As digital natives, millennials and zoomers are becoming more likely to keep their distance from traditional sales and marketing calls. Instead, they are showing a strong preference for digital and virtual interactions, according to a recent survey of 172 B2B marketers and demand-generation professionals in the 2022 State of Demand Gen report from Activate Marketing Services.

Moreover, millennials, born between 1981 and 1996, have already joined the management ranks of B2B buyers, and zoomers (or Gen Z, born between 1997 and 2012) are becoming more common among the buyer population.

Not surprisingly, the surveys found than B2B marketers and demand-gen pros are emphasizing the need to go more digital and virtual in sales and marketing efforts.

Among these trends:

• Marketing and demand generation professionals will focus on the quality rather than the quantity of their leads, according to 86% of survey respondents.
• Buyers and prospects will consume more digital content in their buyer journey (72%).

Among digital content, blogs (cited by 74% of respondents), infographics (73%) and videos (65%) top the list of content types that marketers and demand gen professionals say will be most effective at the top of the marketing funnel, the point where marketers first engage potential buyers.

At the bottom of the funnel, when customers are ready to buy, in-person events (25%) are among the top three strategies. But they come in third after customer case studies (48%) and white papers or e-books (47%).

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