Editor's Picks for B2B Marketer Magazine

While B2B companies are plugging video into their marketing dashboards, many remain skittish about how to incorporate the medium into a robust third-party marketing strategy and subsequently use their social channels to reach their customers and prospects.

While revenue marketing is ultimately about transitioning marketing from a cost center to a revenue driver, that doesn't mean B2B companies can ignore objectives like brand-building and bolstering the customer experience. Despite the inherent friction between the two, sales and marketing alignment is crucial.

Compared to older buyers (read: baby boomers and gen Xers), gen Zers rely less on vendors and more on independent sources of information. To get in front of buyers doing their own research, B2B marketers need to devote more resources toward improving how their company shows up in search and amplifying positive mentions and ratings in analysts' reports.

Peter Fader, a marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, says B2B companies tend to lump too many customers and prospects together and fail to see those buyers who are the most serious about establishing long-term relationships. Changing the equation requires marketers to get a better read on the definition of customer lifetime value.

A recent study coproduced by Chief Marketer and One Trust presents a bit of dichotomy for B2B firms: Although marketers are being tasked with taming their budgets, nearly 80 percent of the study's respondents said their budgets were either increasing or staying the same this year.

B2B marketers tend to focus on the quantity of their thought leadership content, rather than the quality, which discourages potential buyers. Hiring journalists, videographers, and other talent versed in storytelling can help turn the tide.

Amid the pandemic and people working from home more frequently, demand for webinars and virtual events has surged in the past few years throughout the B2B sector, per a new study. But potential buyers don't sign up for webinars and/or online conferences to hear a sales pitch, so it's crucial that marketers develop valuable, thought-based content to include in their programming lest they alienate their customers and prospects.

The pandemic has altered the map when it comes to where people spend their money, with more and more dollars flowing locally. Brands can easily tailor a national message to local markets, of course, thanks to geotargeting and other online tools. But a new study shows that national brands tend to underinvest when it comes to guiding local partners about how to improve their online marketing strategies.

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.

Exemptions in the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) related to B2B marketing expire in January 2023. Despite having more than two years to ready themselves, many companies are ill-prepared for the change.

The B2B purchasing cycle grew in the last two and half years, a new study reveals. To keep pace, marketers need to ramp up their efforts to collaborate with customers and prospects on business and research projects and help ease their pain.

The pandemic seems to have altered the script when it comes to the most effective ways to reach business decision-makers, as B2B brands embrace a hybrid marketing strategy combining analog and digital messaging.

While some B2B firms continue to put their content behind a firewall because that's how they like generating leads, a rising number of companies think that providing free content is a better way of courting prospects and turning them into customers.

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

Marketing budgets increased nicely in 2022, growing to nearly 10 percent of total company revenue, according to Gartner. But the upswing is muted by a downward economy. In an interview with B2B Marketer, Ewan McIntyre, chief of research and VP analyst at Gartner, said marketers are already feeling the negative impact of severe inflation and must continue finding cost efficiencies and moving toward a digital-first strategy.

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.

Marketers have had years to prepare for the demise of third-party cookies, coming in 2023. But B2B brands continue to lag in their efforts to adapt, with just 21 percent planning to build out their first-party data strategies this year. As cookies fade, marketers need to recalibrate their technology stack and develop a process for sharing data across multiple departments.

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.

While in-person sales meetings slowly come back and offices start to reopen, digital communications — including video calls — remain the go-to strategy for brands that want to strengthen existing relationships and build new ones.