Five Clear Trends in B2B Communication 2024

From repetitive messages to authentic stories

It’s easy to get stuck in static messages. You want to convey your advantages and think that the clearer you do so, the more engaging your communication will be. The problem is just that it risks becoming quite repetitive. Just as your brain can stop listening to a constant noise in the background, the recipient stops paying attention to what you say.

Therefore, the trend in B2B communication is moving towards focusing on authentic stories instead. By highlighting your advantages in a human context, you create both recognition and engagement. It’s usually called storytelling but is really not so much about stories as dramatizing an advantage in a relatable way. Messages are all well and good, but it’s easier to remember a scene than a change of lines.

From AI alienation to human emotions

As is well known, there is a lot of talk about AI, and in marketing contexts, it’s largely about being able to create personalized communication. Everything from replacing customer service with chatbots and email messages tailored for the recipient. This obviously creates great opportunities but also has a downside. Because in a world where more and more is automated and robotized, the feeling of genuineness also disappears.

Just as the increasing digitalization has led to a counter-reaction where people are increasingly demanding the tactile – the print item, the human meeting, and the physical experience, the human feeling is still important. In the future, when more and more interactions are automatically generated, the genuine experience becomes more important than ever. It speaks for that online-based communication, even in the future, will need to be complemented with human meetings, trade fair presence, and physical events.

From number games to real identification

Numbers are often considered an effective way to highlight advantages. Especially within B2B communication, it always feels good when you can prove that something is 25% more efficient or has an ROI of three years. At the same time, numbers are something that speaks to the rational part of the brain, a part that is rarely involved in decision-making (even if we like to think so). Therefore, juggling with numbers is not enough.

That’s the reason the trend is now moving towards creating real identification. Finding the individual cases, stories, and arguments that really speak to the recipient and their situation. To create a genuine bond with the target group and show an understanding of their challenges and concerns.

From micro-influencers to corporate ambassadors

First, there was a lot of talk about influencers and Key Opinion Leaders. Companies paid for them to highlight their brands in front of a large following. Then the trend moved towards micro-influencers, people who were big within their niche even if they might not have hundreds of thousands of followers. But the relationship was still commercial.

Now, the trend is instead moving towards trying to take advantage of so-called corporate ambassadors. These are people who voluntarily use the company’s products or services and thus have a genuine relationship with the brand. Since the relationship between them and the company is not commercial, it creates significantly more credibility. Take advantage of them by inviting them to nuances or as participants in groups to evaluate new products already at the planning stage. This increases their incentive to promote the company’s products, for example, on social media.

From one size fits all to personalization and trust

Marketing has long meant broad, sweeping advertising campaigns that target everyone. The messages have been relatively generic and thus difficult to make relevant for the individual. Social media has in one way created greater opportunities for diversification and segmentation, but it’s still relatively blunt.

The trend is therefore moving towards increased personalization to be able to build trust at the individual level. Account Based Marketing via LinkedIn is one way to work, and which has been popular for a number of years now, but regardless of the method, it means that companies focus more on identifying, engaging, and converting the most valuable and relevant corporate customers. It can involve real-time updated websites, segmented landing pages, interaction-based newsletters, and ads that show different content for different accounts and decision-makers, based on their geographical, demographic, and behavioral data.