109 - B2B Trends That are Making Waves

Rich: Hey, Zach. Hello, rich. Sorry, that was a big sigh. Uh, so I have a question for you. What B2B trends should companies be paying the most attention to as we get out of 2025 and into 2026?

Zac: We're gonna cover that all in today's episode. I'm super excited to get into it. There's a lot of good trends. We kind of talked about it a little bit last week.

Mm-hmm. I definitely spoiled one of mine. Last week you did the

Rich: rows,

Zac: but I go deeper into it this time, so. Okay. It should be a lot of fun.

Rich: All right, well that's good. So as we head into 2026, um, the change and pace in B2B marketing isn't gonna slow down. And I think all of our examples show that, um. Buyer expectations are on the move and shifting around left and right.

There's new digital tactics that are out there. Um, we're gonna look at some trends and challenges that'll shape the end of the year and where some of your biggest opportunities might lie for 2026. So if any of these are a surprise to you, they're all Googleable. You can learn more about them. You can also feel free to hit us up.

Um, just go to our website and you can schedule a meeting and I'm happy to just chat with you for free about any of these for a little bit. So that's it. It's gonna be a good episode,

Zac: I think, and it's gonna be a good episode with a good cocktail. So this week's cocktail is a harvest moon. Yes. Um, again, I said we're gonna do seasonal cocktails this quarter, so this is as seasonal as it gets.

Uh, this cocktail is from the food network. Usually I pull from liquor.com punch. Uh, I'm a little more picky with what cocktails we choose, but. I'm all in for the fun, uh, this episode. So, uh, it's built around really good fall seasonal flavors, apple, pumpkin spice. It has a graham cracker rim, it has some pumpkin beer in it.

So we're really hitting all of the fall flavors. I know, I know you were gonna make that face. I'm like, yeah.

Rich: It was like, you know, my beer face. Like, it's coming.

Zac: But uh, yeah.

Rich: How do

Zac: you, how do you make your rich.

Rich: Sure. So, and I did look this up, it's Daniel Yoon from the Food Network is the one who invented this, I believe.

If it's the one, I think, um, oh no, this is slightly different than his. Interesting. I wonder if they've got a couple of 'em called the harvest moon. Anyway. It must, you'll need, he's got one with bourbon. With whiskey.

Zac: Oh, maybe I've been better.

Rich: So maybe he, uh, maybe he modified it. I think it's the same. It's just whiskey instead of vodka.

Um, so crush graham crackers for the rim. You've gotta get some graham crackers, crush them, put them in a food processor, whatever, make graham cracker powder. Um, and then for the recipe, you need two ounces of vodka, one and a half ounces of Granny Smith apple juice and use the juice. Don't use like an apple liqueur, like you're not gonna get the same flavor from an apple liqueur.

Um, and eighth of a teaspoon of pumpkin spice that, yep, that is your power. Pumpkin spice, pumpkin from your pantry and a half out. Okay. Just a half ounce of pumpkin beer. Um, you can do more if necessary. I mean, honestly, people know the way I make drinks. You can do more vodka if you want to. Yes. Like, you know, a little bit more beer, whatever.

Um, okay, so simple syrup goes in one. Saucer and some crushed graham crackers. In another. You dip the rim, your martini glass in the syrup, and then in the crushed graham crackers. I think hopefully everybody knows how to rim a glass. If not, just Google rim a glass for a cocktail. I would use all of those words though, uh, to make sure your search doesn't go, uh, off in a direction you don't want it to, uh, add ice to your cocktail shaker.

And then vodka, apple juice, pumpkin spice, and a half ounce of the simple syrup also go in there. So shake it. Shake it like crazy and then strain it into your martini glass and top off with the pumpkin beer, uh, just below until it gets right up to about the cracker rim. So that's why you can use a little more if you need to.

Uh, 'cause remember, fizzy stuff doesn't go in your shaker folks. That just creates a giant mess when you open it up. Uh, it also kills the fizz in whatever you're putting in. So. I think this is a great one. I would do this, the beer, like it's a pumpkin beer, so Okay. Might be an ale.

Zac: And there are some good pumpkin beers.

There aren't like are as beer, you know, like a lot more pumpkin forward flavors. I know that there's like a pumpkin spice latte ale that I've had before. That might be okay. But uh,

Rich: yeah. And I do like a good. Oh, okay. So this version is Guy fii, so that's why there's vodka in it. Um, okay, got it. I just had to look that up real quick.

So if you see me like looking off, I'm looking at my other screen, but, um, yeah, so Guy fii, um, nice job. All right. Um. I wish we could just go make a couple of these and then come back, but we don't have time, so we'll be back in a minute.

All right, we are back with, um, B2B trends for 2026. So what do you think you need to do in 2026? So before we get into that, let's talk a little bit about just the B2B landscape as we're kind of rounding out 2025 and where things are expected to go in 2026. Um, so Zach, you wanna kick us off? You got a, a nice stat for us.

Sure.

Zac: Yeah. 61% of B2B marketers say their biggest challenge going into 2026 is creating content that actually stands out. And I think that's really indicative of just how much, how much you're competing for people's attention. I mean, we've really like talked about this a lot lately, but the whole attention economy, economy concept is huge.

Mm-hmm. Like. You really need to catch people's attention in that moment because if they have to click off, if they have to watch your ad for more than 15 seconds now it's, it's tough. Like it's gonna be tough to compete. And so I can definitely see, see where that percentage is coming from.

Rich: Yeah, that'll be an interesting one with one of my main points.

I have a content one, believe it or not. So that'll be nice. Oh, we'll get to that in a minute. Stick a pin in it. Um. So I think along with that, um, over half of buyers are expecting a personalized content journey at every single stage. Um, and that is rough when you're trying to figure out content, especially as large organizations.

Um, those can be pretty

Zac: tough. My next step too is only 29% of B2B buyers say they trust vendor content, but 71% trust peer reviews and, and, uh, like online communities, which that makes a lot of sense to me. I think, uh, a lot of people are tired of being sold to everywhere you look we're being sold to.

Mm-hmm. So authentic content that speaks directly to you as a human being and not to you as a number or a customer. Always going to do way better than that kind of stuff. So

Rich: yeah, I think going along with this, um, so B2B, space B2B, not B2C, like I had to double and triple check this. What percent of buyers say they prefer a rep list sales experience?

They wanna be able to do the whole experience themselves online with no rep ever interacting with them.

Zac: Ooh, that's a good question. What do you think? Oh my gosh. I feel like I saw this stat when I was looking around. Oh. But I don't remember. Is it like 60%, 70%,

Rich: 75%? Yeah. 70%. Yeah. So three fourths of people don't want to talk to a rep when buying in a B2B space like that is huge.

And it goes right along with your content, right? Because your content has to be able to bring them on the journey. 'cause they don't wanna talk to anybody. Mm-hmm. Going right along with that, we talk about e-commerce and everybody thinks B2C. Mm-hmm. B2B E-commerce is supposed to grow about 15% next year, and that puts it at a $36 billion.

Um, industry, just E-commerce and B2B. And when you put those two together, or three, like all of that together, like content is difficult, people want better content, but they really trust peer reviewed content. E-commerce and self-serve are growing at a huge rate, and more people prefer it. B2B is gonna have a big shift next year.

Zac: Oh yeah, a hundred percent. And I think a lot of what we're like. Going to be talking about and seeing is stuff that you as a listener will probably already know. You just don't maybe know why or like where it's going. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. 'cause everyone knows that content is struggling right now, but do they understand why it's their content is struggling or where they need to make those changes?

So I think, um, yeah, I think that's gonna be important to, uh. Think about as we go through some of these, so, uh, we can get into my main point first. Um, all right, let's do it. As I said last week, if you didn't lose the lesson last week, um, in B2B, much like the Bachelor, whoever makes the strongest early impression first often wins.

And so what that means is you need to make memorable content, memorable ads. You need to, I'm sorry, miss is barking.

Rich: It's okay. You got a dog. It's, we're a dog agency. It's all good.

Zac: But, uh, yeah, you need to make memorable ads that really stand out from the pack. 82% of B2B buyers start with a day, one list of brands and 92% of purchases come from that list.

So, so

Rich: their day one list is, when they first start thinking about it, they grab a bunch of brands that they think can, can help them with, is that what that is? Mm-hmm. Like before they even get too far down the research road.

Zac: Mm-hmm. Wow. And so you need to be, you need to be their first, one of their first like people they consider, because if you're, they don't, they're not changing that list.

They might add like one or two people, but it's like you really need to make a strong first impression. Mm-hmm. And the reason they compared us to the Bachelor is because for those that know, there's a first impression Rose and there's a large percentage of people who get the first percentage rows, contestants that end up being in the finale.

And there's an even, there's still like a decent percentage of you winning. Just from getting a first, a first impression of rose.

Rich: So there's that, there's that bond at the first moment, right? It's the, I mean, it's sort of the love at first sight. It's not really love, but it's familiarity. Mm-hmm. Um, and I think also just kind of like, you know, you've, you've committed to this group or this person is kind of your favorite, so people have to knock 'em off.

Right. If you initially think. This is my greatest first impression. Somebody else is gonna have to impress you more or do something different or better in order to knock them off of that list. Mm-hmm.

Zac: That's just, that just goes back to having good brand awareness campaigns. So if we think about like, where content is headed, right?

It needs to be memorable. Mm-hmm. Short to the point. Think about the, uh, YouTube pre-roll ads or the, even the ads like that are mid-roll, you know what I mean? That all those ads have 15 seconds to make an impression on you. And all of the ones that I've been seeing lately. Where the industry is going, have something memorable about them, something weird like What?

What did I just watch? And so like, I think that's something that's gonna be huge in 2026 is because the attention economy is so competitive, you need to figure out ways to differentiate yourself because there's so many boring B2B brands, there's so many boring B2B like ads and content. Mm-hmm. Don't be afraid to go outside of your comfort zone a little.

It's, we, I would highly recommend being as memorable as possible.

Rich: So in the B2C space, this is so weird, but I saw it was like a laundry detergent or a dishwash. It was some sort of soap, some sort of a cleaner, I don't remember which one, but essentially they had a short, it was on YouTube or, or um, Instagram or somewhere.

It was in one of those video short spaces and. They basically did a dick joke, like in it, like it was a subtle one. It wasn't gross, but it was like, it was like, oh, and then they tied it like, it was very fast. It was like a ten second hit. They tied it back into their brand and then they were out. Um, sadly I don't remember the brand, um, but I do remember thinking like, whoa, that is an interesting attempt to get people's attention.

Um, and

Zac: you remembered it too, and so you remember. I did. I just don't remember the brand. Mm.

Rich: So. That's the problem. So it's, it's really that, like what's appropriate for you outside of your cust comfort zone, because you don't want to go too far because you're just gonna lose everybody. Mm-hmm. But how can you push that limit or push a little bit further and you will miss.

You will absolutely miss. Ideally it won't result in like a boycott or something like that. Don't miss hard like have people review it, but you'll have stuff that just doesn't land and that's fine. It's like comedians testing out jokes, right? They some don't land and they get rid of them and they try the ones that do and they build this bigger group of jokes that land.

Zac: Mm-hmm. Um. I think another piece to this, if interrupt another piece to this from a content standpoint, um, you want to be giving out good resources to help build trust as well. So I know us as B2B marketers like to gate things to, you know, gather first party data, but uh, a lot of content is moving away from that.

A lot of the content that's performing well now is ungated and provides value in the moment. So not only do you need to be memorable, uh, you also want to be the, that like. Thought leader to those potential leads, right? So if you're providing them really good resources and you're not really gating them or taking any of their information, they're gonna remember things like that.

You're building trust and there's opportunities like for, say, like a webinar to throw in, links to throw in. Mm-hmm. Different ways to still get engaged with you and connect with you and gather that first party data. But I think it's just important to remember, not everything has to be gated. Sometimes it's just important to build the trust.

Rich: Yep. Yeah. And I think that having that, um, that value in it, right, like your goal is that your information is valuable enough that they're gonna want to meet with you. They want the sales call, they wanna talk to the rep. I think one of the other things we have to talk about here is getting included in that day one list.

Um, you know, your Google, SEO has to be good, but more and more, um, you know, I think it was by 2027 or 2028, uh, chat, GPT will overtake Google as the top search engine. Mm-hmm. So your a EO, which is AI engine optimization, new term, kind of coming out there is also important. And guess what, that ties back to your content and how your content is structured.

So it's gotta feel good for a human, but there's gotta be substance there so that AI gets the context as well. Um, so I really think that people who are optimizing content for AI are gonna have a better shot at being on that day one list because people are gonna go to chat GPT and say, you know, what are the.

Best mid-range HubSpot marketing agencies on price who specialize in Service hub. Like that's gonna be a search and it's gonna kick back five or 10 or 20 of those and boom, that's my day one list. Like that's all I need to do to get a day one list. Mm-hmm. Um, I might also like ask people on LinkedIn, refer me that kind of thing to add a few to it, but I would wager to bet that most people are gonna start with, um.

With chat, GPT or with ai,

Zac: I mean chat, GPT can already search the web. So it's, it's already happening. Mm-hmm. And it's definitely something that you need to implement now sooner rather than later.

Rich: Yep. All right. So, uh, moving into something completely more boring than Roses. Um. This is one that people have heard.

I know they've heard it, I know they've played with it. A lot of companies have dabbled with it. Um, but most people aren't going at it like as hard as they could. So I'm talking about account-based marketing or a BM. Mm. Um, so for those who don't know, a BM is choosing which companies fit your ideal customer profile, learning as much as you can about them and then pursuing them.

So you create. It's sort of the flip of your customer creating a day one list. You create your hit list of companies you wanna work with. I have a friend who's got an agency in San Diego, and they have, uh, in their break room, they always had, well they've got multiple locations now, so I don't know if they still have this everywhere, but in their office they had like one foot by one foot tiles like hanging on a wall on like wires almost.

Artwork and on one side were the logos of companies they want to work with. It wasn't their current companies they do work with, it's their prospects. And then they could flip it. So it was just art on the other side. So if somebody was coming in, like a current client or somebody from one of those, like they would turn it around.

But the idea is that those companies that you want to go after are front and center all the time with you. So, um, so why do I think this is gonna take off? Um, A BM tools have been around for a really long time and they've typically been ridiculously expensive, so looking at you next role. Um, but there are tools now that can get you an a BM list and um, and focus on things and provide simple enrichment for key elements.

You need, like address, job title, phone number. Um, so if you've got a company name, um. A smart CRM and AI can actually go out to all kinds of data sources and pull in information about that company. They can pull in who their director of marketing is, who their director of sales is, who their operations person is, all of those things.

And then once you have an email for that person or a LinkedIn profile, that can pull in more info for them. Um, so that gives you a lot of what you need. Then, um, you can do outreach if you want to. Uh, you could send 'em a gift, like a high prospect gift 'cause right? These are your ideal customers. But what's also cool is you can use lead gen with that as well.

So you tie your a BM listing with a smart CRM like HubSpot. And HubSpot does have some A BM tools, uh, built in there. You can get alerted when one of your prospects engages with your brand. And, um, that gives you a real opportunity to know more about them, um, know what they're doing, keep things very personalized, and then really be ready to act when that prospect is.

Um. So that's one of the things that I just think is, um, I think with AI and with the research it can do, and with these tools becoming more commoditized and less like this premium, you must spend $10,000 a month to have the access to these tools. Um, A BM is gonna make a lot of sense. Um. And I think it simplifies things like content, right?

Because you, you know, these are the 20 companies and people I'm making content

Zac: for, and it's gonna be highly tailored to that. Mm-hmm. Those people. Mm-hmm. Wow. That's awesome.

Rich: Which cuts through some of the clutter and the crap. Like that's what you wanna do, right? I mean, you're making,

Zac: yeah. You're making content for such a small, targeted subset of companies that you know what they like and you're, you're gonna get like right in front of them.

So, wow. That's cool.

Rich: Yeah, it's a super neat one. I, I'm a like an a BM nerd, but I've been trying to make it happen with people for a long time, and I think that now it actually can. Mm-hmm. You just have to know a lot about your business and who you want to work with, which, honestly, a lot of companies struggle with that.

I, we consult with people who are like, I don't really know my sales funnel. I don't really know what people want at each stage. And it's like, okay, let's step back and do a little strategy work and figure this out.

Zac: Yeah, I agree. There's so many tools now that that's definitely a possibility for a lot of people.

Mm-hmm. So my next one is first party data is a new currency in B2B marketing. So with cookies disappearing first party data is now the most reliable way to understand and reach B2B buyers. The global consumer data platform market is projected to more than double from 2.1 billion in 2023 to 5.1 billion by 2028.

So. We're definitely on that upward tr so it's people selling

Rich: our data. People selling our data, is what you're talking about. Creepy and bad for individuals. Amazing for marketers.

Zac: Mm-hmm. But they're saying like, data that's collected by us as companies now is going to be more valuable than, you know, buying third party data, so, okay.

Got it, got it, got it. So yeah, I think that's interesting to me. I think that's always been kind of true in B2B marketing, right? You, you've always tried to like gate content behind specific parameters, so you're able to gain actual, like, information on people that are interested in what you're, like, the content you're putting out in the business, that you're trying to sell them the service.

But um, yeah, it's becoming, becoming way more prevalent now and I think. I think it's like kind of taking me back to the account based marketing thing, right? Mm-hmm. Data like from like, like, how do I say this first party data is going to become more valuable than third party data and collecting it is gonna be more important than ever.

Mm-hmm. So your content really needs to be in line with that and how it can collect leads, but at the same time, like you don't want to like encroach a PR like. Gating too many things either.

Rich: Yeah, I think part of what you're, what you're getting at, um, one, it's sort of like, almost like these were planned to all go together, which is kind of neat since, you know it's an episode.

But, um, one of the things I think you're looking at is like the third party data can get you started. Yeah. So that enrichment data that you bring in, um, can get you started, but too many people rely on that as the end all be all, and this is all I know about that customer. But things that you gather for them are going to be way more important.

So I mean, their behavior, their activities, as it relates to your company, your website, your content, your materials, um, what their universe is. Um, you know, gathering and looking for where they're at, what they're consuming, those kinds of things. Um. That's gonna make you smarter than somebody else. 'cause everybody can go buy the same third party data, right?

Mm-hmm. It's just a budget thing, it's just a price thing. Um, but understanding how they've behaved with you is going to be where like that value really lives. It's. The thing that I love about that as well is that information isn't necessarily valuable to another company. Mm-hmm. Because they'll have different opportunities to engage, different opportunities to dive in.

Now, can you learn from your competitors? A hundred percent, absolutely. But just them, like getting access to your first party data doesn't do a lot for them. Mm-hmm. Um, especially in B2B and B2C, maybe a little bit, but in B2B, it really, really doesn't.

Zac: Well, and it's like you said, right? Like. The whole like tailoring your, targeting, your marketing to your specific target audiences, Uhhuh and like getting really into the nitty gritty of personalization.

Having the data to enable you to do that so that you understand what they do and do not like what they're looking for out of your services. Yep. Is going to be super important. And that's how you're going to make the day one list and get the first impression Rose. So.

Rich: Way to try to bring it back around there, Zach.

Bring it back around. Um, what's interesting, we had a promotion a while ago and I think it's still a campaign in HubSpot, probably way, way down the list, but it was, um. Like, let us buy you a drink. Was it, was, was the premise, I don't remember what we called it. We had some clever name for it, but the idea was, um, this was pre pandemic.

Um, and then we shifted it to a virtual thing during the pandemic. But, um, the idea was just fill out this form. All we want to know is your name, your company, your, um. Email address, 'cause we've gotta get in touch with you. It was named company title, email address, and then a marketing issue you wanna discuss, which is similar to our contact form now.

But then we added the question of, you know, preferred cocktail or non-alcoholic beverage. And so they could put in iced tea, they could put in vodka, soda, whatever. And so. When we would have those meetings, we'd have their favorite drink there. Um, right.

Zac: That's awesome.

Rich: Yeah. What's, we only did like two, so it didn't really take off.

I think it would actually probably go better now, but, um, it was too ahead of its

Zac: time.

Rich: It was, I think it was. But think about that with like this podcast cocktail stands just and answers, right? So if you were my prospect and I knew your favorite drink and I knew what you needed to hear in like a topic, I could ensure like it'd be like, Hey Zach, we're gonna make this drink for this one because this.

Target of ours, high value target needs to hear about this topic. And this is their favorite drink. So that gives me an in to send them the episode and say, Hey, it was just thinking you and we did this happened to be your favorite drink, even though we engineered it. Um, so that. That depth of first party data isn't what everybody's gonna have.

You're not gonna know their favorite drink or their favorite animal or things like that, but, you know, clocking, whether they're a dog person or not, you know, you, we heard Misa barking there for a little bit, like, yeah, that happens. My dogs will come in and out sometimes. Um, and that happened to us on a, um, a discovery call the other day.

The woman, like toward the end said, Hey, you know, it's really great to see, like I've seen dogs come in and out of a couple of your like frames. Even though it's blurred, I can tell it's a dog and she's like, I've got a dog. And she's like, I just feel like the dog people are good people. So it made her like, feel better about us.

It's just this humans. Um, so it was interesting. Uh, alright, one more. Sure. What do you got? So this one ties into yours as well. Uh, content will be king, and I know we've heard that for years. Yes. B2B marketing has to get better at content and heavier into it. B2C has kind of figured this out mm-hmm. Um, and is doing a whole lot better.

But, um, with B2B, what's really interesting is video and audio content, um, is going to be huge as well. Um, long form and short form. Zach, really weird as I was doing the research. Um. Interesting. So this is gonna put a lot of pressure on people, right? 'cause creating content takes time. Um, you'll need a strong in-house and or agency driven content engine.

Um, you can use AI appropriately, but AI is not gonna create the content for you. Generative AI is not there yet. It can help. It can augment. It can optimize, and people are

Zac: looking for. People are trying to find real content, like they're gonna spot AI content. It's just a fact.

Rich: Yeah. But one of the good examples for ai, right?

You shoot a three minute video about your product, about your service, about whatever, and then use an AI agent in one of the content tools to cut it down into a few, five to ten second snippets for social to drive people back to the main one. Mm-hmm. Um. But with long form content making a comeback, there's a huge opportunity there.

You do have to structure it for humans to be able to scan it. It's gotta be scannable digestible, but it gives you a real opportunity for AI to gain context and substance around your brand and to understand things. Um, AI can ingest long form content extremely fast and use that for context. And there are ways to format that, which we're going through right now with our content plan.

I know for next year and for clients. To ensure that, again, you get in that day one list. Because if they're asking ai, they've seen your content and it's pulling in, uh, where it needs to be, we'll probably have to do a whole other episode with RI at some point on, like optimizing for ai. 'cause I know he'll, I know he'll wanna do that.

He'll actually be really excited about it. A hundred percent. So content will be king and we've, but differently, very different than the way it has been in the past. Mm-hmm.

Zac: It has been and always, I mean, not maybe always, but it definitely has been for a long while. And it continue will to, it will continue to be in the near future.

Rich: Well, we consume stories, right? That's a human existence. We consume stories and experiences and we want to hear about those from others. Um, but. All right. So I think, um, some really great stuff in here. So we've got, uh, your day one list matters that Bachelor rose effect, um, account based marketing is gonna take off.

Um, first party data. Is your new currency and probably one of the most valuable things you can have. Uh, and then content is gonna be king and you've gotta really figure that out. And if you put all four of those together, it's actually a really strong strategy for going into 2026. Um,

Zac: I was gonna say, you might wanna steal this, uh, semi campaign that we've basically given you.

Right?

Rich: It really is your overarching kind of strategy of how you need to execute for mm-hmm. The next year. So it's all good.

Zac: Yeah. And you know, thank you for listening. Uh, as always, you can find our agency@antidoteseventyone.com. All of our socials are there as well. If you have a question you'd like to send our way, hit the CTA podcast live.

To shoot us an email, or even better, leave us a voice message on our hotline at 4 0 2 7 1 8 9 9 7 1. Your question will absolutely make it into an episode of a, of a podcast, and, uh, yeah. We'll see you next week for another great episode.