Marie Griffin

Saul Colt, founder and CEO of the Idea Integration Co., watched as B2B clients put their ad campaigns on hold during the pandemic. Only half of his business came back in 2021, so Colt decided to shake things up in 2022 and took a big financial risk, hiring 17 cartoonists and comic writers formerly of "MAD Magazine" and "The Simpsons" to beef up the agency's creative muscle and widen the field of prospects to pitch.

Facing an ailing economy, marketers' major priority this year must be creating a "customer health" score, according to a recent Forrester report. But as some companies look to bolster relations with existing customers, others are continuing to pursue net-new leads. Will it backfire?

Account-based marketing (ABM) is no longer the domain of giant tech companies with the resources to deploy bespoke programs targeting accounts that are likely to have the most profitable impact in the long run. According to a recent survey, most B2B organizations that have not yet adopted an ABM strategy plan to do so within the next 12 months.

Long-term planning may be turning into a bit of an oxymoron due to the furious pace of change among B2B customers and prospects. However, marketers still need vision when it comes to preparing for the future, as the B2B terrain is shaping up to look radically different just a few years from now, a recent study reveals.

Soon after Kim Salem-Jackson was promoted to EVP and CMO at Akamai in 2021, she realized the company was missing its "why," or how to articulate its brand purpose. After getting buy-in from the CEO, she proceeded to build a coalition across the company to answer the question and integrate the brand purpose throughout the organization.

Content marketing has become de rigueur among SMB companies, but the outcomes leave a lot to be desired. Instead of taking a scattershot approach to generating original content, SMBs need to pick just one content initiative that's valuable enough to cut through the proverbial clutter.

B2B marketers continue to monitor what remains an unpredictable economic environment, as the possibility of a recession looms.

Customer data platforms (CDPs) are fast becoming an effective tool for B2B companies to locate, engage, and retain new customers. But adoption rates remain low, and fully leveraging CDPs remains hampered by the inability among B2B marketers to break down their company's business silos and connect the digital dots.

Most B2B brands are taking a wait-and-see approach toward the metaverse, as they first get a firmer hold on other, less complicated digital channels. At the same time, B2B marketers must weigh this caution against the fact that younger people now transitioning into decision-making roles have been conditioned to a digital-first world in which virtual- and augmented-reality experiences are a natural part of their day.

There is a serious gap between perception and reality when it comes to B2B marketing innovation, a recent study finds, with many marketers believing they are more competent marketing innovators than the evidence shows.

Sales and marketing alignment remains one of the toughest challenges among many B2B companies. However, while they may have different views of what defines success, sales and marketing executives are acting much more in tandem when it comes to serving their customers, says a new study. Buyers are also playing a key role in pushing marketers to integrate with their sales counterparts.