Guest Post By Chris Willocks, Head of Strategy, Digital Radish 

Chris Willocks is no stranger to trendspotting. It’s his bread and butter as Head of Strategy at Digital Radish (one of the UK’s leading creative marketing agencies for B2B brands).

Part of what makes Digital Radish’s campaigns so successful is being able to spot an opportunity before their client’s competitors and put an original spin on it. That’s why we asked Chris to share with Worldwide Partners the five B2B trends that will be *really* important for marketers in 2024 (the ones that will change our day-to-day working lives).

1. Real ESG driven by greenwashing fatigue

With brands such as Starbucks and Innocent Smoothies1 having been pulled up on their green credentials last year, many people are growing increasingly distrustful of any brand making unsubstantiated green claims.

Greenwashing fatigue is fuelling the need for brands to be actively committed to a green agenda. Planting trees alone is not enough.

It's predicted that by 2025, millennials will make up 75% of the workforce. And they are prepared to switch brand allegiances if they feel a business isn't making a positive contribution to society.

What does that mean for B2B?

This environmentally and socially conscious attitude is naturally carrying through to the B2B buyer. Seventy-six per cent of decision-makers believe companies should do more to communicate their ESG commitments publicly, leaving many in B2B to consider how exactly to do this. 

Ultimately, being able to communicate a brand’s ESG position, in a genuine way, is key to building credibility. But this is only possible if a brand is actually active in doing something that will have a positive impact on society – no activity, no story.

2. Properly original content (in style and substance)

Thought leadership is far from dead – it’s still a powerful way to engage with B2B buyers, with 53% of B2B marketers saying they would increase their investment in thought leadership content in 2024. But, when you consider only 17% of decision-makers9 would call the content they consume “very good” or “excellent”, it’s clear that marketers can do better.

So what’s in?

E-books, videos and whitepapers are still the go-to for B2B marketers. But people want more: content that engages them through storytelling, provides useful solutions and creates entertaining experiences. Brands are increasingly using 360-degree videos,  Virtual Reality, interactive content platforms and gamification to create immersive experiences.

Specialised research tools are also helping marketers create meaningful thought-leadership content faster. Take Wynter or Pollfish, for example, which enable marketers to build surveys for small pulse tests, and deliver insight at speed.

3. B2B personalisation that’s as good as B2C

Personalisation in B2B sales can lead to 1.4x revenue growth, so it’s clear the more a brand can personalise the B2B buyer journey, the greater the rewards are.

But the journey isn’t linear. And 95% of B2B customers are not in the market for your services right now. That means two things for personalisation:

• Focus on your trigger strategy

Marketing is shifting from a linear outbound approach to a series of rules and trigger-based scenarios to build better personalisation and relevance, the kind that people experience in B2C. For example, web visitors to key pages, webinar participants and content downloads are all intent triggers that can prompt a relevant, personalised marketing response.

• Get creative

It's worth highlighting here the Sainsbury’s #checkYouOut campaign that told every Nectar card member their shopping habits, like being the number-one buyer of Celebrations chocolates in London. Or Spotify, who used tailored songs and music to individual CMOs’ tastes and achievements to raise awareness of its Advertising platform.

4. Technology for inclusivity

Technology plays a crucial role in dismantling barriers and creating opportunities to empower individuals with unique needs. For example, 80% of people feel more included in the metaverse than in real life.

It’s not just the simple ability to create diverse avatars that will help fuel more inclusivity. The ability to provide control interfaces for users unable to use conventional keyboards will make a practical as well as emotional impact.

At Digital Radish we've seen first-hand how empowering the metaverse has been. Over several weeks, the team took VR headsets to Great Ormond Street Hospital to help give patients, including some non-mobile patients, the chance to discover worlds beyond the hospital doors, encouraging movement, play and creativity. 

It's also worth noting the success of MouthPad, which won the Innovation Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity with their ‘intra-oral’ device, which uses machine learning to translate tongue movements on the roof of the user’s mouth into instructions for Bluetooth-connected devices.

5. AI as an enhancer

2024 will be the year that marketers will use AI in their everyday workflow to enhance what they do, accelerating creativity, knowledge and productivity. Take Metaview AI as an example; it automates note-taking and captures call details instantly, summarising key information so you can discover underlying insights from interviews.

The big social platforms are also unrolling AI technology in a big way, aiming to enhance ad creation and targeting. Google Ads, for example, now provides users with several AI-powered features, most intriguingly automatically created assets and a keyword generator that draws insight from conversational user input. 

How to take the next step with AI

Prompt engineering is an exciting growth area worth keeping a close eye on as a skillset that marketers can use to effectively train AIs – from chat apps to image generators – to be accurate and effective.

A useful way to think about marketers' relationship with AI this year is to imagine a reporter sitting down with a reluctant interviewee. Only by asking the right questions and having some prior knowledge will marketers unlock access to an uncharted space that fuels creativity and unprecedented insight.

AI’s practical application still has its limitations. But it's understanding these while working out how it can make your job easier and faster that’s going to really change things. Some other great AI tools you could use right now include:

• AskYourPDF and Link Reader plugins summarise long PDFs, websites and video interviews

• Visily quickly mocks up wireframes you’ve sketched out

• Lately learns your brand’s voice and optimises social messages for your audience

• AdCreative.ai creates multiple variants of an ad for different channels

Though a lot of the concepts under discussion may be familiar to marketers to one extent or another, there are now mature, established tools and processes in place to execute ideas more effectively than ever. For those willing to take risks and innovate, it will be a really exciting year. 

Learn more about Digital Radish, and follow them on LinkedIn or Instagram.