Lessons in B2B Crisis Management: Invest in Online Education and Executive Leadership

Even before COVID-19 imposed itself on human and corporate realities, companies were looking toward new solutions for reaching and influencing business-to-business customers. According to The Myers Report, B2B marketing growth after this tempest will be content publishing through online education and thought leadership, which is projected to grow by 7.4% annually through 2025. While many companies are adopting a wait-and-see approach to B2B marketing, smart leaders are shifting budgets to brand equity building through executive communications. The best example right now is in government. Executive thought leadership is a powerful game changer in crisis times. Even pre-COVID-19, brand-dependent marketers like Unilever, P&G, AB InBev and Salesforce were shifting budgets away from pushedtrade awareness advertising and toward pulling targeted customers and prospects into more knowledge-and-purpose-based brand engagement.

The media industry ranks near the bottom among all industries in B2B marketing investments, content publishing, online education and executive thought leadership. As a result the media industry is poorly positioned to emerge from this crisis with winners clearly differentiated from losers.

Commenting to Yahoo Finance's On the Move, Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO of Coursera, said "We're seeing a huge acceleration in something that's already been happening, which is a move towards online education. When things get to a new normal…it will never be the same." The accelerating trend in online education will dominate business education. B2B online meeting preparation tools will be an essential requirement as relationships become more grounded in technology and digital communications.

TRADE MARKETING ECONOMICS

While newspaper advertising declined 68% since 2000, trade advertising has dropped an astounding 72%. Ad-light trade publications are a new norm, the conference business is cluttered, online news and audiences are cheap commodities, and trade press subscriptions are devalued. The COVID-19 economy is a disaster for already struggling B2B publishing companies that operate on thin margins.

• New economic data from The Myers Report paints a grim reality: between 2000 and 2020, business-to-business media, offline public relations and content marketing declined from $21.8 billion to $9.7 billion before factoring in inflation.
• Between 2010 and 2020, legacy B2B publishing investments declined 56% from $6.0 to $2.7 billion, while B2B digital marketing increased from $360 million to $1.7 billion.
• Each legacy B2B publishing dollar lost is being replaced by only .46 digital cents gained.
• Every Content Marketing legacy dollar lost between 2010 and 2025 is being replaced by $3 in digital executive and corporate branding.

Advertising and media companies' hoping to engage brand marketers and other stakeholders through B2B advertising face significant obstacles today. As the corporate world focuses beyond 2020, corporate leaders will invest in crisis management techniques grounded in executive leadership communications and will increase investments in online education and executive communications. Budgets will shift further away from traditional awareness-based trade advertising.

 

 

For more data and analytics visit www.MyersReport.com. The Myers Report's detailed data and forecasts will soon be available to MediaVillage member companies at www.MyersReports.com. Members may contact maryann@mediavillage.com to request password access.