Words of Business Wisdom From 10 Women Who Inspire Great B2B Marketing

When I look back at my childhood, my mom, first generation Bachelors degree in tow, worked four days a week. And ‘ran’ the evenings on her own at home while my dad was dairy farming. When she looks back, her mother ran the household and picked up shifts waitressing when the farm wasn’t making ends meet. And before that, working outside the home wasn’t something my great grandmother would have dreamed of. It is on the backs of everyday women like my mother, and the likes of Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, among others, that I was able to enter the workforce without a single thought of my gender having an impact on my professional life. While at the same time, knowing I had a real choice of whether to be a stay at home mom, full time employee or somewhere in between. Not every woman experiences this liberation in the same way I do. And, it is more than just being able to work as a mom that has changed. From voting rights and Title IX to equal pay, women’s rights have come a very long way. AND - still have a long way to go. So, in honor of Women’s History Month, we’d like to elevate the voices of some of our favorite B2B marketers — who also happen to be women — along with a few others outside of marketing. These 10+ women are inspirations to men and women alike.

Inspiring Business Insight From 10+ Top Women In Marketing & Beyond

Ann Handley Chief Content Officer MarketingProfs @AnnHandley [bctt tweet="“Brands realize that to trust somebody, you’ve got to know them. And how can you trust a B2B brand unless you sort of see the faces of the people behind the brand?” — Ann Handley @AnnHandley" username="toprank"] Ava DuVernay Filmmaker @Ava [bctt tweet="“Ignore the glass ceiling and do your work. If you're focusing on the glass ceiling, focusing on what you don't have, focusing on the limitations, then you will be limited.” — Ava DuVernay @Ava" username="toprank"] Sarita Rao President, Integrated and Partner Solutions AT&T @saritasayso [bctt tweet="“Curiosity is just so important. Because you just never know what you’re going to uncover and when you ask those questions” — Sarita Rao @saritasayso" username="toprank"] Dolly Parton Singer-songwriter, Actress, and Businesswoman @DollyParton [bctt tweet="“If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then, you are an excellent leader.” — Dolly Parton @DollyParton" username="toprank"] Tyrona Heath Director, Market Engagement, The B2B Institute at LinkedIn* @tyrona [bctt tweet="“You are not just your job title. Job titles often don’t tell a story about who you are and what you stand for. By intentionally choosing how you will show up, you make a more meaningful investment in your leadership and impact.” — @tyrona" username="toprank"] Ruth Bader Ginsburg Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States [bctt tweet="“So often in life, things that you regard as an impediment turn out to be great good fortune.” — Ruth Bader Ginsburg" username="toprank"] Charlene Li Founder & Senior Fellow Altimeter, a Prophet Company @CharleneLi [bctt tweet="“Be eliminating all options for retreat, you can become single-mindedly focused on success and victory.” — Charlene Li @CharleneLi" username="toprank"] Mindy Kaling Comedian, Actress, and Writer @MindyKaling [bctt tweet="“If you don’t see a clear path for what you want, sometimes you have to make it yourself.” — Mindy Kaling @MindyKaling" username="toprank"] Miri Rodriguez Senior Storyteller Future of Work Microsoft @MiriRod [bctt tweet="“Do I believe in luck? Yes. It’s accompanied by patience, hard work, failure, resiliency, persistence and a little bit of sparkle.” — Miri Rodriguez @MiriRod" username="toprank"] Eleanor Roosevelt Former First Lady of the United States, Diplomat, and Activist [bctt tweet="“Women are like teabags. We don’t know our true strength until we are in hot water.” — Eleanor Roosevelt" username="toprank"] We'll conclude with an eleventh bonus quote that sums up the power of B2B marketing when it makes true and enduring connections. Maya Angelou Poet, Memoirist, and Activist [bctt tweet="“People will forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” — Maya Angelou" username="toprank"] I hope at least one of these gems brought you a smile. I think I'll pin a few to my desktop background. Thank you to each of these women and so many others who have helped to pave the way for today's and future generations of girls, mothers, women, and business LEADERS. Imagine, one day your name, your son's name, your niece's, could be on that list in the intro of dedicated souls who helped to advance human rights to level the playing fields. To learn even more about the top women in marketing, here's a list of related articles we've published:

• 25 Women of Color Who Rocked B2B Marketing in 2021
• 50 Influential Women in B2B Marketing Who Rocked in 2020
• 10 Years of Women Who Rock in Marketing – CMO Edition 2019

* LinkedIn is a TopRank Marketing client.

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B2B Marketing News: Trust Is Key In B2B Virtual Selling, New Google Ads Features, Podcast Ad Spend Climbs, & Marketing Data Effectiveness Survey

Ad Spending Surges 19% In January, Expands For 11th Consecutive Month The U.S. advertising market’s rate of spending grew by 19.2 percent in January compared to the same month in 2021, with digital categories continuing to see the best performance, driving ad market expansion that has now grown 11 consecutive months, according to newly-released report data. MediaPost Brands Turn Up the Dial on Podcasting Podcast advertising spending climbed by 60 percent in 2021, with accompanying growth rate forecasts seeing $2.2 billion in spending by 2023, both figures representing a healthy rebound from 2020 pandemic-driven deceleration, according to recently-released Association of National Advertisers (ANA) report data. ANA [bctt tweet="“Podcasting is the new 'blog'. At one time, businesses wondered if they needed one.” — A. Lee Judge @ALeeJudge" username="toprank"] Meta Provides New Recommendations to Help Advertisers Lessen the Impacts of Apple's ATT Update Facebook and Instagram parent firm Meta has encouraged advertisers to use Meta’s new Conversions application programming interface (API) in order to help counteract the effects of Apple's AppTrackingTransparency (ATT) iOS data tracking privacy feature, and to prepare for certain performance data delays, Meta recently announced. Social Media Today Spotify is acquiring two major podcast tech platforms With the new addition of Podsights and Chartable, Spotify has augmented its podcast advertising program for marketers, as the two companies have been among the more prominent podcast ad attribution and marketing firms. The move has also bolstered Spotify's ability to let marketers use audience insight data, the firm recently announced. The Verge Google Ads Announces Top 3 Priorities for 2022 Search giant Google has outlined several top 2022 priorities for its Google Ads unit, including additional forthcoming first-party data measurement, privacy updates, and automation features of interest to B2B marketers seeking to offer more relevant ads on the Google Ads platform. Search Engine Journal Twitter Adds Option to Pin DM Chats in Order to Keep Track of Key Conversations Twitter has rolled out a new option for its direct messaging feature, which has allowed for up to six private chat exchanges to be pinned for easy access — making it easier for marketers managing and monitoring multiple private audience messages, Twitter recently announced. Social Media Today Marketers Aren’t Yet Confident They Have the Data Necessary to Make Effective Decisions Only 29 percent of marketers have said that they have enough data for effectively deciding where to best spend marketing or sales resources, while just 33 percent had data of sufficient quality to make effective spending decisions, according to recently-released survey data of interest to digital marketers. MarketingCharts Yahoo Offers 'ID-Less' Targeting Tool Via The Web Yahoo has released details about its new targeted advertising tool to counter Google’s decision to phase out its use of third-party web browser cookies, a system Yahoo has named Next-Gen Solutions, promising so-called “ID-less” user identification and ad serving, the firm recently announced. MediaPost Twitter might be testing a way to let you untag yourself from threads Twitter could bring a change to how users and brands are tagged in tweets on the platform, as a test offering the ability to leave Twitter conversations would extend muting options for marketers on the platform, and The Verge takes a look at the possible change's potential impact. The Verge Soft Skills Remain Critical in B2B’s Virtual Selling World 61 percent of B2B sales leaders said that building credibility and trust were the top drivers of customer engagement when it comes to virtual selling, followed by 55 percent who said that building customer rapport was key in an all-digital landscape, according to newly-released B2B sales behavior survey data.MarketingCharts ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: A lighthearted look at “meeting overload, hybrid work, and asynchronous communication” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist New iPhone Setting Reduces Eyestrain With Black Text On Identical Black Background — ANA TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• Lee Odden — What’s Trending: Eyes on the Prize — LinkedIn (client)
• TopRank Marketing — A primer on growing your media brand - as an indie publisher or for your business — Adam Singer

If you've come across your own top B2B marketing news, please don't hesitate to drop us a line in the comments below. Thank you for taking the time to join us for this week's TopRank Marketing B2B marketing news, and we hope you'll return again next Friday for another array of the most relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us on our LinkedIn page, or at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news.

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Visual Focus: The Digital Designs Propelling B2B Brand Success In 2022

Which digital designs will shine the brightest in 2022 when it comes to telling the evolving stories of B2B brands in fresh new ways? Each year the world’s biggest firms in the world of design publish their takes on the new innovations that may come down the pike over the next 12 months, and while never a guarantee of digital design success, savvy B2B marketers and designers tend to keep tabs on the yearly visual shifts put out by Adobe, Pantone, and others. Let’s take a look at some of the design ideas that are helping brands craft their digital identities in 2022, with insight from graphic design subject matter experts at Adobe, Pantone, Canva, Venngage, and MOO.

1 — Adobe’s Turn To Digital Heritage Craft & The Metaverse Mix

Adobe’s 2022 creative trends forecast — from the innovators at its Adobe Stock arm — provides a robust annual look into the design elements and digital styles that it sees as the most likely to make an impact with online audiences in the coming year. Brenda Milis, principal of creative and consumer insights at Adobe, outlined this year’s forecast and the optimism and meaningful connections that audiences are seeking in 2022, in a wide gamut of formats including:

• Photography
• Illustration
• Vector Graphics
• Design Templates
• Motion Graphics
• 3D & Immersive Experiences

Milis noted that there is a, “growing confidence and acceptance of our new reality — with companies in nearly every sector embracing remote or hybrid work and the digital transformation that only accelerates with each passing season.” Designs that help people forge connections and build optimism will prove particularly effective in 2022, Milis suggested in describing the newest forecast. “People are hungry for optimism, and that unquenchable thirst for fun, whimsy, and play is evident across ages, industries, and brand categories,” Milis explained, adding that, “we are all even hungrier for authentic, meaningful connection,” insight that ought to ring especially true among B2B marketers and enterprise brands that are doing more digitally that ever before. Adobe’s forecast was built using the firm’s vast user and client bases, and included its own research along with data from:

• Research Requests
• Customer Data
• Major Industry Campaigns
• Stock Industry Insight
• Customer Signals

Leading the way with visual trends for 2022 were the elements that celebrate playfulness and place a newfound focus on the centered self, along with several others including: Visual Trends

• Powerfully Playful
• The Centered Self
• Prioritize Our Planet
• In the Groove

The year’s design trends emphasized soft pop, heritage craft, and others including: Design Trends

• Soft Pop
• New Naturalism
• Heritage Craft
• Otherworldly Visions

2022 motion trends in the Adobe forecast — as vital as ever for B2B marketers with the continuing importance of digital video — point to the rise of the so-called metaverse and to the power of new copy and caption movements. As we recently covered in our weekly Friday B2B marketing news, predictions for adoption of the metaverse have shown swift embracing of the technology. Some 30 percent of global organizations will offer products or services through the metaverse by 2026, while 25 percent of people will utilize at least an hour each day using metaverse technology, and while it won’t be owned by a single vendor, the future metaverse will likely help boost engagement even among enterprise users, according to recent Gartner report data. Motion Trends

• Metaverse Mix
• Get Moving
• Dimensional Delights
• Copy and Captions

2 — Pantone's Very Peri Perspective

For 22 years the Pantone Color Institute has named a singular "Color of the Year," which has sought to match a color with the characteristics of the general state of the world during the year ahead. Pantone's choice for 2022 was a lavender-purple amalgamation it's called "Very Peri," — or PANTONE 17-3938 for the precise — the name giving nod to the subtle color of the flowers of the periwinkle plant. The color excels at encouraging personal creativity and inventiveness, according to Pantone — elements that B2B marketers can certainly weave into content through the use of color. “As we move into a world of unprecedented change, the selection of PANTONE 17-3938 Very Peri brings a novel perspective and vision of the trusted and beloved color blue color family, encompassing the qualities of the blues, yet at the same time with its violet red undertone, PANTONE 17-3938 Very Peri displays a spritely, joyous attitude and dynamic presence that encourages courageous creativity and imaginative expressions,” - Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute shared as the new color of the year was announced.

3 — Canva

via GIPHY Since arriving on the digital graphic-design scene in 2012, Canva has seen its numerous creative tools adopted by more professionals every year, with company valuations hitting $40 billion in 2021. The Australia-based firm — with its easy-to-use online design tools running the gamut from icons to infographics — also released its take on the design trends that brands will be using in 2022. Some of the digital formats Canva sees as focal points for brands in 2022 included live-streaming, TikTik videos, user-generated content (UGC), and works in progress (WIPs) digital assets such as tutorials. Leading 2022 design looks to be aware of this year included:

• Trendy Zine
• UI Digitalism
• Retro
• 90s and Y2K Nostalgia
• Stickerbomb
• Refined Scrapbook
• Trendy Gradient

4 — Venngage

via GIPHY When infographic and data visualization specialist Venngage shared its defining 2022 graphic design outlook — it was little surprise that the company did so in infographic format. A few of the notable graphic design elements Venngage saw as ones to pay particular attention to in 2022 included:

• Visible movement towards being more inclusive
• Visually solidifying statements with facts and statistics
• Crafting visual marketing materials that appeal to wider audiences
• Greater options for images and icons that reflect more races, genders, and body types
• Data visualizations that are both fun and simple
• Bold backgrounds
• Branded memes
• Visual quotes
• Social media screen captures

Few B2B marketers will have used all of these elements, and 2022 may be the year to test the inclusion of some of them in content efforts, as brands seek new ways to connect with business audiences — especially those that visually stand out among the competition.

5 — MOO

via GIPHY Digital print and design firm MOO put out its own suggestions for the design trends that will play the biggest roles during 2022, offering a glimpse into a few additional elements B2B marketers can take into consideration with forthcoming campaigns. Among the visual graphic design elements MOO sees as coming to the forefront in 2022 are:

• Psychedelic Patterns
• Arty Typography
• Aestheticizing Humor
• Vintage Advertising

Online Optimism Done Up In Style For B2B Marketing Success

via GIPHY We hope the developing ideas, creative insights, and new takes on old themes that we’ve explored from Adobe, Pantone, Canva, Venngage, and MOO will help B2B marketers reach both new creative heights and newfound levels of digital storytelling success in 2022 and beyond. Part of being the best answer in B2B marketing, as we recently explored in "Here, There & Everywhere: What Does Best-Answer Content Mean For B2B Marketers in 2022?" includes innovation, and while the industry's digital design trends we've looked at here today are certain to feature prominently in many powerful campaigns in 2022, the top B2B marketers and designers are already hard at work innovating in new ways that may form the visual trends of 2023. Creating award-winning B2B marketing that elevates, gives voice to talent, and humanizes with authenticity takes considerable time and effort, which is why an increasing number of firms are choosing to work with a top digital marketing agency such as TopRank Marketing. Contact us to learn how we can help, as we’ve done for over 20 years for businesses ranging from LinkedIn, Dell and 3M to Adobe, Oracle, monday.com and others.

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5 Helpful Ways B2B Marketers Can Achieve Content Approval

The “Wild West” of content marketing stuck around longer than we may have imagined, but COVID-19 well and truly brought it to a close. These days, 82% of marketers use content marketing, over 40% of marketers say content is a very important part of their strategy, and 70% plan to actively continue investing in it in the long term. If content marketing is such big business now, however, why does so much of it still feel distinctly lawless? Nowhere is that more true than when it comes to actually getting either client or internal approval for your content. You go to all the work of producing your stuff, send it to the people in charge, and then… you’re at their mercy. And often, your content disappears then and there. There’s a better way to work content approval, and it’s all about process building. Securing content approval is a part of your workflow like everything else, and like everything else, it’s more effective when you have a plan. Follow these five steps to create your own plan for content approval, and you’ll find yourself spending a lot less time bitterly running down approval and a lot more time actually planning for your team’s next big splash.

1 — Standardize the Lead-Up

The last few times your content got trapped in pending purgatory, was it really because your approver got picky about back-and-forth edits? Sometimes, sure, but usually the issue is simpler… and, unfortunately, closer to home. Chances are, in fact, you don’t know exactly where the bottlenecks are that hold up your content approval process. THAT is the biggest problem. You’re not alone, either. According to a survey by the Content Marketing Institute, 42% of content marketers said that content production flow was one of their biggest challenges for the upcoming year. Meanwhile, a DIFFERENT survey by the CMI found that only 42% of content marketing teams have a formal content workflow in place. When you don’t know what you need to see a piece of content from conception to publication, a lot of your content never reaches the approval phase at all. Instead, it gets wrapped up in “where were we at with that piece, again?” territory… until everyone forgets about it. Then, if it DOES see the light of day, everyone’s forgotten what it was for… and you’re back to square one. There’s a straightforward solution: a content workflow. Create a tight, simple game plan for publishing and follow it for every single piece of content you create. At every turn, you should know: A: Where a piece is in the process B: Who’s in charge of the next step C: When they plan on completing the next step D: Who they will send their finished work to E: Repeat The more you can standardize and streamline your content creation process, the more consistently a clear, relevant piece of content reaches an approver who knows what they’re looking at at. Making that moment happen is the single best way to improve your approval rate. [bctt tweet="“Create a tight, simple game plan for publishing and follow it for every single piece of content you create.” — Harry Mackin" username="toprank"]

2 — Simplify & Assign Workflow Deadlines — Internally & Externally

Ok, so you’ve got your workflow established. Great, that’s the easy part. Now you actually have to commit to using it… every. single. time. That means two things: you have to keep it simple, and you have to keep it moving. 85% of CEOs blame internal complexity for their failure to grow and deliver sustainable performance, and it’s the mindkiller of many a content workflow, too. As a general rule, you should be able to write out your content workflow — with the names, positions, content info, and description of the role of each participant at every step in the process — for each piece of content you produce. Next, you have to avoid the dreaded “content by committee.” Keep as few people plugged into the process as possible. Have these people work closely together to understand each other’s processes and get to know their roles. Assign concrete deadlines for each of these steps, whether the person in charge of seeing them through is internal or external. Assign a project manager to keep track of these deadlines and ensure everyone is on pace. Remind your client or approver of these deadlines, why they matter, and why they need to keep up with them. [bctt tweet="“Write out your content workflow — with the names, positions, content info, and description of the role of each participant at every step in the process — for each piece of content you produce.” — Harry Mackin" username="toprank"]

3 — Make It About Them, Not You

Failure to get content approval usually stems more from communication breakdown than a problem with the content itself. Somewhere, the wires get crossed — either the client doesn’t explain what they’re looking for or the creators misunderstand intent and take the wrong tack — and then when the approver's handed the document, they don’t know what they’re looking at… or how it helps them. This failure may not rest with the content, but it does rest with the process. According to a recent Accenture survey, only 19% of marketing leaders felt they had clear objectives when creating new content. According to another study, 43% of B2B marketers only “sometimes” define their content marketing KPIs! If your own content marketers don’t know what they want to do with their content, how are the people in charge of approving it even supposed to know what to approve it for? Instead, they receive nebulous content that’s disconnected from their business, their goals, and their ideas about how to propel their brand… and they’re not interested in reading it, much less approving it! It’s not enough for your team to know why they’re producing their content (though, you know, they should) ; your clients need to know, too. What do they want this content to accomplish? Why is that the goal? How will this piece accomplish that? If you want content approval, you have to show your approver why they should care about your content. To do that, you need to show them exactly why your content marketing matters to them. [bctt tweet="“If you want content approval, you have to show your approver why they should care about your content. To do that, you need to show them exactly why your content marketing matters to them.” — Harry Mackin" username="toprank"]

4 — Collaborate with Stakeholders From the Jump

In fact, goals are important for buy-in across the board, not just with your client. There are all kinds of stakeholders in any piece of content — from collaborators to contributors to subject matter experts to field sellers. They all should be invested in your content, because it stands to benefit all of them. But, as you’re probably all-too-aware… that isn’t always how it goes. If the only people who care about your content are the team members making it, you have a big problem. If your client’s team or your approver doesn’t understand why they should care about your content, why would they? Now imagine if, instead, everyone cared about your content. The sales and marketing teams are excited for the new narrative that informs their own strategies. The clients and approvers are excited to see how the content will move their own agendas forward. Your content producers are excited because they have enthusiastic buy-in and they feel like what they’re doing matters. This kind of enthusiasm isn’t as hard to achieve as you may think: you just need to get everyone involved. Ask all stakeholders what they want from the content at every point in the process. Figure out what would make them excited to speed the content through to approval, and then provide it! When your content finally hits the approver's desk, they shouldn’t just know what it is — they should be excited to see it happen. [bctt tweet="“If the only people who care about your content are the team members making it, you have a big problem. If your client’s team or your approver doesn’t understand why they should care about your content, why would they?” — Harry Mackin" username="toprank"]

5 — Optimize Your Approval Process

When you’ve got your goals locked-in and your whole team is enthusiastic about making them happen, you’ve laid all the groundwork for the most impactful step of all: re-envisioning and optimizing the approval process itself. Now that you have goals and KPIs established, you have something concrete to check your content against. Instead of approval being a nebulous process combining pitching, editing, revising, critiquing and a little begging, you’ve given your approver definite goalposts to think about when reviewing. When your approver collaborated throughout the process, this new approach to approval becomes even more effective. Your approver already knows exactly what you’re going for with this content, so they’re free to critique how effectively they think you’ll pull it off. Best of all, informed approval paves the way for truly meaningful feedback. Without a clear understanding of goals, feedback becomes nebulous, undirected, and often circular — just like the approval process itself. With goals in place, however, all feedback can focus on how you can better achieve what you’re trying to do, which will make any edits far easier both to communicate and to implement. For more tips on how to bring your content marketing process out of the Wild West and into the age of business, keep up with the experts at the TopRank Marketing blog.

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B2B Marketing News: B2B Content Marketing Purpose Study, LinkedIn’s Top Marketing Skill Data, & Google’s New Search Ads 360 Features

The Purpose of Content Marketing for B2B vs. B2C Brands 88 percent of content marketers say that creating brand awareness is the primary purpose of content marketing, with 79 percent noting audience education, while some 78 percent said building increased trust and credibility — three of several statistics of interest to B2B marketers contained in newly-released survey data. MarketingProfs New LinkedIn Data Shows the Top Digital Marketing Skills Currently in High Demand Digital marketing specialists and account executives joined social media managers as the most in-demand marketing occupations, while digital marketing, advertising, and social media skills had the biggest mismatch when looking at job supply and demand, according to recently-released LinkedIn (client) survey data. Social Media Today [bctt tweet="“Always seek the opportunity to acquire new ways to do marketing, because the ability to pivot & adapt to the unknown is the most valuable skill set.” — Som Puangladda @sompny" username="toprank"] Advertisers Rank Video the Most Valuable Media Type in Accomplishing Their Goals Video, search and social topped the list of media types that advertisers found the most valuable in reaching goals and key performance indicators (KPI), with video dominating the list at 50 percent, well ahead of search's 16 percent, according to newly-released report information. MarketingCharts Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates; revenue forecast light Twitter’s quarterly advertising revenue increased by 22 percent year-over-year to reach $1.41 billion, with user growth among the social media platform's monetizable daily active users climbed to 217 million, an increase of some 13 percent, Twitter recently announced. Reuters Google announces new features for Search Ads 360 Search giant Google has rolled out a new update to its Search Ads 360 enterprise campaign management platform, with changes that feature a refreshed look, expanded support for additional search engines, and greater integration with Google Ads features including Performance Max and Discovery campaigns, Google recently announced. MarTech IAB warns of 'measurement blackout' as marketer priorities remain misaligned An eventual mass exodus from the use of web browser cookies and other user data ad-tracking methods is set to lead marketers into a "measurement blackout," despite multiple efforts underway to shift to third-party ad tracking data, according to newly-released report data of interest to B2B marketers from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). Marketing Dive Instagram Reels vs. TikTok vs. Snapchat: Which Should Businesses Use? [Marketing Professional Data] 62 percent of marketers have said that they plan to boost investment in TikTok efforts in 2022, followed by Meta-owned Instagram at 54 percent, Google-owned YouTube at 49 percent, and Microsoft-owned LinkedIn at 43 percent, according to recently-released HubSpot survey data. HubSpot Mozilla And Meta Submit (Yet Another) Privacy Ad Tech Proposal In New W3C Group Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — joined Mozilla to propose a new web browser cookie alternative known as Interoperable Private Attribution (IPA), at a recent meeting of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Private Advertising Technology Community Group (PATCG), the firms announced. AdExchanger Reddit’s Clubhouse clone gets recordings and web support Social news aggregator and discussion platform Reddit has augmented its Reddit Talk audio-call-based communication app, which offers features similar to Clubhouse, by adding the ability to record call audio for podcast-like future distribution, and that it is making the service available on the web, Reddit recently announced. The Verge Report: By 2026, it’s predicted 25% of people will spend an hour per day in the metaverse 30 percent of global organizations will offer products or services through the metaverse by 2026, while 25 percent of people will utilize at least an hour each day using metaverse technology, and while it won't be owned by a single vendor, the future metaverse will likely boost engagement even among enterprise users, according to newly-released Gartner report data on interest to digital marketers. VentureBeat ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: A lighthearted look at the “metaverse hype cycle” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist CMOs Share Lessons All Marketers Can Take from Super Bowl Advertising — ANA TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• Lane R. Ellis — 10 Tips for Customizing Your Marketing Strategy to Your Specific Industry — Small Business Trends
• LinkedIn — LinkedIn Announces 2022 'Forward' Conference for HR Professionals — Social Media Today

Have you located your own top B2B marketing news this week? Please don't hesitate to drop us a line in the comments below. Thanks for joining us for this week's TopRank Marketing B2B marketing news, and please return again next Friday for another round of the most relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us on our LinkedIn page, or at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news.

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Here, There & Everywhere: What Does Best-Answer Content Mean For B2B Marketers in 2022?

Fundamentally by its very nature, there will always be a single truly best answer to any question. So how is best-answer B2B marketing content any different in 2022 than it’s previously been? Providing that best solution — or to use the term our CEO and co-founder Lee Odden has been using since at least 2011 —  being the best answer, may indeed be a singular solution, however the effort that B2B marketers need to make in 2022 to achieve it has changed in several important ways. Let’s take a look at the key ways that being the best answer in B2B marketing has changed in 2022, and what steps marketers can take to earn best-answer status when it comes to the questions buyers and customers are seeking.

1 — Expanded Digital Touch-Points & Channels

Best-answer B2B content doesn’t only involve providing the best information needed to solve customer questions, because it can’t truly be the best answer if the customer never finds it. Today’s B2B landscape is undoubtedly more a digital one than ever before, with few fewer in-person and live two-way conversations. These have been significantly replaced by greater time spent on information gathering by buyers and customers, as well as an expanding number of touch-points in more digital channels than ever before. Information gathering transactions that were formerly face-to-face have increasingly moved to all-digital destinations, with just a few including:

• Brand websites
• Search engines
• Mainstream social media platforms
• Specialty social platforms
• Informal third-party review sites

For today’s B2B content to win out and become a genuine best-answer solution, it can’t exist only in one online location, however, and certainly not just in the echo-chamber of a brand's own website. This doesn’t necessarily mean that all best-answer content needs to have at least one element on every single digital platform and channel, however. Although that may someday be the case, today’s best-answer content is presented on the majority of digital channels where B2B customers are seeking specific answers. Best-answer content also consists of more touch-points along the way, no matter what the digital destinations may be. Winning content gets that way not only because it provides the best information in the places where people are looking, but also because top content is now often nurtured at each step of the buyer journey. A digital buying journey that includes even one helpful online interaction along the way will pay dividends when decisions are eventually made, and competitors haven't offered a single nurturing touch-point. [bctt tweet="“A digital buying journey that includes even one helpful online interaction along the way will pay dividends when decisions are eventually made, and competitors haven't offered a single nurturing touch-point.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

2 — More Subject Matter Expert Contributions & Collaboration

Best-answer B2B content in 2022 incorporates rich, well-rounded insight from subject matter experts and collaboration with relevant influencers. Today’s best-answer content is also more robust than ever, due to increased competition and a general rise in the level of sophistication being offered in each digital channel. Being the best answer in 2022 brings in the voices and stories of B2B industry experts to help vouch for the quality and authoritativeness of particular content. One particularly powerful advantage that B2B influence holds over B2C’s traditional paid influencer approach is that influence in B2B is more likely to involve passionate industry experts sharing genuine insight about a particular solution that is done in earnest, rather than in exchange for monetary compensation. [bctt tweet="“Influence in B2B is more likely to involve passionate industry experts sharing genuine insight about a particular solution that is done in earnest, rather than in exchange for monetary compensation.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

3 — Elevated Trustworthiness & Authenticity

It’s no secret that trust in marketing has fallen over time, as greater portions of the digital B2B buying journey are conducted solely online today. Thankfully, this distrust and general skepticism in marketing can sometimes make it easier for truly best-answer B2B content to stand out in the often stormy and unfortunately vast seas of marketing mediocrity. Authenticity and trustworthiness are hallmarks of best-answer B2B content, and savvy marketers do all they can to expertly bake in as much of both as possible in their efforts. 2022's best-answer B2B content takes this into account, and uses solutions that go well beyond what traditional paid-only methods can expect to achieve. For a look at how top marketers are building trust using authentic voices, our own senior content marketing manager Nick Nelson recently looked at what B2B marketers can learn from the late football broadcaster John Madden, in "Broadcast Your B2B Marketing with a Brand Voice that Rings True." [bctt tweet="“If you want to be a trustworthy company, it can’t be just a marketing philosophy. It has to be a business philosophy.” — Margaret Magnarelli @mmagnarelli of @MorganStanley" username="toprank"]

4 — Best-Answer Is Experiential

Best-answer B2B content in 2022 doesn’t just provide information about the right customer solution in the right place at the right time. It now also even needs to go beyond including authentic and trusted expert voices. To be the best answer in B2B in 2022, winning content must also be presented skillfully in the right formats, so that it is:

• Experiential
• Easy to digest, comprehend, and compare
• Pleasing to interact with
• Simple to share

Just as best-answer B2B content needs to be available on the digital platforms where customers are researching and seeking answers, it also needs to be offered in the formats that customers will take the time to interact with. Part of the beauty of the digital age we live in is the relative ease with which great information and answers can be presented in multiple formats, so that while old-school Steve can still download his white paper or case study on Slideshare or LinkedIn, Gen Z Caleb can also interact with the same information as part of an interactive Ceros or Optimizely experience. [bctt tweet="“It’s critical for B2B marketers to think beyond traditional static content and blog posts as ways to make their brand voices heard.” – Nick Nelson @NickNelsonMN" username="toprank"]

Fly High & Elevate With Best Answer B2B Content

via GIPHY By expanding digital channel touch-points, collaborating with experts, elevating with authenticity, and presenting in experiential formats, being the best-answer for B2B content in 2022 is an achievable outcome for those marketers willing to go the extra distance needed to win in today's competitive landscape. We hope that our look at best-answer B2B content, what has changed, and what has remained true, will help inspire and energize your own efforts in 2022 and far into the future. Building best-answer B2B marketing that elevates, gives voice to talent, and humanizes with authenticity takes considerable time and effort, which is why an increasing number of firms are choosing to work with a top digital marketing agency such as TopRank Marketing. Contact us to learn how we can help, as we’ve done for over 20 years for businesses ranging from LinkedIn, Dell and 3M to Adobe, Oracle, monday.com and others.

The post Here, There & Everywhere: What Does Best-Answer Content Mean For B2B Marketers in 2022? appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Will You B2B Mine? What 15 Top Marketers Love About B2B Marketing on Valentine’s Day

It's February 14th and while couples around the world over are celebrating their love, B2B marketers have plenty to love about marketing in 2022. The pandemic accelerated the digital transformation of many B2B brands to meet the needs and expectations of digital first buyers and that increased digital focus has opened up a new world of opportunities to engage buyers in more meaningful ways. When starting out in marketing so many years ago, I had no idea what my career or the world would look like in 2022. But I've definitely caught the love bug for business to business marketing. What I am most optimistic about in 2022 is our focus on optimizing and elevating the practice of B2B marketing by doing some of the things I love most: humanizing marketing, creating more meaningful marketing experiences and giving voice to talent. Of course it's not just me that feels this optimism. To take the temperature of love for B2B marketing, I reached out to some of the most respected and influential voices in the business marketing world plus some of the team at TopRank Marketing and asked: What do you love most about B2B marketing? Of course, the amazing Ann Handley kicked things off with a poem: A Love Poem for B2B Marketers by Ann Handley @marketingprofs Author, Friend of Lee, Poet Laureate of B2B Marketing Roses are red Violets are blue Are you, blog reader, a B2B Marketer, too? Do you love SEO Analytics and Ads? All the B2B basics! None of them fads. Me, too, my sweets! And don’t forget newsletters! Which every org needs… If they only knew better. So hugs to you, my B2B friend. (And your violets of blue.) I’m glad you’re in love… With B2B, too. Ann really elevates the bar when it comes to content and why shouldn't she? One of the great opportunities for the B2B marketing world is to break free of status quo and mediocrity and embrace the content formats, styles and narratives that make experiences more meaningful (and less mechanical).  So what do other top marketers love about B2B? Let us count the ways... "I’m in love with B2B buyer engagement. You know, that feeling you get when your content/message really connects and serves. And you know because they click to read the next related piece or comment and share or reach out with a question. Makes my day! Every. Single. Time." Ardath Albee @ardath421 CEO & B2B Marketing Strategist Marketing Interactions "I love that there is not a lot of BS in B2B marketing -- it's about solving problems. Unlike consumer marketing, B2B marketing is truly designed to make people's work lives better by lending a helping hand." Tequia Burt @TequiaBurt Editor in Chief, LinkedIn Marketing Solutions Blog LinkedIn "What I love about B2B marketing is its precision. B2B - or any complex sale with multiple decisioning steps and stakeholders - has a wealth of data you can use to build analytics and machine learning models and deeply understand your customer. Because the volume isn't as high, you can spend more time learning what your customers need and dialing into fulfilling those needs with precision." Christopher Penn @cspenn Co-Founder and Chief Data Scientist TrustInsights.ai "What do I love most about B2B marketing? B2B buyers need to learn about the solutions to complex problems. They need to educate the CFO and the rest of their team why spending money on our solutions will pay off. And so we get to explain the role of AI in cloud computing, the value of customer experience, the importance of data quality, and why content marketing is better than ads. Helping people is fun. And that's why B2B Marketing is a labor of love." Michael Brenner @BrennerMichael CEO Marketing Insider Group "I have a passion for developing relationships as part of my role leading influencer marketing and being an active member in online communities. These relationships go far beyond just a pitch to be part of a campaign and transform into long-term relationships that have both personal and professional benefits." Justin Levy @justinlevy Director, Social and Influencer Marketing Demandbase "There are so many disciplines you can learn if you are in B2B. It's so much more than just paid ads and creative development on the consumer side. What's not to like about B2B Marketing? LOL!" Pam Didner @PamDidner Speaker, Author, Podcaster Relentless Pursuit "The ability to directly impact business results. Even in long, complex buying cycles, we can drive and measure marketing’s impact where it counts – on metrics you can buy a beer with!" Matt Heinz @HeinzMarketing President, Heinz Marketing "What I love most about B2B Marketing: The gift of humor brings such a joyful surprise to ads! Many marketers mistakenly believe that because the B2B buying cycle is so much more complex, our content must be serious. Nonsense!! Laughter is the best way for marketers to earn trust." (The Perfect Gift for Valentine's Day, From Cisco) Tim Washer @timwasher Leap CMO Advisor Demand Spring "I love the opportunity B2B firms have to reimagine marketing. Today, B2B marketers are stewards of brand promise and digital mavens creating new experiences with tech-empowered teams. There is never a dull moment, always a chance to improve, re-think the status quo, learn and grow. xoxo" Katie Martell @KatieMartell Creator "I love that so many B2B marketers fell into the role before falling in love with it. I don’t think you’ll meet many people who said in their career, 'I can’t wait to become a B2B marketer' then again, it’s tough to find a B2B marketer who isn’t passionate about what they do. I think this is because it’s a discipline flourishing with creativity in the face of something traditionally seen as boring. Add to that the increasingly blurred lines between what works in B2C vs. B2B and what’s not to love?" Jason Miller @JasonMillerCA Marketing Director CreativeX "The thing that I love about B2B marketing is finding the human, moving stories within even the most techy brands. It's so rewarding to find that emotional center and bring it to center stage!" Joshua Nite @NiteWrites Senior Content Marketing Manager TopRank Marketing "The thing I love most about B2B marketing is that the content is truly about quality. It requires strategy, collaboration and thought that is deeper than just visual cues." Amy Otis @amy_otis Account Manager TopRank Marketing "I love the way B2B marketing gives me the chance to tell stories that have defined impact. I can see the words I wrote or the story I told and know that it changed something for someone, and that that change was for the better.” Sam Kirchoff Internal Marketing Manager TopRank Marketing “On Valentine’s Day 2022 as I reflect on what I love the most about B2B marketing, it’s clearly the kind, talented people who I get to work with, from a wide range of B2B industries, and the difference we get to make together in the lives of people around the world.” Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis Content and Social Media Manager TopRank Marketing For more B2B marketing love and inspiration, check out these posts:

• Adobe’s Rani Mani: 5 Tips For Creating Your B2B Influencer Marketing Love Affair
• Fundamentals of Generational Marketing: Passion Points
• Lovestruck: Why We’ve Fallen in Love with B2B Content Marketing

If you're feeling inspired, tell us: what do you love most about B2B marketing?

The post Will You B2B Mine? What 15 Top Marketers Love About B2B Marketing on Valentine’s Day appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.