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What can B2B Marketing Learn from Covid-19?

Introduction

As we emerge, blinking in the light, from several weeks of enforced lockdown in our homes, we are already seeing a number of claims for how the ‘new normal’ of B2B Marketing will be – and one thing they generally agree on is: it will be different.

But have we been here before?

While the purist answer to this question is ‘no’ – we haven’t experienced a worldwide pandemic of this kind in our lifetimes –we are still in danger of projecting all of our wishes for how B2B Marketing ‘should be’ in future on what we have come to recognise during this unique event.

I think it is worth taking a step back and examining, in the cold light of day, what we can learn from the history of similar events – and how realistic it is that our post-pandemic reality will be significantly different. And – if we believe it will – why?

Disruptive Change Events

As I have been practising business to business marketing for over 25 years, I have seen a number of macro and micro events that forecasters – because this is what we are talking about – have claimed will fundamentally change the B2B marketing experience. These are ‘change events’ primarily driven by technology innovation (micro) or political/ economic occurrences (macro).

If I think which of these are similar to Covid-19 in terms of their cultural and potential economic impact, I would include the following:

While these are all very different types of events, apart from Covid-19 they have three things in common:

  1. Technology break-throughs/ evolutions (e.g. price/ performance) drove the change that was then commercialised
  2. Negative impacts were man-made problems created inadvertently – or with questionable ethics – by commercial enterprises with an eye on the bottom line
  3. They precipitated significant investments by Government and industry, creating change in political, legal, financial and commercial frameworks to create a ‘new normal’. This ‘normal’ was then culturally appropriated, despite the fact that the change was relatively recent – witness Instagram: can we now think of a time when it wasn’t ‘normal’?

At their core, these change events can be thought of as simply man’s inevitable progress. Significant as they all are, how have they changed B2B Marketing?

B2B Marketing: what are the claims for a new normal?


There are some major shifts in B2B Marketing that have been happening for some time and that are reflected in the change events mentioned above. First, digital transformation of markets and organisations has required a complete overhaul in thinking about customer journeys and customer experience with many marketing organisations taking a digital first approach to planning and talking about data driven marketing. Second, trust in organisations and institutions is at an all-time low – precipitated in the UK not only by the financial crises above, but also by the Government expenses scandal, Brexit, Windrush and Facebook’s mishandling of personal data. This has put brand tone and messaging under the microscope. Third, the penetration of marketing technology (Martech), an inevitable consequence of the move online, into every aspect of marketing will continue.


These are changes that preceded Covid and will accelerate, if only because everyone is online and experiencing the world digitally – filtered through intermediary channels – rather than mediated by peer groups and face to face social or work situations. Surely the primary drivers for what drives B2B Marketing, however, are closer to home: how successfully can our market/ company weather the storm?; is Marketing regarded solely as a cost to be cut, or are we able to make the case for Marketing representing an investment in growth? How well have we already adapted to the new realities? Have we implemented formal change management programs, invested in competency development, changed the operation of marketing? Or are we simply trying to adapt incrementally?

If we are wondering if our jobs will still exist, because marketing budgets are cut and we are unable to demonstrate the impact that this cost cutting will have on the company’s ability to recover / grow then this talk of a new normal will be merely about marketing tactics. We will run fewer/ no in-person events (meaning we’re all competing for attention online!); we will reduce media spend and increase ‘free’ blogs, email and social posting. We have made all of these adjustments before, following previous disruptive change events. But have we really changed?

This recent article advises authenticity, (surely the word of the moment) agility and customer-driven insights, concluding:

‘Regardless of how long the crisis actually lasts, COVID-19 will forever change the consumer landscape.’