B2B marketing strategies continue to evolve as technology advances, buyer-behaviors shift, and marketing objectives move in different directions.

So far this year, there are three B2B marketing strategies-meet-tactics that we are finding to be not only of interest to our B2B clients, but already proving successful in the marketplace.

Let’s get started.

Augmented Reality Comes To Presentations

At both live events and for video-based webinars, we are starting to see presentations that use augmented reality to deliver their visuals. On the forefront in this area is Prezi and their new augmented reality offering.

Many B2B businesses use Prezi now to make their presentations more story oriented and interesting, as their new offering becomes widely available we expect this to be all the rage for B2B presentations in 2018. Check out this TED talk which uses Prezi AR, and watch the example video presentation below.

Direct Mail Gets More Digital

Direct mail is still a great tool for door-busting new leads and nurturing existing leads. And over the past few years, direct mail pieces have been getting more digital.

We have seen this in campaigns that use Google Cardboard to deliver virtual reality experiences and some campaigns are embedding video directly into the physical, mailed pieces.

Additionally, just like augmented reality is beginning to infuse with presentations, we are starting to see AR pop up in direct mail campaigns. This KitKat campaign used holograms in a smart and fun way, we were impressed by Harvard Business Review’s content-centric use of AR in their recent issue.

Social Focuses on Advocate Communities

Social media strategies for B2B marketing is shifting toward community-oriented tactics. With beautiful platforms like Mighty Networks, B2B companies can easily spin up niche communities without the overhead of classic enterprise platforms, like Lithium and Salesforce Communities.

Within social and community building strategies, we are also seeing more of a focus on building brand ambassadors. Brand ambassadors have been popular in B2C marketing and within technology user groups, but now—with platforms like Influitive and Viral Loops—B2B brands have simple tools for building and engaging their own ambassadors.

B2B businesses are also expanding their ambassador strategies to include their own employees, realizing now that this is an untapped army of advocates, social promoters, and content distributors. Employee-focused software providers—like Social Chorus and Gaggle Amp—are expanding their tools so that B2B companies of all sizes can turn their employees into marketing advocates.

Altogether, these three emerging strategies-meet-tactics are showing us that a new wave of technologies are moving beyond their listicle hype and are truly finding adoption in B2B marketing.