B2B

Most B2B marketers are using personalization in their sales and marketing activities and customer engagement, according to a recent study. But a siloed approach means buyers experience less customization, not more, as they wend their way through the sales funnel.

Account-based marketing (ABM) has been a tough sell in the past few years. But the tide may be turning, with 87 percent of marketers saying they expect their organization's ABM budget to increase in the next 12 months, with an average bump of 9 percent, per a recent study.

A multichannel B2B marketing strategy is no longer a nice-to-have for companies but a major component for minting new customers. An increasingly popular tool? The telephone.

For B2B marketers, customer acquisition is hard enough, with buyers traveling about 70 percent of the way through the buying journey before they contact a sales rep. Now, as a new cohort of B2B buyers takes charge and purchasing by committee grows, the pressure is on marketers to simplify their onboarding strategy.

While email marketing continues to provide healthy returns, an increasing number of B2B marketers are convinced that the channel can be turbocharged with generative artificial intelligence (AI).

The technology behind deepfakes — in which someone uses manipulated content online for malicious aims — has been coalescing for years and is now encroaching on the B2B field. According to a recent survey, most B2B CMOs are ill-prepared to deal with it.

The future of B2B video is short — in length, that is. After LinkedIn started to test a short-form video feed in March 2024, B2B marketers joined the fray. Video is now the fastest-expanding format on LinkedIn, feeding a growing appetite for "snackable" content among younger buyers.

Some B2B sectors outperformed the national average for digital advertising growth in 2024, according to a recent survey, with search and mobile venues commanding more and more ad dollars. Vertical players are also increasing their investments in platforms that have traditionally catered to consumers such as social media and connected TV.

Saima Rashid enjoyed working with 6sense so much that when she was ready to make a move in the early 2020s, she reached out to the software company about any possibilities. Just a few years later Rashid is playing a lead role expanding the company's "unified revenue" model, which is built on aligning the sales and marketing teams and breaking down business silos.

Spending on B2B experiential marketing is on the rise — outpacing B2C — as B2B firms reimagine their live events to create more memorable experiences for their audiences.

Customer obsession is fast becoming the cost of entry for B2B marketers. Executives at customer-obsessed B2B companies report 28 percent faster revenue growth and 33 percent higher profit growth, compared to companies that are not customer-obsessed, according to a recent Forrester survey. But there is no one-size-fits-all formula for companies that want to become more customer obsessed, as there are multiple variables unique to each brand.

David Edelman, an executive adviser at the Boston Consulting Group and co-author of "Personalized: Customer Strategy in the Age of AI," discusses how marketers can deploy artificial intelligence to create new kinds of personalized experiences that both marketers and salespeople can rally around.

Kyall Mai, SVP and chief innovation officer at Esquire Bank, says the overriding challenge for B2B marketers seeking resources is demonstrating to the C-suite that they are capable of simultaneously generating revenue and developing a personalized communications strategy for customers and prospects.

Despite the dizzying and proliferating number of digital channels available, marketers continue to rely on an old standby to better serve existing customers, land new ones, and generate revenue: direct mail. And while the bulk of marketers are boosting their direct mail investments this year, per a recent study, they need to tread carefully due to a spate of postal rate hikes imposed by the United States Postal Service.

Business marketers could be forgiven for thinking that B2B publications born of the analog age had been left for roadkill by the internet and social media. But amid the ongoing atomization of media, trade publications have held their own and continue to provide B2B marketers with a way to connect with senior executives and major decision-makers.

A slight bump in B2B marketing budgets in 2025 won't be enough to fund bigger ad campaigns, new technologies, and more staff. The most effective method for B2B CMOs to boost revenue for the short term — and bolster the perception of marketing for the long term — is to foster greater cooperation among their marketing teams with senior executives from other departments.

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.

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.

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.

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.