (46.0%)
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