B2B Marketing Blog

B2B Marketing News: B2B Ad Spending Sizzles, Salesforce Slack Buy Complete, C-Suite Marketing Survey, & Clubhouse Opens To All

Lane Ellis on Jul 30th, 2021
Online Marketing News

US B2B ad spend set to pass $30b in 2023, nearly half the dollars will go to digital
In the U.S. alone B2B advertising spending is expected to top $30 billion by 2023, with almost half going to digital, while display advertising spending is expected to surpass that of search advertising by 2023 — two of several insights of interest to digital marketers in newly-released forecast data. The Drum

Salesforce completes $27.7B Slack acquisition
Salesforce has put finishing touches on its $27.7 billion acquisition of business communication platform Slack, with the now-official purchase set to combine Salesforce’s data platform Customer 360 with Slack, Salesforce recently announced. Venture Beat

B2B Marketing News: B2B Ad Spending Sizzles, Salesforce Slack Buy Complete, C-Suite Marketing Survey, & Clubhouse Opens To All

5 Ways the Pandemic Has Forever Changed the Voices & Visions of B2B Marketing

Lane Ellis on Jul 28th, 2021
B2B Marketing

How has B2B marketing changed forever during the pandemic?

The voices and visions of B2B marketing have been forced to shift over the past few years, as have many of the goals and methods we strive for and use to connect with our current and potential customers.

Some of these changes are subtle while others are decidedly not, yet each brings with it both new opportunities for embracing the future of B2B marketing along with risks for those who don’t heed the call when the winds of digital change shift.

Let’s take a look at five of the most substantial changes in B2B marketing that the pandemic has driven, and explore new insights that can inform and inspire your efforts in the push towards 2022 and beyond.

5 Ways the Pandemic Has Forever Changed the Voices & Visions of B2B Marketing

6 Timeless SEO Tips Content Marketers Can Do Now

Lee Odden on Jul 26th, 2021
Content Marketing, SEO

Content is the research search began in the first place.

Learning about how to get customers to visit newly created websites is where my search engine optimization education began. In that journey from before there was a Google to today, many things have changed. What has stayed the same is the opportunity to grow business by connecting customers to content by being the best answer and inspiring those customers to take action.

The best SEO practitioners stay on top of what’s current, always experimenting and evaluating what works for topics in a particular industry for the websites and content they’re in charge of attracting customers to. At the same time, the best SEO advice isn’t worth much if it doesn’t get implemented. That’s why many marketers with long term SEO experience emphasize the fundamentals.

6 Timeless SEO Tips Content Marketers Can Do Now

B2B Marketing News: Targeting B2B Buyers Takes Long-Term Lens, Where CMOs Are Spending, ABM Use Rises In B2B, US Influencer Spending To Top $3B, & Media Price Inflation Concerns

Lane Ellis on Jul 23rd, 2021
Online Marketing News

US influencer spending to surpass $3 billion in 2021
An increase of over 33 percent in influencer marketing spending is expected for 2021 — reaching $3.69 billion — recently-released forecast data shows, with a 12.2 percent rise predicted for 2022 and 11.5% in 2023, climbing to $4.62 billion, according to the forecast. eMarketer

Ehrenberg-Bass: 95% of B2B buyers are not in the market for your products
As many as 95 percent of businesses aren’t presently in the market for most services and goods, however not in all sectors, according to newly-released data from client LinkedIn and its LinkedIn B2B Institute. Marketing Week examines the data, and interviews Jann Martin Schwarz, global head of the LinkedIn B2B Institute, on targeting long-term B2B marketing goals and more. Marketing Week

B2B Marketing News: Targeting B2B Buyers Takes Long-Term Lens, Where CMOs Are Spending, ABM Use Rises In B2B, US Influencer Spending To Top $3B, & Media Price Inflation Concerns

Digital Diamonds: 5 Multifaceted Tactics To Boost Your B2B Marketing Clarity & Commitment This Summer

Lane Ellis on Jul 21st, 2021
B2B Marketing

How is successful B2B marketing like a master jeweler working with diamonds of the digital marketing variety?

Diamonds are forever, as the 1971 James Bond film and its title song made famous, and with the archival global power of the web, your B2B marketing efforts are also likely to endure — so why not strive to make them truly memorable?

Also like diamonds, B2B marketing is a multifaceted endeavor.

Let’s explore five enduring tactics that can help you achieve B2B content marketing clarity and create your own digital marketing diamonds.

1 — Achieve Content Marketing Clarity

via GIPHY

Bring diamond-like clarity to your B2B content marketing by identifying and focusing on the heart of your effort’s primary goal.

Digital Diamonds: 5 Multifaceted Tactics To Boost Your B2B Marketing Clarity & Commitment This Summer

Write from the Heart for More Memorable B2B Content Marketing

Joshua Nite on Jul 20th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

B2B marketers have been pushing for personalized content for a good long while. Now we’re also trying to humanize content — to make the case that B2B buyers are human beings who want to connect with other humans on an emotional level.

Isn’t it remarkable that we still have to make that argument?

But I’m not here to write another 1000 words about humanizing content. I want us to take it a step further, beyond personalization, humanization, personality and empathy.

B2B content marketing needs to come from the heart.

True, genuine heart is the last frontier in content. Every brand has an Instagram with behind-the-scenes content to boost authenticity. Every brand is striving to give at least the appearance of sincerity, personality and transparency.

Write from the Heart for More Memorable B2B Content Marketing

Share Your Expertise in the 2021 State of B2B Influencer Marketing Survey

Lee Odden on Jul 19th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

The past year or more has taught B2B marketer many lessons, especially the importance of creating digital first experiences that are credible, authentic and relevant to specific buyers. As part of the digital transformation of marketing, many B2B companies have adjusted their go-to-market approach to satisfy the changing customer expectations that have evolved during the pandemic.

One of those adjustments in B2B marketing has been the increasing role of influence in delivering credible, authentic and relevant digital experiences. Our initial B2B Influencer Marketing research from 2020 showed that going into the pandemic, confidence in working with B2B influencers was very high as were expectations of outcomes.

Despite the growing confidence in working with B2B influencers over the past year, today there are important questions to be answered as more B2B brands enter the realm of influence and grow more sophisticated with the practice.

Share Your Expertise in the 2021 State of B2B Influencer Marketing Survey

B2B Marketing News: B2B MarTech Spending On The Rise, More Brands Turn To Personalized Content, Microsoft’s New Multimedia Ads, & The Power Of B2B Storytelling

Lane Ellis on Jul 16th, 2021
Online Marketing News

Twitter’s Fleets Format To Disappear, Just Weeks After Ads Test Commenced
Twitter has abandoned its Fleets feature that automatically deleted messages in the format after 24 hours, noting that the format and its accompanying full-screen vertical ads, hadn’t performed as well as initially envisioned, the firm recently announced. MediaPost

Digital to power a 10.4% recovery in global ad spend
Global digital advertising spend will ascend to $311 billion to hit 15.6 percent growth in 2021, according to newly-release forecast data from Dentsu, the firm recently announced. Social ad spending is expected to rise even more swiftly at 23 percent, with video ads predicted to rise by 17 percent, according to the forecast data. The Drum

B2B Marketing News: B2B MarTech Spending On The Rise, More Brands Turn To Personalized Content, Microsoft’s New Multimedia Ads, & The Power Of B2B Storytelling

Productivity Pulsars: Blast Into Orbit With 5 Efficiency Boosters For B2B Marketers

Lane Ellis on Jul 14th, 2021
B2B Marketing

How can B2B marketers boost content creation productivity and avoid that dreaded black hole of inefficiency?

As TopRank Marketing chief executive and co-founder Lee Odden said in 2018 in 16 Ways to Be More Efficient with Content Creation, “Without additional budget or writing resources, the most practical way to squeeze out more content creation productivity is by being more efficient,” and the same may be even more true today in 2021.

There’s no denying that better efficiency offers benefits in many areas of a B2B marketer’s work, so we wanted to share some of the galaxy’s top tactics, methods, and tips to improve your productivity through efficiency as we make the push through the rest of 2021 and plan ahead for 2022.

Productivity Pulsars: Blast Into Orbit With 5 Efficiency Boosters For B2B Marketers

From Tech to Human: Three Post Pandemic B2B Marketing Trends

Lee Odden on Jul 12th, 2021
B2B Marketing

For many, the past few months have opened up giving us a taste of “return to normal” but what does that mean?

When most people say normal, what they often mean is comfortable. In the business world pre-pandemic comfortable is a dangerous place to be.

Any company that did not adjust, adapt or pivot over the past year and a half probably isn’t in business or doing as much business as they should. There have been many changes during the pandemic from digital transformation across all aspects of business to evolving expectations of customers. Companies and their marketers must be in tune with all of these changes in order to survive and thrive in a post-pandemic business environment.

From Tech to Human: Three Post Pandemic B2B Marketing Trends

B2B Marketing News: B2B Marketing & Sales Exec Brand Study, LinkedIn’s Marketing Diversity Insights, & Instagram’s New Link Options

Lane Ellis on Jul 9th, 2021
Online Marketing News

Buoyant B2B: Firms Stress Marketing As They Enhance Their Brands
59 percent of B2B marketing and sales executives say their businesses are active in social media, while 39 percent of employees say that they don’t understand their companies’ brands, according to newly-released survey data of interest to digital marketers. MediaPost

What Makes A Brand Best-in-Class on Social?
47 percent of U.S. consumers said that strong customer service made for best-in-class brand social media communication, followed audience engagement with 46 percent, transparency at 44 percent, and creating memorable content at 39 percent, according to recently-released social media survey data. MarketingCharts

Facebook is testing drastic changes to Instagram to make it more like TikTok
Facebook has begun testing changes including full-screen video and more immersive experiences for its Instagram platform, in a move aimed at bringing more entertaining and mobile-first video experiences that better compete with TikTok, the social media giant recently announced. CNBC

B2B Marketing News: B2B Marketing & Sales Exec Brand Study, LinkedIn’s Marketing Diversity Insights, & Instagram’s New Link Options

11 Ways Top B2B Marketers Are Breaking Free of Boring B2B

Lane Ellis on Jul 7th, 2021
B2B Marketing

How can B2B marketers in 2021 break free from conventional and oftentimes boring B2B efforts?

We’re fortunate to have 11 takes on this important topic from some of the top subject matter experts in B2B marketing, with a wide range of insight on how marketers can smash through traditional boring-to-boring marketing.

Our third season of the Break Free B2B Marketing series of video interviews has given us a new group of experts, influencers, and future-thinkers all gathered for one purpose: sharing the ways they’ve broken free and how you can do the same for yourself, your brand, and your business.

Let’s jump right in and see how 11 influential voices in B2B marketing go about breaking through, with actionable tactics you can implement in your own marketing efforts as we head toward 2022.

11 Ways Top B2B Marketers Are Breaking Free of Boring B2B