B2B | ANA Magazine | ANA

B2B

 

Through best practices, case studies, interviews, and expert advice, ANA magazine's B2B department provides the strategic and tactical edge marketers need to attract, nurture, and convert today's always-on buyers.

  • Can Xerox Duplicate Its Success for a Post-Digital Age?

    B2B   October 9, 2024  

    Deena LaMarque Piquion, who recently took charge as chief growth and disruption officer at Xerox, is working more closely with the company's go-to-market teams and taking a decidedly consumer-ish approach to reaching customers and prospects.

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  • How B2B Companies Add Podcasts to Their Marketing Mix

    B2B   September 27, 2024  

    After sitting on the sidelines for years, B2B companies are launching their own podcasts to better distinguish their brands from competitors. As they craft their programming, it's crucial that marketers ensure the podcast won't be just another asset but a compelling medium for storytelling that speaks directly to B2B decision-makers who need valuable content.

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  • How Marketers Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Their Data

    B2B   September 6, 2024  

    Data quality has not been at the top of the priority list for B2B marketers in recent years, as they have grappled with dramatic changes in buyer behavior. However, the rise of generative artificial intelligence and the growing currency of first-party data have added to a sense of urgency among marketers to bolster their data management.

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  • The Secret to Fixing Customer Acquisition

    B2B   August 21, 2024  

    According to a recent study, nearly three-fourths of B2B marketers are growing their investments in customer acquisition activities in the next two years as marketers look to play a greater role in landing new customers — and keeping them. However, the investments come despite several challenges to improve prospecting, ranging from a lack of data to measuring performance.

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  • B2B Nurturing Efforts Need to Grow Up

    B2B   August 9, 2024  

    While the vast majority (nearly 90 percent) of B2B marketers are currently running lead nurture programs, per a recent study, such programs still leave a lot to be desired. Amid the growing power of purchasing committees and their unwillingness to engage with salespeople directly, the onus is on B2B marketers to segment their content to align with various stages of the sales funnel and make their communications with buyers much more personalized.

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  • How to Close the Growing 'Consumption Gap'

    B2B   July 26, 2024  

    The time between when a piece of content is requested and the moment it is actually opened — called the "consumption gap" — is getting longer, according to a recent study. However, there are several remedies to shrink the gap, ranging from creating the kind of content that will help prospects do their jobs better to modeling on-demand webinars on live events.

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  • Lenovo Leans on AI to Amplify a Key Message

    B2B   July 8, 2024  

    Lenovo recruited award-winning actor and entrepreneur Queen Latifah to be the face of a marketing campaign supporting women- and minority-owned businesses, with assistance from generative artificial intelligence.

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  • Can AI Bridge the Sales and Marketing Divide?

    B2B   June 19, 2024  

    Can AI solve the sales and marketing stalemate? The technology may be an elixir for one of the most common ailments between sales and marketing teams: aligning on prospects who need what the company sells, have the budget to buy, and are ready to move into the sales pipeline.

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  • The Field Is Expanding Fast for B2B Sponsorships

    B2B   June 12, 2024  

    Eager to align their ad dollars into more mainstream programming, a growing number of B2B companies are boosting their marketing spending on sponsorships for popular sports events as well as influencers with niche yet loyal audiences online.

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  • Was Account-Based Marketing a Waste of Time?

    B2B   May 24, 2024  

    After years in which one-to-one account-based marketing (ABM) dominated the market, a majority of B2B firms now deploy at least two types of ABM — whether one-to-one, one-to-few, or one-to-many — while almost a third use all three types, according to a recent study. That's a significant bump from 2017, when just 35 percent of marketers used more than one type of ABM. The numbers may indicate that B2B firms are getting back to the basics to refuel their various ABM initiatives.

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  • New York Times Advertising Turns the Page for B2B Marketers

    B2B   May 1, 2024  

    Bari Komitee, VP of B2B marketing at New York Times Advertising, talks about the consumerization of B2B advertising, why games are an increasingly useful tool to reach decision-makers, and the meaningless distinction between personal and business lives.

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  • Sparking an Emotional Connection in B2B Marketing

    B2B   April 19, 2024  

    A convergence of factors, including the rise of digital media, continue to alter B2B marketing. Ruth Stevens, a close observer of the sector, shares advice for driving leads, cultivating branded advertising, and inserting more of an emotional hook in B2B messaging.

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  • The Return of Live Events

    B2B   April 5, 2024  

    Attendance at B2B in-person events has returned to pre-pandemic levels, but marketers face a significantly changed landscape for live events and conferences.

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  • Can B2B Marketers Keep Up with Buyers?

    B2B   March 20, 2024  

    A recent study shows that B2B buyers are two-thirds into the purchasing process before they reach out to sales reps, underscoring B2B marketers' need to feed prospects and buyers original content early in the sales funnel.

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  • Making B2B Marketing More Relatable

    B2B   March 6, 2024  

    Tony Ezell, EVP, president North America, and CMO at medical technology provider BD, says B2B marketers should think about crafting advertising campaigns that reflect more on human experiences than product specifications.

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  • B2B Marketers Wrestle with How to Apply AI

    B2B   February 14, 2024  

    As they build their generative AI strategy, B2B marketers should be aware that the benefits of AI are often contingent on having clean data.

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  • B2B Influencer Marketing Is Ready for the Spotlight

    B2B   February 7, 2024  

    B2B marketers tend to use influencers to create and promote content at the awareness stage of the sales funnel, but they are failing to realize that influencers can have a positive effect throughout the entire pipeline and even after a sale closes.

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  • What B2B Buyers Want in 2024

    B2B   January 26, 2024  

    Getting in front of increasingly discerning buyers will be a major priority among B2B marketers this year, according to a recent study. Their work is cut out for them, including helping B2B buyers understand product specifications/configurations when researching purchases and providing consistent product or service information.

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  • Quality Content Plants the Seeds of Trust

    B2B   January 12, 2024  

    Salesy, self-serving content is a major turn off for B2B technology buyers. To keep their interest, B2B marketers must develop thought leadership-based programming featuring up-to-date information that will help customers do their jobs better.

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  • B2B Marketers Own the Customer Journey, Now What?

    B2B   December 20, 2023  

    As B2B buyers increasingly migrate to online venues, they avoid the interactions that once gave salespeople an edge in customer knowledge. More than ever, B2B brands must rely on marketers to fuel growth, but are companies up for the challenge?

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