Top B2B Marketing Technology Trends in 2023

How can marketers best use their budgets in 2023? 

According to recent reports, marketers may see modest increases in their tech budget this year. But there’s still plenty of economic uncertainty to contend with, and companies need to make strategic investments to ensure success. 

Fortunately, marketers are good at doing more with less. Optimization is in our DNA—we haven’t met a process we can’t streamline or a quarterly result we can’t improve. The right tech investments enhance these skills and help marketers thrive, even in the face of uncertainty.

Here are four B2B marketing tech trends that are worth your attention and investment this year.

AI dominates the content marketing conversation

It’s hard to believe that ChatGPT has existed for less than a year. There are already webinars and online courses dedicated to it, and a few consultants are already adding “ChatGPT Expert” to their resume.

Much of the conversation has been around using ChatGPT to directly generate content. This trend is likely to create a glut of unremarkable, quality-over-quantity content, written by bots and read by few.

Creating memorable content for human beings is still very much the domain of professional writers. But AI is a handy writing companion: It can help generate headline ideas and outlines, find topics worth covering, and even help edit for readability and formatting. And, of course, AI can help personalize content at scale and in real-time.

Definitely explore how AI can take on some of the mechanical and repetitive aspects of content marketing—just don’t make it your entire content team.

The metaverse drives exceptional experiences

Virtual reality has been the “next big thing” since the mid-80s. In the past few years, VR and AR have finally become consumer-ready—now it’s up to marketers to use them to create new experiences. 

Can VR and AR work for B2B? Of course! The technology behind Beat Saber and Pokemon Go can do more than entertain consumers. Use the immersive nature of VR to illustrate complex value propositions and give new perspectives of your solution in action. As the LinkedIn Collective observed in their post about the metaverse, it’s high time for B2B to explore the possibilities.

For example, Key Technology uses virtual reality to show off its digital sorting system for food manufacture and processing. The app takes viewers on a ride through the system, shrinking them to the size of a bean to demonstrate exactly how the solution works. The combination of entertainment, information, and undeniable “wow” factor generated immediate sales opportunities at the conference where it was deployed, ultimately exceeding their benchmarks and goals.

Augmented reality is another way to bring buyers amazing experiences. It may be less immersive than VR, but is also far more convenient—most AR experiences can work on any modern smartphone. 

Cisco uses AR to provide information about its products; buyers can frame a product in their phone’s camera to see tech specs and more. Even better, the experience extends past the point of purchase, with Cisco’s app providing an interactive AR installation manual. It’s estimated the AR manual speeds up installation by as much as 30%.

It’s worth exploring how your team can use AR and VR to offer unique experiences to your buyers.

Targeting is getting smarter

With the right data in hand, marketers can subdivide target audiences down to the individual. If you’re looking for CMOs who attended a state university and are invested in their old college football team, you can find that audience on LinkedIn.

But smarter targeting doesn’t always mean more granular, more criteria, and fewer people targeted. Now that we have the data and the means to target more intelligently, it’s worth questioning conventional wisdom about how to most effectively reach a B2B audience.

Our colleagues at the B2B Institute make a convincing argument that hyper-targeting is ultimately less efficient than trying to reach a broad audience in a relevant category. Focusing on single members of the buying committee can ultimately make it harder to connect with all the stakeholders that will influence a purchase decision.

As the marketing industry gears up for an imminent cookie-less future, techniques and technologies are emerging to ensure brands can still identify and reach their (full) target audience based on meaningful insights. Interest targeting is one example. 

Automation and integration will streamline workflows

Intelligent automation can make marketers more efficient—but automated workflows rely on tech solutions’ ability to interact with each other. The more integrated your tech stack is, the more successful these efforts can be.

For example, your LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms can be sent directly to your CRM. From there, you can automatically orchestrate nurture tracks based on criteria you set within that platform. 

Integration means more than just bringing martech together, of course—it’s using that tech to integrate with other departments as well. When sales, marketing and customer service can freely share data, it makes each one of them more effective.

Equip your team for flexibility

The potential for recession is leading to belt-tightening in organizations large and small, in virtually every industry. When big-name tech companies are slimming down, it’s clear the challenges are real. 

Marketers can capitalize on these four tech trends to create a more flexible, recession-proof, all-weather marketing strategy. Make your team the model of efficiency, agility and creativity, and you’ll be well-equipped for whatever comes next.