What to expect from B2B marketing and sales in 2024

Now that the decorations are down and the new year’s resolutions are hanging by a thread, we find ourselves back at work in the anticipation that the forthcoming year will smash out of the park the previous year and that our carefully planned strategies will bring success to ourselves, our company, and our customers in 2024.

But without an almanac of future events, like the one Marty McFly bought in Back to the Future, how will we know if our short term and long-term bets will work out the way we hope they will?

Fortunately, thanks to the number crunchers and analysts at BNZSA, we have compiled a series of trends and provided analysis to help predict will have the biggest impact on B2B marketing in 2024.

Following a tough year in 2022, the tech industry didn’t get off to the best of starts in 2023 and we saw continued cutbacks, setbacks, and layoffs.

Over the year, we witnessed over 1100 companies letting go a combined total of more than a quarter of a million employees, in what proved to be another tumultuous year for tech companies and their workers.

And today, as we enter the first few days of the new year, the outlook for 2024 remains uncertain due to high interest rates, unstable geopolitical tensions and  climate related disasters ravaging the globe.

These constraints will likely continue to put pressure on marketing teams who have to manage lower budgets but are still expected to achieve high results with less resources. Don’t worry, you are not alone!

And in this scenario, this piece will look at ways to help you reach your goals in the the most efficient way to maximise your budget and get the best returns.

A personal touch in the age of Generative AI:

The prediction:

As we step into 2024, the integration of generative AI, such as ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, and Microsoft’s Copilot, has become increasingly prominent in B2B marketing. These powerful language models have revolutionized content creation, social media engagement, and even customer service, offering marketing teams unprecedented efficiency and scalability. The use of generative AI has allowed marketers to automate routine tasks, generate personalized content at scale, and enhance customer interactions.

However, this surge in AI adoption comes with its own set of challenges. Consumer concerns about misinformation, biased content, and potential job displacement have reached a critical point, with 72% expressing worry, according to Gartner. Striking the right balance between leveraging the capabilities of generative AI and addressing ethical concerns is crucial for B2B marketers in 2024. Building transparency, ethical guidelines, and oversight mechanisms will be essential to maintain consumer trust and ensure responsible AI use.

How BNZSA can help:

Companies looking to grow their content strategy at scale, but do not want to rely heavily on AI produced content can avail of our Content Creatr services. This offering is powered by people – content writers, graphic designers, communication experts – who can support you to create high quality content with a human touch that lands your messaging with your customers.

From social media advertising and email nurture tracks, to longer form content such as whitepapers or in-depth webinars, our team of content writers, graphic designers and videographers are on hand to create bespoke and engaging content that will land your messaging with your target audience. We help you in building brand awareness, establishing credibility through consistency, and driving sales.

Companies will struggle to nurture and maintain connection with prospects following layoffs:

The prediction:

When it comes to B2B sales, traditionally people still buy from people. But In an increasingly digital world, where more technical aspects of work can be easily automated, soft skills and a human touch will be ever more crucial in adding value to prospects’ experiences. Companies with limited resources following layoffs who may not have the BDR or SDR staff to nurture prospects and maintain that connection.

How BNZSA can help:

As an integral part of our Opportunity Finder stack, BNZSA’s BDR and SDR Sales-as-a-Service offering is designed to both enhance the functions of you in-house BDR team, while also giving instant resources and multilingual support to generate credible and compliant opportunities that are more mature in the sales cycle.

Our native speaking team can support 26 languages that allows clients to instantly ramp up in new territories, achieve a lower cost of sale and see quick, sustainable, and measurable ROI to investment. To learn more about how our People-powered services can help you, see here.

Buying preferences are changing as Millennials and Gen Z take on purchasing roles:

The prediction:

The demographics of buying teams are changing as Millennials and Gen Z progress in their careers. Buyers aged 25-44 will make up 75% of business buying teams in 2024. Being digital natives, younger buyers are comfortable seeking information online before engaging with sales teams. But they can still face challenges in the buying process, such as building consensus with other key decision makers, meaning that personal interactions with product experts are incredibly valuable. These interactions allow young buyers to address their specific challenges and bring reliability and credibility to the decision-making process.

According to Forrester, two out of five Millennial buyers will demand early access to B2B product experts in 2024. Millennials and Gen Z buyers value expertise highly in their decision-making process. They want to ensure that the product or service they are considering is backed by knowledgeable experts who can answer their questions and provide detailed information.

This shift in buyer behaviour is driving the need for B2B sellers to adapt their go-to-market strategies and engage with these younger buyers through various channels, including self-guided digital platforms.

How BNZSA can help:

BNZSA’s Promoter Programme (BPP), is the B2B equivalent of B2C influencers. It also falls within the framework of Opportunity Finder. BPP is run by highly trained specialists (Promoters) who work with end users and channel partners to inform them and educate them about a client’s hardware, software, platform, and service solutions.

A promoter’s goal is not to sell per se, but to act as an advisor to the end user or channel partner about the benefits and use cases for deployment. This product focused approach bridges the gap between sales and users by providing younger buyers with the opportunity to connect with an expert early in the buy process, as well as being supported throughout their user journey.

The end of the MQL and “Lead”? The move towards “Opportunities” for sales and marketing alignment:

The prediction:

This year will see a notable shift in B2B sales and marketing away from Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) to a stronger focus on sales opportunities as a more robust and aligned objective between the two functions. Aligning sales and marketing around opportunities and buying groups provides a more accurate and efficient approach to revenue forecasting.

The problem with using MQLs as a basis for pipeline generation is that it does not necessarily tell you whether it is a real sales opportunity or not, which is why there is typically a low conversion rate between MQLs and SRLs. Marketing teams need to focus on creating intricate campaigns with multiple digital and human touch points in order to optimize their pipeline generation efforts.  

Identifying and qualifying opportunities that have the highest chance of closing involves applying various strategies along the sales funnel in order to fully engage and convert prospects to opportunities effectively. This can be hard to get right at every step but disintermediation and creating curated content experiences are huge steps in the right direction.   

How BNZSA can help:

BNZSA Opportunity Finder is a fully integrated end to end solution that concentrates on generating revenue by offering services at every stage of the buying process. This helps companies optimise their outreach strategy by enriching first and third-party data, harmonising automation technology, and providing guidance on segmenting tactics, creating personalised content, and building strong relationships with target accounts. As a result, higher quality and more tangible opportunities are created.

In September 2023 we launched inTNT, our precision intent data solution which gives B2B marketers validated, compliant intent signals captured from conversations not clicks in multiple European languages to enable them to get in front of more buyers more effectively. BNZSA’s inTNT is a key pillar of Opportunity Finder, driving higher conversion rates as sales and marketing teams can engage with prospects when their interest is at its peak leading to more closed revenue and shorter sales cycles.

In our research, we  found that typically in the B2B landscape up to 98.5% of leads are discarded from the pipeline without converting, but Opportunity Finder helps to avoid this by using precision targeting, aligning sales and marketing through our Warm HandoverTM method, and delivering measurable return on sales investment.

Reflecting on 2023: A Year of Change

As we come to the end of another year, I always like to take time to reflect on the wins and the challenges we faced over the last twelve months. In what has been another tough year for the tech industry, I am immensely proud of the adaptability shown by everyone at BNZSA. We have weathered the storm, and we are stronger together for it.  

2023 has been a transformative year for BNZSA. We have always strived to “Change the Industry”, a goal that has been strongly woven into our core values as a company since I started BNZSA a decade ago.

BNZSA has big ambitions for the future; this presented us with two options, either we continued this journey alone and took the risk that it will take another ten years to develop better integrated global offerings, or we looked to partner with a company whose ambitions and values align with ours. This led to the biggest change of all for BNZSA in April of this year, when we officially joined the Anteriad team. Over the past nine months we have been working hard to fully integrate our data-driven, people-powered products and services to offer our clients comprehensive sales and marketing support on a global scale.

Again, in an effort to “Change the Industry” in September we launched inTNT, our AI powered, multilingual intent data solution, bringing GDPR compliant and validated intent to the market. I’m excited to be able to launch this product that supplements Anteriad’s global intent offering and provides our customers with the ability to get in front of more EMEA-based buyers.

As I look back on everything we have achieved as a team this year, I want to take this moment to thank my team for their hard work and dedication. I am optimistic for the outlook of 2024, and I am excited to see where the next chapter brings us as we continue to integrate our offering with Anteriad. Watch this space!

Five reasons to use BNZSA INTNT DATA to connect with in-market buyers

Companies are tired of guesswork when trying to filter through the noise of identifying the buying patterns of their target customers. With buying cycles increasing and purchasing decisions taking longer, accurately targeting companies that are currently in market is vital to accelerate pipeline and revenue generation.

The value of intent data in B2B sales:

Traditional intent data refers to information that provides anonymous signals and insights into the online behaviour and activities of individuals or companies. It reveals the specific actions and signals that indicate a potential interest or intention to purchase a product or service. This data is typically collected from various online sources, such as website visits, search queries, content downloads, social media interactions, and more.

In B2B sales, intent data is invaluable when trying to identify high-potential leads as it provides sales teams with a deeper understanding of consumer behaviour and buying intent. This leads to more precise targeting, highly personalised messaging and offers tailored to address specific pain points and challenges potential customers are facing.

What sets BNZSA inTNT apart from other intent data solutions?

Currently piloting in EMEA only, BNZSA inTNT is a different approach to collecting and processing intent signals and this is because it is firstly based around multilingual human verified conversations that have verified GDPR compliance. Thousands of conversations each month are then analysed by Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning tools to digitally verify the human collected intent.

Unlike traditional intent that can be layered onto firmographic and technographic data in marketing automation platforms, BNZSA inTNT is only available as part of a digital media spend and not as a feed. Using inTNT for advanced segmentation of ideal customer profiles, companies that have been flagged with human and AI verified intent are targeted programmatically and socially and those companies that engage with your brand, product are service are then further called to verify intent and consent. Those contacts are then passed back as compliant opportunities to call by the client.

How does BNZSA inTNT work?

5 reasons to use BNZSA inTNT:

BNZSA inTNT can supercharge your pipeline and help you get in front of the right people at the right time. By incorporating BNZSA inTNT into your marketing strategy you can expect:

  1. Higher Conversion Rates: Engage with prospects when their interest is at its peak, leading to higher conversion rates and shorter sales cycles.
  2. Precise Targeting: Tailor your messaging based on the specific needs and preferences of each prospect, increasing the relevance of your communications.
  3. Strategic Insights: Gain deep insights into the pain points and challenges faced by your target audience. Craft solutions that resonate and address their unique concerns.
  4. Maximized ROI: Stop wasting resources on cold leads. Invest your time and energy where it matters most – on prospects who are actively seeking solutions like yours.
  5. Data-Driven Decisions: Better decisions start with better data. Replace guesswork with data-driven decision-making. Make informed choices backed by real-time, actionable insights.

BNZSA inTNT packages:

BNZSA inTNT is available in three packages, Promoter, Influencer and Evangelist. Each offering builds on levels of awareness and promises precisely targeted, leads that are human, and AI verified and digitally activated who have also consented to being contacted, which is a crucial differentiator to other intent data platforms.

To learn more about how inTNT can take your lead generation efforts to the next level, get in touch.

BNZSA Spotlight:

BNZSA expands offices across Europe with the BNZSA Passport Programme

Like the majority of companies in March 2020, we had no option but to transform our working environment to fully remote practically overnight when stringent lockdown measures were announced by the Spanish government on a Friday afternoon.

This was no easy feat considering we had always been a fully office-based company, but over the course of a weekend, we managed to get over 100 offices up and running across Madrid by the Monday morning. 

It was a steep learning curve, but since then, we have adopted a blended approach to office based and remote working. Our employees still come to the office regularly, while also benefiting from the flexibility of working from home.

“People” is our first core value, and we’re committed to creating a supportive, and flexible working environment. Here’s what remote working looks like for us now:

Team Days

Our Madrid-based teams have the flexibility to work from home, but with set weekly team days in the office. This allows our Rockers to have the chance to catch-up with their colleagues in person, while still benefitting from a hybrid work environment.

Roadie Program

Our Roadie Programme is another example of how our workplace has evolved. We call Madrid home, but we wanted to open the market to aspiring Rockers across Spain. Our Roadie Programme, which was initially launched in 2022, allows Rockers to work remotely from anywhere in Spain once they complete their first week of onboarding in our HQ. Our Roadies come back to visit on quarterly trips to Las Rozas where they can catch up with their teammates for some team building.

BNZSA Passport

The BNZSA Passport allows our Rockers to work remotely from anywhere in Europe for up to 20 days a year. Whether it is to retreat from the summer heat of Madrid by spending some days by the beach, or to spend much needed time with family, the BNZSA passport allows Rockers to set up shop across Europe either in a 20-day block or in weekly increments.

Another of our four core values is “Change the Industry”, and this starts with making BNZSA, powered by Anteriad a great place to work for our Rockers. Our Roadie and Passport Programmes are another example of how we’re breaking the mould of what it means to work in the world of B2B marketing.

If you’d like to join the band, check out our vacancies on talent.bnzsa.com.

Anteriad acquires BNZSA: A message from BNZSA's CEO, Brahim Samhoud

It has been ten years since BNZSA was founded. Our goal from Day 1 was always to be a disruptive force capable of changing the B2B marketing industry for the better. And we have achieved that.  

Over the last decade, BNZSA has brought multiple ground-breaking innovations to the market such as The Warm HandoverTM, Opportunity Finder, and most recently Knowledge Exchange, which is still in its pilot phase. Our service offering has evolved over time based on our first-hand experience in the market, allowing us to provide services backed by both first- and third-party data, as well as the crucial element, human intelligence, to revolutionise pipeline generation strategies for leading IT companies. 

We invested heavily in our global culture. We have been able grow our global presence with offices based in Spain, UK, France, and Morocco, with teams covering EMEA, Middle Eastern, US, Australian and Japanese markets.  

BNZSA has big ambitions for the future; this presented us with two options, either we continued this journey alone and took the risk that it will take another ten years to develop better integrated global offerings, or we looked to partner with a company whose ambitions and values align with ours.  

This is where Anteriad comes into the picture, and on Friday, 31 March, 2023 the deal was finalised for Anteriad to acquire BNZSA.  

So, what does this mean for BNZSA? We will now operate as BNZSA, powered by Anteriad, as a separate division of Anteriad and I will remain as CEO of BNZSA.  

I am thoroughly impressed by what Anteriad has managed to achieve in the B2B marketing space, especially their tech and data stack, such as the Anteriad Marketing Cloud. Our services are entirely complementary. While Anteriad focused on developing their technology and data driven solutions, we focused on the human offering. Anteriad has a strong presence in the US and India, while BNZSA is driven by a multi-cultural team of more than 300 people, speaking 26 languages natively, giving us a truly international presence with the power of understanding cultural nuances in different markets. Our European base gives Anteriad more direct access to the EMEA markets, expanding its sales reach and accelerating its growth in EMEA.  

This acquisition is great news for the industry. By combining our forces, we are integrating the best of both worlds to create the most comprehensive sales and marketing stack that the market has seen. I am thrilled to have found the right partner who can bring BNZSA to the next level, and it’s been great to see how Anteriad’s client obsession mirrors ours. I look forward to supporting our incredibly talented teams to innovate and grow.  

I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been a part of BNZSA’s journey, both past and present. We would not be in this position today without the dedication and hard work from our Rockers, support teams, management, and incredible leadership team. Your support has been second to none to drive BNZSA’s success this far, and I am excited to see where this next chapter takes us.  

Together, I have no doubt that Anteriad and BNZSA will take B2B marketing to a whole new level, driven by data and powered by people. Anteriad and BNZSA – Together We Rock! 

For more information about the acquisition please see anteriad.com. 

BNZSA predicts the top 3 B2B marketing trends for 2023

With the new year well underway, BNZSA is looking ahead at the top three trends that will influence B2B marketeers in 2023.  

The IT industry has been hit hard in the past year with mass layoffs and uncertainty due to the looming threat of a recession. This trend has sadly continued in January 2023 with more companies announcing redundancies. In times like these, it's crucial for businesses to be smart about their marketing spend and make sure their messaging is reaching the right people at the right time and is relevant to that audience in order to generate real sales opportunities and revenue.  

To this end, BNZSA is looking at three key strategies that can help you make the most of your marketing budget.  

1. Curated Content Hubs  

B2B buyers are increasingly expecting a B2C-like experience when interacting with B2B companies. This means that they want easy access to relevant and valuable content and information, as well as seamless and efficient communication and collaboration throughout the buying process.  

To meet these expectations, B2B marketers need to focus on creating an omnichannel presence that allows buyers to engage with their brand and access content and information on their own terms. This can include creating a robust website or landing page with educational resources that acts as a content hub. Creating this space creates a point of reference for the prospect where they can be directed to further “bingeable” content, or where they can be redirected to multiple times whether through ads, emails or through their own interest. 

Prospects’ content experiences can be enriched by using programmatic advertising on social media channels. By tracking engagement and user behaviour on the landing page, prospects can then receive advertising with tailored messaging based on their user profiles and leveraging data on customer behaviour to push them to additional content relevant to their interests, industry, or job title.   

By delivering a B2C-like experience to B2B buyers, companies can not only improve the overall customer journey, but also differentiate themselves from the competition and build strong, long-lasting relationships with their clients. 

Creating personalised user content journeys through email content, social media advertising and landing pages, allows marketing teams to gather important data on what interests their customers and helps to identify buying intent signals which is valuable data which can strengthen a follow-up telemarketing strategy.  

2. Disintermediation  

Marketing teams are often handling leads being generated from various agencies which can lead to a disjointed and inefficient workflow. 2023 is the year where marketing teams will partner with fewer agencies, instead, procuring all their marketing needs from one place.   

Gone are the days where one agency handles your social media and digital activity, another handles the generation of opted-in leads which are then passed onto another agency for further qualification, before hopefully being closed by an in-house sales representative. Working with one centralized agency that has the capacity to complete each activity along the sales funnel, maximises marketing efforts. Not only does it provide a more cohesive and centralized insight into the progress of the sales pipeline, but it also creates a seamless flow throughout nurture activity.  

When one agency handles every activity, it facilitates a faster follow up as the prospect’s engagement can be tracked and incorporated into a telemarketing campaign. When a prospect’s behaviour shows high engagement there is no lull between the different agencies’ activity, allowing you to capitalize on the momentum and increasing the chance to convert the lead into a revenue generating opportunity.  

A "one stop shop" specialist agency such as BNZSA, can provide a full range of marketing services, from content creation, content syndication, digital and telemarketing activity, and even outsourced sales teams to close the deal all under one roof, streamlining pipeline generation from start to finish.  

3. Opportunities rather than leads 

Traditionally marketing has focused on lead generation, and rightfully so. But times are changing and there is a need for campaigns to be more strategic in order to convert leads into revenue generating opportunities. Marketing teams need to look at the entire pipeline to ensure prospects are adequately qualified and nurtured until they are sales ready to not only close the “easy wins”, but to also make sure that nothing is lost from the pipeline in the meantime.  

Our research shows that up to 98.5% of leads are lost from the pipeline. This means that marketing spends potentially worth millions of euros is not being spent efficiently, simply because the sales teams don’t have the resources to follow up on everything or there is a breakdown somewhere along the sales funnel.  

This year will see a huge focus on quality over quantity and a shift from “lead generation” to “opportunity generation”. One key issue is that “lead” is a generalised term that includes everything from a simple opt-in to a Sales Qualified Lead, but using the term lead itself does not necessarily tell you whether it is real sales opportunity or not.  

Simple campaigns that focus on gathering consented opt-ins no longer guarantee a high revenue return. Marketing teams need to focus on creating intricate campaigns with multiple digital and human touch points in order to optimize their pipeline generation efforts.  

Identifying and qualifying opportunities that have the highest chance of closing involves applying various strategies along the sales funnel in order to fully engage and convert prospects to opportunities effectively. This can be hard to get right at every step but disintermediation and creating curated content experiences are huge steps in the right direction.  

Hope For The Best By Preparing For The Worst: BNZSA Examines The Five Key Trends For ITDMs For 2023 And Beyond.

As we enter the last few days of 2022 it is a customary tradition to do a bit of navel gazing about what the next year will hold for the IT Market and what hot topics will keep ITDMs awake at night next year.

As we end what has been for many, a rollercoaster of a year, there seems to be plenty of things that will cause a few sleepless nights in the months ahead!

Therefore, it is important to identify and adapt to these trends in a world that has had a perpetual round of shocks in the last decade that in more recent times has seen: a global pandemic, inflation, global supply chain issues, energy and food crises and latterly geopolitical instability through war. There are also many concerns over increasingly sophisticated criminal and state sponsored cyber-attacks. 

With another global recession on the horizon, it is more essential than ever to have the best and most actionable data, combined with continued investment in employee and customer value propositions, in order to ride the wave of these uncertain times.

In the first of this two-part piece, BNZSA will identify the key trends and challenges in the market for 2023 and beyond.

1. Hybrid Infrastructure

Many commentators have been tracking the long-lasting implications of Covid on the workplace and what knock-on effects it has had on the provision of IT services and employee working practices. While the race to look for more collaborative technologies during lockdowns and social distancing measures was a necessary first response to a natural disaster, most industry watchers believe that hybrid and remote working will continue after the pandemic.

In November 2022, a YouGov study on behalf of IT service and consultants NSC noted “… organisations should expect this to be a permanent and persistent pattern in their workplace and to prepare for this long-term shift.”

It also believes that this paradigm shift is the ‘new norm’ and that increasingly companies will move to a ‘distributed enterprise.’ The report also noted that the global market for IT and business services grew 29% to $84.2 billion in 2021 as businesses reviewed and implemented new technology to improve “overall long-term business resilience.”

In order to fully utilise hybrid-infrastructure, ITDMs must factor in the following trends. With opportunity, comes potential challenges and risks, which if not fully planned for may bring some nasty surprises along the way.

2. Modern Workplace

The knock-on effect of the long period of remote working is that many employees now associated office-based jobs with an unnecessary and expensive commute on backed up highways and overburdened public transport networks.

Whereas hybrid and remote ways of working offer more flexibility, productivity and time to be with family. Many workers have decided that going forward they want to work for companies that will offer remote or hybrid working, according to analyst Gartner.

It found that nearly half of employees surveyed wanted to work for companies that offered more hybrid work and latterly shorter working weeks. It also stated that the “employee value proposition must change for hybrid work and respond to shifts in employee expectations”

In its report, Gartner has identified these key future work trends:

In conclusion, Gartner believes because the ongoing transformation in the way knowledge workers work, the move to hybrid working will prove great opportunities for companies. However, it will also provide potential risks such as increased exposure to cyberattacks, which we will examine below.

Other factors such as the way companies have traditionally  procured and managed hardware look likely to change as demands for more bring (or use) your own devices (BYOD) grows and the demand of  purchasing more mobile devices rather than traditional desktop devices grows.

Break fix services will also be a consideration for the future in terms of maintaining, services and replacing devices. And with a growing need for employees to monitor activity and productivity of remote staff, there looks likely to be some concerns about how much data companies are holding on employees, how it is processed and other concerns that ITDMs will have to manage as part of ongoing privacy policies.

3. Digital Transformation

While YouGov/NSC found, in a survey of 263 business executives, that 79% of respondents had a digital transformation plan in place, almost half cited that legacy technology as a key constraint. Many are now looking to cloud migration or companies that offer as-a-service solutions, to not only help with their digital transformation plans, but to also maintain solid customer value propositions and customer experience.

To this end, YouGov predicts that demand for as-as-service offerings will rise. And this can also mean how companies hire staff. According to Gartner, in looming recessionary times functional leaders must get “recession ready.” And this means being agile in securing talent.

For BNZSA’s clients, the demand for BDRs-as-a-service and SDRs-as-a-service also looks set to rise in 2023 and beyond as companies look to backfill existing shortages or look to grow pipelines and closed won revenue by adding instant ‘virtual’ resources at a fraction of the cost of traditional FTEs.

During the pandemic, a lot of the traditional face-to-face (F2F) ways to educate potential customers on IT products and solutions and generate sales pipeline such as conferences and events were put on hold. In turn, this has accelerated many companies to look to digital solutions and social platforms to educate and also for lead generation provision.

While it is universally accepted that ‘content is the backbone of any buyer journey or customer experience. Analyst company Forrester notes that currently marketeers must catch up on critical skills to ensure content will deliver its ‘intended impact’. It also notes that having a pre-pandemic approach to content provision and content syndication in an increasingly sophisticated digital landscape will not yield the results or ROI that marketeers and sales people expect. While we may have to wait for the Metaverse or some similar virtual reality platform to interact with brands, there are plenty of smarter ways for companies to use content on current digital platforms.

To this end Forrester advises five important focus areas for content provision, effective digital campaigns and providing the right content to the right people at the right time:

As we approach 2023, it seems that while most companies may claim they have a digital transformation in place, it may be hindered by a number of factors that need to be addressed and fixed.

If for example, legacy hardware is the reason why cloud migrations and as-a-service provision is faltering, looking to companies that provide managed services and have the necessary infrastructure in place could be a short-term solution to allow ITDMs and marketeers to focus on other areas of the business that need to be fixed such as content.

Like managed service providers, there are a number of agencies like BNZSA that can not only create the content for your campaigns but also manage both the awareness and the generation of marketing qualified and sales ready opportunities.

4. Cloud Computing

While the migration from on premise infrastructure to cloud computing has been happening the enterprise for some time, it is quickly becoming a top priority for the mid-size market. According to YouGov/NSC, it found that: “in 2021, cloud spending by small and midsized businesses shot up significantly, with as many as 53% spending more than $1.2 million annually on the cloud - up from 38% in 2020”.

It also states that companies are increasingly looking for cloud-based solutions “to keep up with digital transformation and ensure remote workers have what they need to stay productive”.

Considering the above trends and challenges of modern workplace, hybrid computing and digital transformation, it is small wonder that YoGov/NSC found that execs from all sizes of companies ranked cloud services between 80-93% as the most important technology for their business post Covid.

In terms of best practice around cloud migration, there is a whole range of advice around whether to ‘lift and shift’-migrating existing architecture to cloud-based services, ‘refactor’ or fully refactor, according to AWS cloud migration partner Cloud Bridge that notes

“In our experience, there is no ‘right’ way. The key decision is whether to modernise as you move, or afterwards.”

5. Cyber Security

With the move to more hybrid and remote working combined with the growth of using more “as-a-service” offerings by cloud migration and outsourced human resources is creating more security threats for both enterprise and mid-size companies.

The holiday period is also a prime time for cyberattacks according to managed services provider, Transputec that warns:

"The main issue with cybersecurity over Christmas is that many organisations are severely understaffed during this time. Employees are often underprepared when the cyberattack takes place, and even struggle to deal with recovering from the damages done after the cyberattack. Detection and response times are much higher in Christmas than any other time of year as a result."

"Cyberattacks are more prevalent since organisations just don’t have the defences in place to deal with the numerous forms of cyberattacks. In particular, ransomware attacks increased by 70% during the holiday period of 2021."

According to Transputec, as well as raising awareness of cyberattacks over the holidays with staff and running compliance courses, it is also important to add things like multi-factor authentication to accounts and devices:

“This will provide an additional layer of security that makes it more difficult for cyber-attackers to bypass. Cyber-attackers have often been able to guess or steal passwords. Having multi-factor authentication helps your organisation become less susceptible to social engineering.”

Going forward into 2023, YouGov/NSC notes that “67% of the C-suite see the single biggest "headache", with technology today, as Cybersecurity.”

While Analyst Gartner also notes that for audit departments, executives see Cyber threats as a growing risk in 2023.

“Fewer than half (42%) of audit executives are highly confident they can provide assurance over cybersecurity risk — although 81% plan to cover cybersecurity in audit activities. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and resulting geopolitical hostility could lead to increased cyberthreats. Even before war broke out, organizations believed that actors sponsored by the Russian government targeted them.”

However, there are certainly solutions. Having a strategy and backup in place to deal with cyberattacks is crucial concludes Transputec that observes:

“Since cyberattacks are more common during the Christmas season, it’s also important to have backups of your data in the case of a successful cyberattack. With cloud computing being commonly used, having a physical backup of your data could be a life-saver”.

Stay tuned for part two where we will offer some tips and advice from our internal experts, clients and ITDMs, using real world examples on how to adapt for these challenges.

BNZSA Spotlight

9 YEARS ROCKING WITH BNZSA

June is a special month here at BNZSA. Why? It's our birthday!  

Because 9 years ago in a small garage in the South of France, BNZSA was born. With an ambition to change the lead generation industry, our founder and CEO, Brahim, started on the path to make BNZSA what it is today – a leading B2B sales and marketing agency in delivering campaigns for some of the best-known IT brands in the world.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NY_9u37Sv8

The Team

From humble beginnings in 2013 when our founder Brahim Samhoud was working as a one-man band, to now in 2022 rocking as an ensemble of more than 400 employees across Spain, UK, France and Morocco, we wouldn't be here today without all the hard work and dedication of every single person who contributed to BNZSA's success along the way.  

From our business development representatives, coaches, data scientists, digital marketers, software developers and more, we are grateful to have such a huge pool of talent that will drive our growth to the next level.  

It’s incredible to have such ambitious and skilled individuals choosing to spend part of their career with us. We also have a growing alumni network and we're excited to see how they're spreading the BNZSA spirit into our industry and beyond! 

Our clients and partners

Over the last 9 years we've had the pleasure of building and developing strong relationships with key players in the IT industry. To the clients that trusted us in the beginning, and took a chance on a small player, thank you for being part of our exciting journey.  

Our clients and partners have not only helped to develop our network, but by working together, building strong connections, and looking for creative ways to address new problems, our clients have been pivotal to our continued innovation and growth.  

Their trust and commitment to us have allowed us to build new departments, launch new products and services and invest in new technologies that help us get our clients to where they want to be. These include our trademarked Warm HandoverTM process, our B2B programmatic offering and the new Decision Science practice. 

What's next for BNZSA? 

In BNZSA we strive to deliver the highest quality leads and go the extra mile and our plans for the future are no different.  

Having recently launched our Decision Science practice to provide our clients cutting edge actionable insights, here at BNZSA we have no plans on slowing our innovation and growth.  

With some exciting projects in the pipeline, be sure to watch this space as we continue to change the industry!

How to build a BNZSA Rocker

By Paul Briggs, Director Global Corporate Development

If you know anything about BNZSA, you’ll know that rock music has been a huge inspiration for us. We recently launched our first ever song, Together We Rock, which is an ode to our company slogan, and we refer to every single one of our employees as a BNZSA Rocker.  

Like all the best bands, we got started in a garage. Our CEO, founder and frontman Brahim Samhoud explains why rock music is so important to him: “I love the image of the rock band. A group of people who might not have a lot in common apart from their single goal to work together and produce an incredible result that inspires and delights the crowd. I hope that’s what we do here every day – our multinational, multilingual teams come together to get great results for our clients”.

“I also firmly believe that anyone has the potential to be a great BNZSA Rocker. I challenged our onboarding team to come up with a programme that any person from any professional background can jump into. With the right attitude and the right support, anyone has the potential to excel here at BNZSA”.

This has been even more important as we prepared to scale fast! From March 2020 to now, we have grown our headcount by almost 400%. We want to fill people with the BNZSA spirit as quickly as possible and give them the tools they need to succeed from Day 1.

What makes a BNZSA Rocker?

There is no magic formula to create a BNZSA Rocker. Some people come with years of experience in B2B Sales, others can apply their skills from customer service, hospitality or other industries. Some people have many master's degrees and others are fresh from school. We look for people who have the drive and ambition to grow with us.

The people who succeed with us are those who live by the four Core BNZSA Values:

How do we build a BNZSA Rocker?

We hired the amazing Álvaro Aldana three years ago to help us grow our onboarding process. Álvaro brings his experience as a learning and development manager from Starbucks to industrialise our onboarding and get our Rockers performing fast.

This training mostly focuses on those who will take on roles as BDRs, but we are quickly adding programmes for the digital, development and data teams, as well as a stream for new management positions.

We currently onboard up to 40 Rockers a month and have just two weeks to get them ready for the intense world of B2B lead generation.

Week 1: The tools for success

Week 1 focuses on instilling the BNZSA Values and culture – we spend a lot of time talking about our history, showcasing role models in the company and sharing our vision for the future. Being coachable and ready to grow is also an essential element of this week, so we include an immensely popular module called “Learning How to Learn.” There´s a strong focus on the basics of the IT products required by businesses so that any Rocker can prepared for whatever our clients throw at them.

During this first week we ensure that the new Rockers acquire all the basics that they will need to start getting the job done while also giving them space to absorb and reflect.

We finally also make sure that we find some opportunities to decompress with colleagues at our weekly Friday barbecue.

Week 2: Learning by doing

Week 2 is when things get serious. The best way to learn is to get on the phone and out in the market talking to potential IT buyers. Our newbies will first do some shadowing and role playing before they jump straight in and receive live coaching on their conversations. We support them with additional workshops on building connections over the phone, handling objections and tackling difficult situations – all using real examples from the group’s experience. Pretty much all of our newbies will make their first leads during this week – a huge confidence builder that prepares them for what comes next!

By their second Friday with us, we have a whole new batch of BNZSA Rockers ready and waiting to join the band!

Week 3 and beyond: the learning never stops

From Week 3, our new Rockers join the rest of the team and enter our ongoing coaching and training programme. We offer product trainings and team learning sessions as needed, as well as one-to-one coaching. Everyone at BNZSA also has access to a huge library of content via our Learning Management System Skillsoft Percipio – Rockers can work on their current skills gaps and take courses that help them meet their development goals for the future.

Together We Learn!

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Global B2B marketing agency BNZSA records 237% year-on-year revenue growth for Q1 2022

Leading global B2B IT sales and marketing agency BNZSA delivered 237% revenue growth in Q1 2022. This is supported by a headcount increase of 159%, with around 400 employees currently on staff.

BNZSA is one of Europe’s largest B2B marketing agencies, delivering sales-ready leads to many of the world´s leading technology brands including Acer, Dell, HP, Oracle and SAP. With a 95% client retention rate, much of BNZSA’s growth has been driven by expansion and referrals with their existing customer base.

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The company has made strategic investments to enable existing clients to grow their portfolio with the agency. These include:

CEO Brahim Samhoud says, “2022 is going to be a huge year for us. We marked a significant shift by moving to our beautiful new campus in Las Rozas, where many multinationals have their Madrid HQs. But this is just the beginning of our next phase - we’re building our data and digital teams to ensure we have the best predictive analytics and targeting to reach tech buyers at the right moment.

“I’m proud to say that most of our growth is driven by referrals. We maintain a 95% retention rate and our clients are our key advocates – we see them referring us inside their companies, contracting us when they ·move roles to new organisations and recommending us to their peers and contacts.

“Regardless of the many acronyms in our industry, what our clients want are leads that will convert to revenue. Our conversion rate is around 70% and climbing – we’re building our data and digital teams to ensure we have the best predictive analytics and targeting to reach buyers at the right moment.”

About BNZSA 

BNZSA is a leading sales & marketing agency specialising in data and tele-based demand generation with a team of 400 who are experts in delivering qualified, sales-ready leads. It was established in 2013 and has grown rapidly over eight years. BNZSA is privately-owned, has never relied on third-party funding, and has been profitable since day one.

The company is based in Madrid, Spain, and has offices in the UK, France, and Morocco. It invests heavily in its agents who are all native language speakers and deliver client campaigns in languages globally. In addition to the uniquely human and personal dimension of the company, BNZSA is a leader in the application of technology to underpin its value proposition. It built its own bespoke CRM platform and is a pioneer in the use of Artificial Intelligence, Neuro Linguistic Programming and Machine Learning technologies.

For more information, visit our website or contact Chief Marketing Officer Soniya Ganvir.