In 2018, I wrote a post for Forbes called, B2B Marketing Trends You Need to Know for 2019. Last year I followed it up with Seven B2B Demand Gen Trends to Fuel Your 2020 Marketing Strategy. But this year, in this unprecedented year (are you tired of hearing that word yet?), it did not feel right to try to predict what 2021 will bring.

Last year I anticipated successful demand gen marketers would focus on intent data, increased digital ad spend, buyer enablement, AI-enhanced workflows, and continued account-based growth. Low and behold, all of the above will still ring true for 2021, but there is one critical element that I would add to the list and prioritize above all else – empathy.

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. The year 2020 taught us to remove our biases and step into the shoes of those we care about. From a business perspective, this meant learning how to better empathize with our customers and our colleagues.

Digital & Empathy: Keys to 2021 Demand Gen Success

While I said I would not try to predict what 2021 will bring, there are two components I am confident will fundamentally shape demand generation success in 2021:

1. B2B buyers are living in a digital-first world.

Face-to-face interactions were scarce in 2020. According to McKinsey, 75% of people using digital channels for the first time indicate that they will continue to use them when things return to "normal." The result of this shift? Sales teams will need more support from their digital marketing counterparts to reach buyers. 

What's more, there is a growing buyer ability and affinity for conducting self-supported research, independent of sales conversations. According to a 2019 Gartner study, "The ready availability of quality information through digital channels has made it far easier for buyers to gather information independently, meaning sellers have less access and fewer opportunities to influence customer decisions." With the shift to remote workplaces and the limited opportunity for in-person meetings (canceled tradeshows and events and closed office spaces), we can safely assume that 2020 drove digital information consumption to new heights.

Gartner's research reminds us that sellers are a channel for buyers, but they are not the channel. Only 17% of a buyer's time is spent speaking with a sales rep. The largest portion of time, 27%, is spent independently researching—a testament to the importance of content marketing, buyer enablement materials, and a strong digital strategy.

2. Empathy is pertinent in this predominantly digital era.

The 2020 pandemic urged companies to find alternative ways to communicate with their markets to survive. We saw companies that best fared the chaos of 2020 were able to successfully connect with their customers to let them know they were thinking of them; put simply, they were empathetic. 

Empathy can do a lot for your business. If you have empathy for your customers and your employees, they are more likely to trust you and stay loyal to you throughout turbulent ups and downs. Moreover, companies that are authentically connected to their customers will be better prepared to anticipate future changes on the horizon.

An aspect of empathy is changing your own perception to account for another person's joys and pains. Its culture and its brand reveal the sincerity of a company's empathy. An empathic company is willing to bend and make changes for the betterment of their customers and employees, without profit being at the forefront of those changes. 

Take the B2C success story of Costco as an example. Costco has an obsessive commitment to its culture of integrity, passion, ownership, and ensuring customer trust. They are committed to an 11% margin on products (around half of what competitors mark up), and when they can pass on lower prices to their customers, they always will. There was a time when Costco was selling Calvin Klein jeans like hotcakes at $29.99 a pop; the company was able to secure a lower purchase price from their supplier at $22.99 a pair, and they could have continued to sell the jeans at the original $29.99 price to maximize profits. But they stayed true to their commitment to passing on the best price to their customers and lowered the cost to their 11% profit margin. Costco is customer-centric, not profit-centric

B2B organizations that made customer experience a top strategic priority thrived throughout the troubling times of the 2020 pandemic. Medallia, a customer feedback management software platform that improves employee and customer experiences, describes the current shifting landscape towards more customer-centricity as a B2B customer loyalty revolution. Their B2B customers like IBM and RingCentral invested in solutions to collect, analyze, and act on customer feedback and use that insight as a strategic driver for their organizational success.

Many companies strive to be customer-centric, to put their customers' needs at the heart of everything they do – but there is no way to successfully achieve that vision without being able to step outside your view and see the world from the perspective of your customers. Organizations that are truly tapped into their customers are not only better at marketing, but they are also better sales, customer success, and product organizations. 

Empathy is More Important to Marketers Than Ever

With the explosion of inbound marketing in the early 2010s, persona development became standard for marketers. You needed to understand whom you were targeting, what they cared about, and how to make them personally successful in their careers to seduce them into your funnel. And it has been an ever-more competitive seduction process over the past decade. 

Fast-forward to today, marketers across nearly every industry have realized the power of content marketing to drive business growth and accelerate buyer journeys. Today, if you want to stand out and rise about the content noise, you can't fake knowing your customers. To truly understand your customers' challenges, know their needs, and how your business can solve their problems is the key to building trust with your audience and the fundamental principle of empathy-based marketing.

The rubber meets the road for high-performance marketing when you can marry savvy digital experiences with on-point, human messaging. Kate Murphy, Marketing Manager, Product & Audience at Episerver, writes that Empathy 2.0 will be important for forward-thinking marketers in 2021:

Marketers are doing their best to mimic human experiences across digital channels to fill the physical void, and customers are starting to expect it. Every digital interaction is consequential as a result. Companies need to be able to read their customers' digital body language in real-time. Whether it's personalization at an individual level or unique content offerings that are highly valuable to their operating realities – your messaging needs to be authentic and empathetic to every human behind the interaction and delivered at the moment that it's needed.

In the present day world of remote work, providing meaningful digital experiences will be critical to success. If you don't take the time to walk in your buyers' shoes, you won't know how or where to engage your prospects, which is why it is paramount to develop detailed personas, invest in buyer intelligence and journey mapping, and continuously seek to build hyper-relevant and personalized experiences.

What does empathy look like through digital experiences? It looks like answering your prospects' questions at different points in their journey and personalizing your messaging to their unique circumstances whenever and wherever possible. It is monitoring and reading intent signals to ensure your marketing is aligned with where your buyer is in their journey and offering them relevant content for their interests and needs. 

And remember two things:

1. B2B purchasers are buyer groups. Be sure to understand the different roles and personas that make up your target audience buying group and appeal to each of them uniquely. 

2. The buyer journey is not linear. Buyers often switch between stages as they research solutions to their problems and evaluate their options. 

When you think about all of your digital demand channels: content syndication, digital ads, virtual events, and social, being able to unify, personalize and create a high-impact omnichannel experience for each target persona can be daunting. But solutions are emerging in the tech landscape to help us digital demand marketers out. 

One thing I am personally excited to explore in 2021? Learning more about innovative marketing technology partners like Integrate and their precision demand generation offering, an omnichannel digital approach that helps target your most interested buyers across your digital channels to help you optimize budget, time, and resources while tailoring the relevance of your messages to those buyers to create memorable buyer experiences.

Beyond Customers: 2020 Taught Us Empathetic Workplaces Drive Performance

Take note: an empathetic culture faces inwards and outwards–treating customers and employees with compassion. In 2020, we saw leaders stand out for their ability to tap into the human connection of their workplaces. The pandemic taught us how to offer more grace. It heightened our awareness for giving people the benefit of the doubt and helped us assume positive intent.

In a recent HBR article, the case is made that empathetic workplaces enjoy better collaboration, less stress, greater morale, and improved culture of resilience with a workforce that bounces back more quickly from difficult moments like layoffs in comparison to workplaces that do not have an empathetic culture. When the 2020 pandemic broke out, workforces' were required to find ways to build alignment across remote teams. We faced pressure to do even more with less as budgets were cut and plans were changed. We pivoted left and right, and there was a tremendous need to improve collaboration and resilience.

But, what does an empathetic workplace look like? It looks like a culture where employees can be their whole selves; they welcome video appearances from children, spouses, pets, and others, which may interrupt meetings. They provide flexibility for parents dealing with homeschooling challenges or daycare shutdowns. Empathetic workplaces are characterized by colleagues who truly care about one another's well-being. Managing a team with empathy means looking beyond the job to be done and attempting to understand the context of the individuals you are working with. Empathetic leaders listen, seek first to understand, then to be understood.

Put Your Best Foot Forward in 2021

There is a light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, but the lessons we learned in 2020 should not be forgotten. Take your concerted practice of empathy for yourself, your coworkers, and your customers with you into 2021; it is crucial to strengthen trust and build long-lasting relationships. 

There is no denying that 2020 accelerated digital transformation and forced the whole world digital. With the surge in digital activity, we need to focus on up-leveling our digital buying experiences. Are you listening to, learning from, and optimizing your digital channels? If not, start today because the shift to digital is here to stay.