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Trends are in a state of constant motion; they keep changing according to the shifts in the market due to the ever evolving taste and preferences of the individuals or groups. Only thing we are left to do about it is to keep to an eye on them and go with the flow, while sticking to some ordeals of our own. Similarly, the waves of change have touched the shores of Technology Marketing too. And they have been setting up impressive transformations in this genre of marketing in 2018.

The position of a marketer is not an easy breezy one, be it, B2B or B2C market. Moreover, when it trickles down to the Technology marketers it gets nuttier. However, their forte lies in the fact that they will stick to the goals and will imbibe in every nitty-gritty aspects of marketing to scoop in real leads and especially the MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads).

Come; let’s take a stroll through the top 9 Technology Marketing trends for 2018-

1. Raised Marketing Budget

Budget has been a crucial area of concern to the technology marketers since a long time and majority of them feel that the elasticity in the budget affects how they market in a number of ways. However, the amount that had been assigned for Technology Marketing is set to hike up in 2018 by a notable 48 percent (survey by the partnermarketing group). Resourcing and utilizing various technology databases, SaaS and PaaS products and various other marketing tools take a toll on the investments but there is no doubt that they play a significant role in making a successful marketing campaign for your brand.

2. Content Marketing

There are varied ways for marketing but the marketers have always had a strong faith on content marketing and why not? One has so many options to engage the target audience in the form of infographics, blogs, whitepapers, slide shares etc. Although the challenge lies in being able to research and analyze the appropriate context for the content and thankfully there are analytical tools like, BuzzSumo to give you a helping hand. Technology Marketing has relied on content at a high percentage in 2017 and 2018 has made the stats stronger. Note that the buyer’s journey in the tech market is of utter importance as these prospects are searching online for solutions and information on their current or future requirements.

3. Fostering leads

Nurturing or fostering the leads has become a big deal for worthwhile Technology Marketing in the present year and it has all the qualities to grow further. Nothing can sustain for a longer time if we fail to take care of them because just possessing something is not enough, you need to make efforts to nourish them. So, when you arrive at a point when you have garnered leads for your brand keep them close and close enough to make them realize they matter. Generate targeted content, understand their persona through targeted databases and big data, and come up with customized emails and keep your leads updated. Moreover, the businesses who make the time and investment to nurture their leads land up with 50 percent more sales at about 33 percent subsidized cost (Forrester Research).

4. Customer Advocacy

The customer advocacy is gaining more momentum in 2018 and one can’t disagree that it’s been trending since the day such concept was realized by the business entities. Its contribution to Technology Marketing has been appreciated by the tech marketers as it generates a platform wherein the products and services they plan to pitch can be talked about in the consideration stage, and the advocates can spell out adequate goodwill to the businesses who wish to invest upon similar tech inventory. Word of mouth and opinions of the peers can influence a major portion of the tech buyer’s purchase decisions.

5. Social Media Platforms

Technology Marketing that are being fulfilled through social media platforms has been making some noise in the B2B market and its only getting louder day by day. This medium has definitely climbed up the graph when it comes to marketing or selling in 2018 and it has a brighter future ahead. Tech biggies like IBM uses LinkedIn, Cisco is on Twitter, Microsoft is on Instagram, and HP has a commendable Facebook Page; the buck doesn’t stop here because you know how vast the tech market is and we can imagine the density in which the tech sellers, and buyers are on the social media platforms. Come on marketers you cannot give a deaf ear to this calling.

6. Methods of Lead Generation

Even though the various ways of generating leads have been pouring results for a substantial Technology Marketing, Blogs are ruling amongst all of these tactics with the dawn of 2018. Email and social media marketing, webinars, SEO, tradeshows followed up by the other lead generation ways are in the spotlight but are shining a little lesser than blogs. Therefore, refresh your blog content: brush up your context, mine in meaningful content material, tweak your aesthetics and check your performance stats through various analytical tools.

7. Customer testimonials

If you have treated your customers in the right way and the tech products/services they purchased was worth their money, you can approach them for feedbacks in the form of testimonials and other word forms. These returned favors are bound to catapult your Technology Marketing in an authentic way and you do realize such things work. The necessity to extract these opinions have gained a conspicuous appraisal at the present times and they are here to stay for long term. The trend to integrate these customer testimonials on your website, emails and the other typed forms of propagating your brand has scaled up noticeably in 2018.

8. Marketing Automation

Marketing Automation is no more an option as it has stepped up to be a mandatory component of Technology Marketing in the recent times. More than 63% of the tech marketers have been using this means for a fruitful marketing experience. You can refer to Capterra if you are not definite about which marketing automation method to go for as this platform provides you with genuine reviews on this issue.

9. Outsource Marketing

The idea of outsource marketing has been creating a vital space within the tech companies who have just started or are of smaller scale. Basically, those who don’t have a strong marketing team or else, they have but are too less in number to take up effective and efficient Technology Marketing for their brand. Seasoned tech marketers or an entire marketing team would usher in positive outcomes during the marketing campaigns with much surety compared to the newbies. Yes, even the seasoned was once a newbie, however, if the priority of the tech company is to see conversions happening in a greater velocity then, outsource marketing is the answer. More of the tech businesses look forward to get involved with this in the present year.

Some trends have a short life but some have a longer life span and the ones that have been hovering over the year 2018 for Technology Marketing will surely be in vogue in a coming years as well. The characteristics of these points are logical, approachable, farsighted and modern in every digital sense. New techniques will come along the way but for now this is what it is according to my analysis and as for what’s to come, let us wait and be open about it.