Where You Should Invest Your 2022 B2B Marketing Budget

We discuss the areas you should be looking to invest your marketing budget to help your business succeed in 2022.

It’s once again time to agree on your B2B marketing budgets for the 22/23 financial year. Once you have an agreed figure, you can begin to plan out your strategy and decide on where to invest.

According to one survey, many companies allocate on average 11.3% of their company budget to marketing. This has fallen slightly over the last few years, so you want to ensure you are investing in activities most likely to generate a return.

With various restrictions caused by the pandemic, the need to invest in a stronger digital strategy has been vital. Even in 2022, due to hybrid working, and shifting working habits, this has remained an important area to invest in.

Therefore, you should allocate a significant proportion of your B2B marketing budget towards digital activities to remain competitive.

So, the question is, when it comes to your B2B marketing budget, where are you investing your money this year?

We discuss the areas you should be looking to invest your marketing budget to help your business succeed in 2022.

Content marketing

Did you know that 72% of marketers intend on increasing their content marketing budget in 2022?

If you aren’t prioritising content marketing within your 2022 B2B marketing budget, then you should reconsider.

Content marketing is a valuable tool for any B2B company because not only can this provide great ROI but the pieces you create can be repurposed for your social platforms as well. Your content marketing can have multiple purposes and can be applied to all different stages of the sales funnel.

You can create blog posts to attract the user’s attention and promote your products, create case studies to build up trust, and so much more.

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But it’s not just ROI which can improve when you implement a good content marketing strategy. If you are creating SEO driven copy, you can increase the number of keywords you are ranking for on SERPs, which ultimately leads to an increase in organic traffic.

Content marketing if implemented correctly needn’t be expensive and can yield great results from increased sales to brand awareness.

One piece of good copy can be used across multiple platforms and for a variety of campaigns, from social media to email marketing, making each item valuable to your strategy.

The benefits of utilising content marketing include:

  • Higher keyword rankings and a stronger position on SERPs
  • Increase in organic traffic
  • Better social media presence
  • Positions your company as an industry leader/expert
  • Builds trust with your client early on through success stories

Social media

We all know that social media is a great platform to use to extend your reach and raise your brand awareness, and a lot of B2B companies are already utilising parts of the platforms.

In fact, 83% of B2B marketers already use social media content within their strategy. But this means there are approximately 17% of businesses that haven’t adopted this yet.

There are lots of benefits to building your B2B social media presence and investing in this area as part of your B2B marketing budget including:

  • Extended reach
  • Build relationships with your potential clients/audience faster
  • Raises your brand presence and helps you become a trusted brand

The biggest B2B social media platform for companies is LinkedIn.

With over 810 million members registered worldwide from a large array of countries and industries, this is a great way to reach your target audience.

Plus, with LinkedIn advertising, you can niche your targeting right down to industries, job titles, seniority and even company to ensure you are aiming at the exact segment you want.

However, there are other platforms which can be useful for B2B marketing activities depending on your target audience with Twitter and Facebook, there also emerging channels such as Tik Tok, which are being utilised to reach audiences via new mediums.

Helpful tip – look at your target audience and find out where they are most active and how they interact on social media, as this will help you decide which platforms to focus more on.

There are a variety of ways you can investigate which platforms would be most suitable for your business.

These include:

  • Analytics tools – If you are already utilising a broad range of platforms, you can use analytics tools to see where most of your traffic is being driven from.
  • Check out the competition – Look at where your competitors are posting and how their engagement rate is. This will give you a good idea of what assets work on which platforms for your target market.
  • Do your research – create a full picture of what your target audience looks like. Include points such as their age, where they live, their financial situation, spending habits etc. With this information, you will get a better idea of which social platforms they are most active on.

Read our how to win at B2B social media marketing for more useful hints and tips.

Personal branding for senior leaders

A rising trend in 2022 and something we discussed in a blog post last year is the importance of personal branding to help generate more sales for your company.

This is a great way to directly connect with your audience and raise the profile of your business further.

According to LinkedIn’s own research, an employee has on average 10x more followers on social media than their company. This means posts can reach further and companies, in general, are often more receptive to sales pitches or advertising from an individual.

Find out more about how to build a personal brand to generate more sales.

Events for promotion and networking

These past few years have been a difficult time for events. Due to the pandemic and lockdowns, we saw in-person events cancelled and often replaced with digital alternatives.

Now, we are seeing a trend in hybrid events emerging. But whatever type you prefer to hold you can’t deny the importance of events as part of your marketing budget.

These are the perfect opportunity to network with other companies, build stronger relationships and help raise your brand’s recognition even further.

If you aren’t quite ready for in-person events, you could start by hosting a webinar. According to Semrush, 30% of businesses surveyed are participating in some in-person events but focusing on webinars.

This shows that, although offline events are becoming popular once again, there is still a demand for webinars, and these can be a great way of generating leads and making important connections.

All these areas combined will help strengthen your marketing strategy and not only help increase your brand awareness but also help generate sales. If you are looking for support or advice on which areas to invest your B2B marketing budget in 2022, we can help.

ABOUT GENERATE UK

We are a full-service digital marketing agency that empowers industry-leading B2B & professional services companies to generate growth online.

We help brands grow at all stages of the funnel, with the expertise to support your organisation, whether you are looking to:

  • Boost your awareness
  • Improve demand
  • Get more leads
  • Generate more sales

As the UK’s only digital marketing agency to hold the Customer Service Excellence+ Accreditation, we are committed to achieving clear, measurable returns from your marketing, delivering engaging designs and smart development solutions, all whilst providing you with the highest level of customer service.

Let’s have a chat to discuss how we can help you generate growth through marketing.