Unpicking the LinkedIn B2B Marketing Benchmark Report

Welcome to the weekly blog, a place to find insights, industry trends, marketing know-how and much much more (just you wait!). What better way to launch the blog than with a look at the top five take outs from LinkedIn’s recently released B2B Marketing Benchmark Report.

So, what’s it all about!?

Surprisingly (for a B2B focussed platform) this is the first ever B2B Marketing Report that’s been released by LinkedIn. Having partnered with Ipsos, LinkedIn have surveyed 1,954 B2B CMOs, CFOs and Senior B2B Marketers across the US, UK, Germany, France, India, Australia, Singapore and Brazil. They’ve taken the findings and have used them to produce a hard-hitting insight-filled report, which has been split into three sections:

1. Budgets & Outlook

2. The Marketing Organisation

3. Marketing Strategies

It’s definitely worth a lunchbreak read, however if you haven’t got the time for all 86 pages, here are my Top 5 Learnings for marketing teams or small business owners within the B2B marketing space.

Continue to invest in marketing

Despite global economic turmoil and a rise in uncertainty over the past few years, B2B leaders are remaining positive about the role of marketing within organisations, especially within growth marketing.

When focussing on budgets, 6 in 10 senior B2B leaders say budgets have increased in the past two years and look to continue to increase moving forwards. Alongside that, 2 in 3 C-suite members say the role of the CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) has increased in importance. In addition, 50% of survey respondents have also quoted that CMO’s now have a more direct role in driving sales growth. This has been linked to CMO’s playing such a significant role in driving business growth, resilience and agility during and after the pandemic.

So, if you’re soon to be heading into 2024 budgeting meetings, these are some hard-hitting stats for your finance teams to see!

Brand marketing is finally getting a seat at the table

Although there is still a way to go to fully convince the C-suite of its true value, roughly 6 in 10 B2B marketing leaders have said that the C-suite has increased the importance of brand building during tough economic conditions. This has also been reflected within marketing budgets.

Understandably, lead generation continues to receive the highest share of B2B budget allocation (at 36%), however B2B leaders are now allocating 30% of their marketing budgets to brand building activities. (Woohoo, I hear all marketers cry!)

It will be interesting to see whether this trend continues into the future, however I predict that companies that keep investing in brand building will continue to come out on top.

Networking remains a key lead gen tool

Despite a global pandemic that forced the world online, B2B marketers are focused (more than ever) on making connections. 6 in 10 B2B marketing leaders say they plan to use in-person events this year, and a large proportion of respondents see this increasing into 2024.

In-person events were cited within the survey as the most effective B2B marketing channel, with 3 in 5 leaders quoted as saying they’d use this strategy to meet their objectives.

If you’re looking at building out your B2B lead generation strategy for the second half of 2023 and beyond, physical events should look to feature within your strategic plan.

AI is firmly on every marketers hit list

3 in 4 B2B marketing leaders say they plan to start, or continue, using generative AI. However, eagerness currently outruns know-how, with less than 20% of respondents saying they have a good understanding of how to use it and just under 1 in 2 marketing leaders currently using AI applications for business marketing activities.

Whether you’re personally using it or not (a subject of hot debate), LinkedIn data shows that marketing is one of the top functions engaging with AI on their platform.

Globally, the hashtag #AI has continued to rise in popularity throughout Q1 ’23 and it’s now in 5th place for all hashtags! I’ll be following up with more AI-related posts over the comings months, so watch this space.

Creative skills are on an upward trend

Creativity has always been valued within the world of marketing. However, 46% more creative skills were added to marketers’ profiles in the past year, with social media moving up the ranking from #8 in 2021 to #3 on profiles in 2022.

Coupled with this, 43% of respondents say 'Storytelling' or the ‘Ability to develop creative that connects with target audience’ will be one of the most important future skills for their marketing teams.

If you head up a marketing team, it’s a great time to think about the skillsets you have within your team and whether they are future-proofed to take you into next year. Equally, if you’re a sole trader looking for some marketing support, ‘creative skills’ are always worth looking for when reaching out to a freelancer.

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Hopefully you’ve found this (very!) condensed version of the report useful, however I have popped the link to the full report below too. Happy reading!

Read the report >