Editor's Picks for ANA Magazine's B2B Department

B2B CMOs are much more hopeful about the post-COVID economy than their CEOs, says a recent survey. Cockeyed optimism? More like a sense that the pandemic presents marketers with an opportunity to demonstrate their value to the C-suite and drive better business results.

With lower-than-average CPMs, B2B companies are turning to digital advertising to combat the decline in their traditional marketing channels. This reallocation doesn’t equate dollar for dollar, but there has been enough of a budget shift to drive substantial growth via paid digital channels.

Across the country, small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are suffering from closures, restrictions, and changes brought about by the novel coronavirus, and many are scrambling to do what they can to stay in business. To help, a number of B2B brands, including Deluxe, Vistaprint, American Express, and The UPS Store, are developing tools, grants, and resources for SMBs.

While the impact from the crisis has varied, most B2B sectors are scrambling for effective ways to boost their marketing efforts to retain customers and find new ones.

In a post-COVID world, digital interactions with customers and prospects will rise dramatically, and e-commerce transactions for expensive B2B purchases — long the domain of in-person sales — will become much more common.

With most every brand having to recalibrate its digital capabilities, CMOs have a new opportunity to help shape their company’s future — and increase the overall value of marketing.

The implosion of live B2B events and the accelerating shift to a virtual model will require marketers to be both fast and nimble when crafting their online conferences.

B2B marketers continue to struggle with making the most of their growing marketing technology stack. A major part of the problem: Too many companies rely on individual technology purchases rather than foster an integrated approach.

Valerie Beaulieu, U.S. CMO at Microsoft, brings a highly balanced approach to B2B marketing to tackle the most pressing issues facing marketers.

With most every business reassessing overall spending due to the coronavirus outbreak, it’s an opportune time for B2B companies to reassess their email marketing strategy and ensure that the audiences receiving their emails are getting immediate value.

Being simpatico with vendors themselves — and not being in thrall to social media messaging or online reviews — can be highly influential in the B2B purchasing process.

Companies that let marketers steer the sales-enablement process exceed their revenue goals much more so than brands that put sales reps in charge, says a new report. And the C-suite is taking note.

The onus is on marketers to spot regional or cultural trends that may impact their business category and/or products and services — even if the company lacks a significant global presence.

To bolster their marketing strategy to purchasing committees, B2B brands must supply a constant stream of information and continually track who’s in (and who’s not) when it comes to closing a deal.

Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, HBO, and Showtime provide valuable lessons for B2B marketers eager to ramp up their investments in streaming media.

Considered the ‘third stage’ in sales and marketing transformation, through-channel marketing automation (TCMA) plays into the growing reliance on partner relationships throughout the B2B sector.

B2B marketers are having an increasingly tough time leveraging the streams of data they collect. One result: content marketing programs suffer from a lack of direction.

B2B brands adopt more and more characteristics of consumer marketing, while B2C companies steal a page or two from the business marketing playbook.

B2B marketers are starting to appreciate the value of creating customer experiences so their constituents feel obligated to advocate and share those experiences with others.

A close working relationship between communications and marketing teams is essential to brand success, both internally and externally.