Rising Significance of B2B portals in Downturns!

By Vinaytosh Mishra

B2B Marketing has always been about networking. In recent years means of networking has changed significantly. During slow downs firms must test new strategies and tactics to improve marketing effectiveness and reduce the cost. Businesses need to maintain agility and adapt to an evolving marketplace, but cannot sacrifice tried-and-true tactics that have driven their lead generation programs for years. 

Recent studies by firms like Marketing Sherpa indicate that marketers are investing in tried-and-true tactics such as trade shows, website marketing and email, and are allocating the greatest slices of their budgets to these tactics.

Trade shows have claimed the greatest percentage of marketing budget allocation in year 2011, with its greatest supporters being large organizations. On average, organizations of this size invest a third of the marketing budget to trade shows. 

As the use of tablets, e-readers and smart phones increase, and more print publications add online services to readership, organizations in the media or publishing sector are prioritizing websites with the greatest average budget allocation of 22%. The B2B Portals like Alibaba.com, NetworkToday.com, and IndiaMART etc are increasingly becoming the starting point of information search in case of B2B marketers. There are many other B2B Communities portals which are operated by community as non profit organization but they most lack the cohesiveness provided by B2B portals operated by companies.  

Image: portalpattern.org