Elevate B2B Marketing News Weekly Roundup: LinkedIn’s Collaborative Articles, New Trust Barometer Report & Gated Content in B2B

Which Core B2B Marketing Responsibilities Have Most Increased in Importance? [Study]
Analytics and performance measurement has seen the greatest increase in importance among the key marketing responsibilities of B2B marketers, followed by content development and distribution, with lead generation holding the third spot, according to newly-published survey data of interest to B2B marketers. MarketingCharts

Are Marketers Equipped to Build Trust for the Long Term? [Edelman Trust Barometer]
The importance of long-term trust and ongoing brand engagement were among the key findings in the latest edition of Edelman’s annual Trust Barometer report, with over 70 percent of consumers having said it’s more important in 2023 to trust the brands that they purchase from than it has been previously — three of numerous statistics of interest contained in the recently-released trust report data. ANA

LinkedIn Updates Collaborative Articles, a Key Traffic Driver for the App
Microsoft-owned LinkedIn (client) has rolled out an array of new collaborative article features, including new content layouts that better highlight key contributors and include a more robust user interface, along with easier-to-access in-feed emoji and other reactions, Microsoft recently announced. Social Media Today

YouTube Q3 Ad Sales Jump 12.5% to Nearly $8 Billion, Alphabet Beats Estimates
Search giant Google parent firm Alphabet has reported revenue that was up by 11 percent for the period ending in September, with its YouTube video business having recorded third-quarter advertising sales that climbed by some 12.5 percent, with Google’s Cloud segment having seen revenue rise by 22.5 percent, Alphabet announced recently. Variety

LinkedIn Reports ‘Record Levels’ of Engagement With 985M Members
Microsoft’s latest quarterly performance report has revealed that its LinkedIn professional social network has topped the 985 million member mark and seen continued record levels of engagement, with the number of user sessions expanding by 12 percent, accompanied by revenue that grew by eight percent during the most recent quarter year-over-year, Microsoft recently announced. Social Media Today

Most B2B Tech Decision-Makers Are Sometimes Disappointed by the Value of Gated Content
23 percent of B2B technology decision-makers have said that they are often disappointed with gated content, with 48 percent finding disappointment sometimes, while 22 percent said that they were rarely disappointed with the gated content they accessed — some of the findings included in newly-published survey data of interest to B2B marketers. MarketingCharts

Instagram Adds Polls in Comment Streams on Feed Posts and Reels
Meta-owned Instagram has begun rolling out the ability to add custom polls within the comments of posts on the social platform’s general feed as well as its Reels video posts, an addition that will offer brands a new option for connecting with audiences, Instagram recently announced. Social Media Today

LinkedIn influencers are a thing now—and brands like Intel and Hootsuite are courting them
An increasing number of major brands have begun harnessing the power of creators on LinkedIn, with influencer partnerships becoming more commonplace as brands have increasingly found success with such relationships on the professional social platform, and Fast Company recently took a look. Fast Company

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“It’s important to acknowledge that LinkedIn is not designed for virality, and the reason for that is we’re about economic opportunity.” — Alice Xiong of @LinkedIn
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AI Verve: Brands Worldwide Are Adding The Tech To Their Marketing
When it comes to the use of AI within the marketing departments at organizations, 88 percent of businesses have said that they were already using at least one form of AI in 2023, with 64 percent having noted they plan to adjust their strategy around AI within the forthcoming year — two of numerous findings of interest to B2B marketers contained in newly-published report data. MediaPost

LinkedIn Looks to Help Candidates Stand Out With ‘Top Choice’ Job Application Option
LinkedIn has rolled out a new “Top Choice Jobs” premium subscriber feature that allows users on the platform to choose their top job role choices, which are then highlighted more prominently as part of the platform’s top job initiative, LinkedIn recently announced. Social Media Today

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE:

A lighthearted look at “Share of Wallet and Funflation” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist

PLATO: How an educational computer system from the ’60s shaped the future — Ars Technica

TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• Donna Robinson / TopRank Marketing — 5 Ways To Think About Leadership For 2024 — Forbes
• TopRank Marketing — Insights from the World’s Top Content Marketing Influencers — Public Sector Marketing Institute
• TopRank Marketing — The Top Generative AI Tools for B2B Marketers [Infographic] — MarketingProfs
• Lee Odden — 59 Content Marketing Quotes That Will Make You a Better Marketer — ActiveCampaign

FRIDAY FIVE B2B MARKETING FAVORITES TO FOLLOW:

Pantelis Chiotellis @pantelischio
Shruti Deshpande @shruti12d
Caroline Hof @Caroline_Hof
Rasmus Sørensen @rumbas
Lisa Marcyes @lisa_marcyes

Learn more about TopRank Marketing‘s mission to help elevate the B2B marketing industry.

Have you found your own top B2B marketing news item we haven’t yet covered? If so, 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 Elevate B2B Marketing News, and we hope that you’ll return again next Friday for another array of the most up-to-date and relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us on our LinkedIn page, or at @TopRank on Twitter/X for even more timely daily news.

The post Elevate B2B Marketing News Weekly Roundup: LinkedIn’s Collaborative Articles, New Trust Barometer Report & Gated Content in B2B appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Here’s Why You Should Conduct an SEO Audit, and What You Can Learn From It

Most companies that are looking to elevate their digital marketing strategy are not starting from scratch. Unless your business is brand new, you likely already have a website and a library of existing content. If you’ve been around for a while, you might have a LOT of existing content, and odds are some if it is neither fresh nor relevant.

Conducting an SEO audit is a key practice for gaining a firm grasp on your company’s website and digital assets, their performance, and where the opportunities lie to grow your impact in search.

What is an SEO audit?

Whereas a site audit analyzes website health and opportunities more broadly, an SEO audit serves as a comprehensive assessment of your site specifically with respect to its performance in search.

Why is this so important? Research has found that organic search accounts for more than half of all website traffic globally.

Although there are tools and technologies that can support an SEO audit, expertise is required to ensure the project aligns with key business goals, and that the findings lead to strong, actionable recommendations.

What are some components included in an SEO audit?

There are many different factors that can affect your website’s search performance, so in order to be effective, SEO audits need to be thorough and wide-reaching.

Examples of techniques and elements of a typical SEO audit include:

• Keyword research and analysis: Which keywords are you ranking for? Where are you lacking visibility with your target audience? Which opportunities stand out as quick wins?
• On-page SEO optimization: This process surfaces issues with meta titles, meta descriptions, headers, and keyword usage that might be impacting your site’s performance in search.
• Technical SEO: Impediments to SEO success are often unseen – site speed, mobile responsiveness, indexing, etc. Assessing your technical SEO helps ensure these issues aren’t holding back your quality content.
• Link profile: Quality backlinks remain a staple of SEO in B2B marketing. This analysis identifies opportunities to gain authoritative backlinks from other websites.
• Content relevance and optimization: An SEO audit will evaluate the full spectrum of content on your website – blog posts, resources, product pages – to ensure it meets E-E-A-T standards and matches search intent.
• Competitive analysis: To know where your company stands in search, and where it makes sense to focus, you have to know where your competitors stand.
• Site structure and navigation: If search engines can’t easily find their way around your website and contextualize the content, users probably can’t either.
• Schema markup: Implementation of structured data helps search engines understand and display website content in rich snippets and featured snippets.
• Reporting and analytics: As SEO tracking and measurement evolve, running an SEO audit provides the chance to enhance your depth of analytics and set up ongoing reporting.

What can you learn and achieve with an SEO audit?

We’ve established that an SEO audit can provide a lot of information to your company. How does this information support your marketing strategy? There are a few key learnings and actions that often emerge through an expert SEO audit.

Turn around negative organic search trends

If your business has seen downward trends in organic traffic over the past year or so, you are far from alone. We’ve observed this trend with many of our clients, and it’s being talked about across industries.

While there are several macro trends and factors affecting the search landscape, Google’s Helpful Content update – launched in late 2022 – has had a significant impact on many search rankings.

This is not necessarily a bad thing! Google is prioritizing content that provides users with a relevant and rewarding experience, which is exactly what your content should be striving to do. (It’s also a specialization of TopRank Marketing’s content service.) Still, this major algorithm update has altered many previous rankings, and may have even impacted some of your top-performing content.

An SEO audit will help illuminate and explain any negative search trends your brand might be experiencing as a result of algorithm updates or otherwise, while helping you chart a course to reverse them.

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“An SEO audit will help illuminate and explain any negative search trends your brand might be experiencing as a result of algorithm updates or otherwise, while helping you chart a course to reverse them.” — Nick Nelson @NickNelsonMN
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Uncover key opportunities to make fast gains

As any B2B marketer knows, organic SEO tends to be a long game. But when we conduct SEO audits for our clients, we almost always discover opportunities for quick wins and short-term impact.

Achieving quantifiable progress and results can help fortify your immediate search footprint while building confidence toward your long-term strategy.

Find white space and differentiate from competitors

If a competitor is beating you out in the search engine results page (SERP) for a term with commercially valuable intent, that means they are siphoning away qualified traffic and potential interest from your brand.

Without a competitive analysis, it is difficult to know which important keywords you’re getting beat on, and what it will take to win them. Additionally, SEO audits are great for surfacing key insights around unaddressed white space that you can tap into with your SEO content strategy.

Eliminate technical issues impeding your content

It’s really easy to overlook technical issues that affect SEO performance on your website, even if those issues are being directly experienced by your users. For example, if your marketing team usually interacts with your website and its content via desktop computers in the office, they may be unaware of prominent mobile accessibility issues.

The objectivity and comprehensiveness of a data-driven SEO audit – especially when overseen by a specialized third party – can help ensure you’re not missing hidden problems that are diminishing your organization’s search visibility and organic acquisition potential.

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“The objectivity and comprehensiveness of a data-driven SEO audit can help ensure you’re not missing hidden problems that are diminishing your organization’s search visibility and organic acquisition potential.” — Nick Nelson @NickNelsonMN
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Step up your brand’s search impact with an SEO audit

The bottom line is that without an SEO audit, your marketing team has a limited understanding of how your company’s website and content are performing from a search standpoint. That means leaving valuable opportunities on the table.

At TopRank Marketing, we’ve helped countless clients solve their SEO problems and drive powerful, sustained organic traffic. Learn about this and other SEO services we offer.

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Today’s Top B2B Inbound Marketing Challenges

In 2023, B2B inbound marketing is more important than ever. While web traffic and email open rates across industries have both been in freefall, inbound leads rose by over 6%, and web-based conversions saw a nearly 11% increase.

Marketers across industries seem well aware that inbound marketing performs, as 88% of marketers already doing SEO work plan to increase or maintain their investment moving forward, and nine out of 10 marketers plan to increase their investment or continue using short-form videos as a major element of their ongoing strategy.

All this well-warranted buzz around inbound marketing has made the practice more competitive than ever.

If your B2B brand wants to rise above the noise, you’ll have to confront and overcome some serious challenges in the process. Let’s tackle them together:

1 — Economic downturn & pressure to prove ROI fast

Perhaps the most immediately pressing challenges facing B2B inbound marketers today relate to the tough market conditions resulting from the protracted economic downturn we’ve been facing for most of 2023.

According to Insider Intelligence, B2B sales growth is down 3.4% this year, while ad spend continues to rise at a growth rate of 9.3 percent. The result, as Sara Lebow wrote for Insider, is that “B2B companies are fighting over increasingly limited spend.”

B2B inbound marketers are likely feeling this crunch more than most. The most recent B2B Marketing Benchmark report from LinkedIn* showed that CMOs are under pressure to demonstrate marketing impact on the bottom line faster than ever.

Unfortunately, it’s easier to quickly prove the ROI of demand generation marketing than inbound marketing. This has been an infamous ongoing problem in B2B that has led to the dominance of performance marketing at the expense of brand building.

Solution: Redefining the ROI of inbound marketing

As the stats above demonstrate, the problem with B2B inbound marketing isn’t actually making the impact; it’s proving the impact has been made. B2B marketers are relying on performance metrics for their inbound marketing that undermine how big a difference their inbound is actually makes.

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“The problem with B2B inbound marketing isn’t actually making the impact; it’s proving the impact has been made.” — Harry Mackin of @TopRank Marketing
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New metrics for B2B inbound marketing success are needed. Many marketers are using brand performance metrics to understand the impact of upper-funnel and inbound efforts in the greater context of pipeline and revenue.

Armed with metrics like these, it’s much easier for inbound marketers to prove how essential their brand building is to long-term, sustained success – even in the midst of an economic downturn.

2 — The competition is fierce, and only growing fiercer

According to the 2023 B2B marketing mix report by SageFrog, nearly half of all B2B brands (49%) are actively implementing SEO inbound marketing as a major part of their marketing strategy. Another 43% are investing in content marketing and organic social media inbound marketing.

With so much inbound marketing out there, it’s little wonder that 59% of all digital marketers say their company is experiencing more competition this year than they did in 2022. HubSpot’s State of Inbound Marketing Report found that 22% of social media marketers reported “creating engaging content” and “gaining and keeping followers” as their greatest challenges in 2023.

This competition isn’t going anywhere, either. The global B2B SEO services market is currently valued at $46.7 billion, and it’s set to reach $238 billion by 2030. According to HubSpot’s 2023 State of Marketing Report, almost nine out of 10 (88%) marketers who do SEO inbound marketing plan to maintain or increase how much they do this year.

Solution: Highly-targeted, intent-based content

TopRank recently published our guide to SEO and qualified search traffic, “Marketing with Intent.” We define intent-based marketing as a way to center your B2B content strategy on an intent-based SEO approach. This strategy is the perfect way to stand out to a B2B audience, no matter the competition.

For example, did you know that keywords between 10 to 15 words in length get 1.76x the clicks as single-word terms? These intent-heavy “long-tail” keywords are growing more popular both because of how much content is on the internet right now, and because of how the mass adoption of voice search is radically changing the way SEO works.

Getting to know what your audience is searching for and why will help inform every aspect of your inbound marketing, from what you produce to how you produce it to even where you publish it.

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“Getting to know what your audience is searching for and why will help inform every aspect of your inbound marketing, from what you produce to how you produce it to even where you publish it.” — Harry Mackin of @TopRank Marketing
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If you can truly shape your B2B inbound marketing around audience intent, it won’t matter how much other content is trying to get their attention. You’ll be the brand showing up for what they need and giving them exactly what they’re looking for.

3 — B2B audiences are tough to pin down

Of course, to achieve effective B2B inbound intent marketing, you have to understand your audience’s intent. Only 11% of B2B digital marketers say they have the data they need to anticipate their target audience’s needs, compared to 29% of B2C digital marketers.

Without access to this information, 21% of social media marketers report challenges reaching their target audience, and as many as 43% of digital marketers expect changes in their audiences’ needs to impede their success.

Solution: Join the community through influencer marketing

Today’s B2B inbound marketers can’t afford to remain on the outside looking in anymore. They have to truly join the professional community they’re marketing to.

Two years ago, LinkedIn and Edelman interviewed 3,600 management-level B2B professionals who are regularly exposed to inbound marketing to ask them what worked and what didn’t. Their responses point to a deep desire for inbound marketing that engages with community thinking:

• 81% want inbound marketing that challenges their assumptions regarding their industry
• 77% want deep dives into specialized industry topics
• 67% want content that prominently features the point of view of a clearly identifiable author
• 62% want more inbound marketing that speaks to current business trends

B2B decision makers are ready to engage with B2B inbound marketing. They just want it to engage with them on their level. B2B marketers need to get on that level.

There’s one more especially important stat from LinkedIn’s survey: 80% of B2B decision makers want content that includes data and insights from other trusted individuals or organizations beyond just the publishing company.

B2B influencer marketing is a natural way to satisfy the requirements of the modern B2B audience while entering the community at the same time. There’s a reason why campaigns experience 11x better ROI when adding even niche influencers to their campaigns:

By working with the right influencers to produce B2B inbound marketing content, you can show your audience that you understand them and can speak to their needs the way they want you to.

If you have any other questions about all things B2B marketing, or you want to work on your own inbound marketing challenges together, TopRank Marketing’s experts are ready to help. Get in touch today.

* Disclosure: LinkedIn is a TopRank Marketing client

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Return on Intelligence: ServiceNow on Optimizing B2B Brand Thought Leadership with Content

While AI-related buzzwords are now more common than morning coffee, differentiating B2B brands through authentic thought leadership has never been more important.

At Content Marketing World in Washington D.C., Richard Murphy, Editor in Chief and Director as well as the mind behind thought leadership at ServiceNow, presented some compelling insights on cutting through the clutter with thought leadership content that differentiates your brand and builds trust with your audience in a market saturated with AI hype.

Here is an overview of his presentation.

AI: The Double-Edged Sword:

Just as seagulls in “Finding Nemo” endlessly cry “mine, mine, mine,” an increasing number of B2B tech brands are incessantly touting AI as their game-changing solution. Of course the tech industry isn’t a stranger to such hype cycles.

Richard Murphy, Director, Editor in Chief at ServiceNow

While AI promises some significant advancements from revolutionizing creativity to optimizing workflows, it’s important to remember the foundational rule: garbage in, garbage out.

This sentiment is very much in line with what I’ve shared in my own presentations on AI and B2B content marketing. Gen AI simply makes you more of what you are — a broke jerk only becomes a rich jerk with more money. If you’re lacking imagination and you put “crap” in to the prompt of a GenAI system, you’ll simply get “crappy” content out.

But back to Richard’s presentation. Interestingly, a lot of AI-generated content might feel familiar (and mediocre) to us because in many ways it’s recycling what the internet already knows. However, the silver lining is that brands focused on communicating with authentic narratives can pierce through the mediocrity of GenAI content.

“Tell stories that make the company look smart, build trust in the brand and encourage sales without ‘selling’.” Richard Murphy, Director, Editor in Chief at ServiceNow

Three Pillars of Authentic Thought Leadership:

1. Elevate Your Brand Without Overt Selling:
ServiceNow, despite its exponential growth from 1bn to 8bn in revenue from 2017 to 2023, understands that their target audience — senior leaders — aren’t looking for granular product details. They’re after the broader picture: customer experience, profitability, and overarching strategies. As a result, they’ve learned that it’s essential for them to create stories that amplify brand trust and implicitly drive sales, without overtly pushing products.

2. Advance the Narrative:
To transcend the typical tech sales conversation, ServiceNow introduced ‘Workflow‘, a platform tailored for senior leaders and the general business audience. Think of it as a niche business publication, populated with original research, trend analyses, and special reports. It’s not about reactive news but proactive insights. They’ve consistently been ahead of the curve, covering pressing topics like hybrid work, environmental social governance (ESG), and AI’s future impacts.

3. Building the Insight Engine:
Original research forms the core of ServiceNow’s content strategy with Workflow. They embrace a hub-and-spoke model, with original studies at the center, branching out into thought leadership articles, social media, region-specific content, PR pitches, and more. While their primary content seldom drills down into their products, a strategic linkage guides readers towards commercial content, subtly attracting them into the sales funnel. Their LinkedIn newsletter further demonstrates the power of delivering value to readers.

Thought Leadership: The Brand Elevation Tool:

True thought leadership doesn’t merely generate brand visibility; it cultivates trust and propels businesses forward. Senior leaders are more inclined to delve deeper into a brand’s offerings after consuming genuine, value-driven thought leadership content. Richard Murphy’s presentation about the approach ServiceNow is taking underscores a important lesson for brands: by providing immediate value and showcasing expertise, they’re more likely to transform readers into potential customers. This is the DNA of content marketing that I think my pal Joe Pulizzi would agree with.

In a business and marketing landscape where every brand now seems to be armed with an AI wand, emphasizing authenticity with thought leadership is the real magic. By focusing on genuine insights, brands can navigate the AI hype maze and create meaningful, trust-driven connections with their audience and creates the business impact we’re all looking for.

To dig deeper into B2B thought leadership and executive influence, check out some of these posts:

• Thought Leadership and Influencer Marketing
• Forrester on Thought Leadership Opportunities
• Brandfluence – Why Growing Executive Influence is Essential for B2B Marketing
• 20 Ways to Build B2B Executive Credibility and Thought Leadership

Learn more about TopRank Marketing’s Influencer Marketing and Content Marketing solutions for building B2B brand thought leadership.

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Elevate B2B Marketing News Weekly Roundup: B2B Content Marketing Study, Top Enterprise Ad Priorities & Creativity’s Rising Brand Role

B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2024 [Research]
72 percent of B2B marketers have said that they use generative AI tools, with 51 percent using the technology to help brainstorm new ideas, while some 61 percent have indicated that their organization currently lacks AI usage guidelines — three of numerous findings contained in newly-published annual B2B content marketing report data from Content Marketing Institute. Content Marketing Institute

These Are Enterprise Organizations’ Top Digital Advertising Priorities
55 percent of enterprise digital marketing executives have said that improved return-on-investment (ROI) and effectiveness combine as their top priority in the coming year, with 52 percent pointing to the unification of creative and paid media teams within their organization, according to recently-published survey data of interest to B2B marketers. MarketingCharts

Topic Talk: Study Shows What Marketers Are Researching
When it comes to what marketers are researching, during the second quarter of 2023, marketing research on content personalization increased by 522 percent, with research surrounding real-time personalization up some 185 percent, according to newly-published study data. MediaPost

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“We can use the data from the ecommerce site to personalize the rest of the journey. Instead of seeing the site as a self-contained silo, it can be part of a multichannel buying journey.” — Ed Kennedy of @Adobe
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X, formerly Twitter, tests charging new users $1 to tweet, retweet
The X social media platform formerly known as Twitter has begun testing an annual fee for a segment of new users in the Philippines and New Zealand, who won’t be able to post using free accounts, X recently announced, in a push expected to eventually roll out globally on the platform. CNBC

Marketers more optimistic even as budgets fall
49 percent of marketing leaders have said that they were feeling more optimism when it came to the U.S. economy — a rise from the 30.1 percent seen since spring 2023, with B2B firms having seen 9.7 percent of their budgets dedicated to sales revenues and 7.9 percent to marketing, according to newly-published survey data. MarTech

New WPP Index Purports To Show Creativity Drives Brand Growth
Brands possessing greater creative capital provide 1.2 times the consumer advocacy and 1.4 times the amount of brand affection, with such brands also achieving 1.1 times the pricing power when compared to brands with lower creative capital scores, according to recently-released Creative Capital Index findings of interest to B2B marketers. MediaPost

YouTube Adds New Audio Description Options, Preferred Pronouns for Creator Profiles
Google’s YouTube has giving marketers the ability to add new audio description tracks aimed at helping visually impaired users on the video platform and to augment traditional captioning audio tracks, as part of its latest feature rollout, YouTube recently announced. Social Media Today

Google Introduces Ad-Measurement Tool, Privacy Sandbox Forces Change
Search giant Google has announced plans to launch a new Google Ads Data Manager ad-measurement tool in 2024, when it will become available as part of the firm’s popular Google Ads service, aimed at providing a non-cookie-based data measurement system that is able to utilize first-party data. MediaPost

Threads Rolls Out Post Editing and Voice Notes
Meta’s Threads social media platform has begun rolling out the ability to edit posts during a five minute window after publishing, along with an array of additional updates including audio-based messages under the Voice Threads name, Meta recently announced. Social Media Today

One year post-acquisition, X traffic and monthly active users are in decline, report claims
Global traffic to the platform formerly known as Twitter dropped by 14 percent year-over-year during September 2023, with X’s mobile U.S. traffic having fallen by some 17.8 percent during the same period, as U.S. users accounted for roughly 25 percent of the platform’s overall traffic, according to newly-published report data. TechCrunch

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE:

A lighthearted look at “Change for the Sake of Change” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist

The Future of Moore’s Law Is Inside This Willy Wonka Machine — IEEE Spectrum

TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• Lee Odden / TopRank Marketing — This Week in Marketing: B2B Forum Inspiration — LinkedIn (client)
• TopRank Marketing — The Top Generative AI Tools for B2B Marketers [Infographic] — MarketingProfs
• Lee Odden — 5 Writing Tips from Successful Bloggers To Motivate You — EverydayPower
• TopRank Marketing — 40+ Top Influencer Marketing Agencies in 2023 — Shane Barker
• TopRank Marketing — Are Paid Influencers Right for Your Social Strategy? — National Institute for Social Media

FRIDAY FIVE B2B MARKETING FAVORITES TO FOLLOW:

Rani Mani @ranimani0707
Joanna Lord @JoannaLord
Jay Acunzo @jayacunzo
Dr. Ai Addyson-Zhang @aiaddysonzhang
Paul Roetzer @paulroetzer

Learn more about TopRank Marketing‘s mission to help elevate the B2B marketing industry.

Have you located a top B2B marketing news item we haven’t yet covered? If so, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line in the comments below.

Thanks for joining us for this week’s Elevate B2B Marketing News, and please return next Friday for another selection of the most up-to-date and relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us on our LinkedIn page, or at @TopRank on Twitter/X for even more timely daily news.

The post Elevate B2B Marketing News Weekly Roundup: B2B Content Marketing Study, Top Enterprise Ad Priorities & Creativity’s Rising Brand Role appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

RedHat on Connecting B2B Content for ROI – Across Sites and Teams

For those of us in the world of B2B content marketing, we know that the customer journey isn’t always linear and the value of that content isn’t always easy to attribute. Laura Barnes, Senior Director of the Global Content Team at Red Hat, shed light on the importance of connecting content measurement across multiple customer touch-points during her recent presentation at Content Marketing World.

Here are a few of my main takeaways.

Content’s Non-linear Value:

Content doesn’t always follow a straightforward path. “Digital governance nirvana” might be a dream for some, but the goal for content marketing should be clear: connect content across the user’s journey. While reducing URLs may not be feasible for everyone, the ability to connect content cohesively is vital. By bridging the gaps, content teams can showcase their worth, irrespective of the volume of URLs they manage.

Laura Barnes, Senior Director, Global Content Team at Red Hat

Navigating the Web of URLs:

Red Hat itself operates 12 approved websites, emphasizing that every website is essentially something with a URL. However, URLs are often political. While content too can be, it’s typically to a lesser degree. Laura underscored the significance of accountability when it comes to content. In an environment where different sites might report to various teams or even have divergent budgets, establishing governance can be a challenge. Yet, defining clear objectives can encourage collaboration among disparate groups — which is essential.

The Open Source Way to Content Collaboration:

Drawing parallels with open-source principles, Laura shared some guidelines on how RedHat brings together teams with differing responsibilities:

Transparency: Everyone should have access to information, ensuring collaborative problem-solving. Barnes highlighted Red Hat’s “word nerds” group, which worked on creating a style guide.

Collaboration: Encourage spontaneous partnerships and collaborative problem-solving. By inviting teams to share common challenges, Red Hat created an alliance, further splitting into guilds to tackle specific areas.

Release Early and Often: Prioritize swift prototype releases, and share work in its early stages. Red Hat, for example, begins every meeting discussing four key performance indicators (KPIs).

Inclusive Meritocracy: All ideas have merit, ensuring a non-hierarchical approach. At Red Hat, teams collaborate on agreeing to metadata and taxonomy changes.

Frameworks for Valuable Content:

Content frameworks are essential because they provide a structured approach to content creation, ensuring consistency, clarity, and purpose. By defining guidelines and parameters, they streamline the content process, maintain brand voice, and ensure that content aligns with overarching business objectives. While the content universe is wide and diverse, Laura shared that certain frameworks can help streamline creation and dissemination including:

Metadata + Taxonomy: A consistent element, enabling flexibility elsewhere.

Messaging Guides: Collate vital information to ensure teams are well-informed and can act swiftly.

Templates: Establish guidelines on what remains consistent and what can be altered.

Translation Strategy: With many businesses being U.S.-centric, the content should cater to a global audience.

Global SEO: User-focused SEO frameworks can guide content creation across different sites.

Demonstrating Business Value:

To ensure continued support, funding, and growth, content teams must exhibit their tangible business value. Laura outlined several key metrics that Red Hat considers:

• Conversion (40% weight): Calls-to-action (CTAs) completed by users.
• SEO (15% weight): Organic traffic to pages.
• Visibility (20% weight): Both internal and external, encompassing unique visitors, cross-links, and organic impressions.
• Engagement (15% weight): Factors like form completions, next-page clicks, and page load time.

Today’s information experience for buyers of B2B products and services is proliferated with content. The challenge is not just creation but also effective connection and measurement. Drawing from Laura Barnes’ presentation, it’s clear that with the right strategies, teams can navigate the complexities of content measurement, ensuring that the content not only reaches its audience but also delivers tangible ROI.

To dig deeper into B2B content marketing and measurement, check out some of these posts:

• Growth Strategy: How Content Marketing Propels B2B Brand Growth Today
• How B2B Marketers Are Responding to Tough Market Conditions
• How to Prove the Value of Content Marketing to Your CMO in 3 Easy Steps

Learn more about the content marketing solutions we provide to some of the biggest B2B brands in the world.

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The New Rules of B2B Marketing: Dina Otero on Embracing Customer Centricity with ABX

As B2B content marketing has evolved from simply telling buyers what brands want them to know to creating more useful content, there’s been a shift in perspective. Rather than egocentrically pushing out information, smart B2B brands are empathizing with buyers and focusing more on the experiences that marketing can create.

Let’s face it, B2B buyers expect more from the brands they buy from and to meet those expectations, business marketers must embrace a more customer-centric approach to all things B2B marketing.

Dina Otero, VP of Demand Generation at Mission Cloud

At the MarketingProfs B2B Forum, Dina Otero, VP of Demand Generation at Mission Cloud gave a presentation, Embracing Customer Centricity: The New Rules of Marketing that showcased the importance of a customer-centric approach and how ABX (Account Based Experience) plays a role in delivering the kinds of customer experiences that help build brand loyalty, foster positive word-of-mouth, and increase customer lifetime value. Happy customers = more revenue.

There’s a lot to be said on this topic and Dina did a great job of sharing her insights. For those readers who prefer to scan content, here’s a TLDR of this post:

• Customer centricity is understanding customers’ situations, perceptions and expectations. It demands that the customer is the focal point of all decisions to create satisfaction and loyalty.
• Customer-centric marketing helps build brand loyalty, fosters positive word-of-mouth and increases customer lifetime value.
• To become customer-centric, listen to customers, understand their needs, personalize their experience and measure satisfaction.
• Ensure every employee lives the customer experience. Build it into your mission and values.
• Improve the quality of data and make it consistent and available. Use technology to connect with customers.
• Track NPS (Net Promoter Score), capture feedback and make it easy.
• Think long term with heartfelt thanks, relational vs transactional approach and increase customer lifetime value.
• Account-Based Experience orchestrates relevant actions throughout the customer lifecycle. It results in higher close rates, post sale expansion and better customer experience.
• To implement customer centricity: inspire the whole company, build the right team, think sustainable tactics, build content for every stage and implement ABX beyond new logos.

Dina gave her presentation in the context of her work at Mission Cloud, which is a company that provides cloud computing services focused on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and offers solutions including cloud strategy, migration, optimization, and managed services.

What is Customer Centricity?

“Customer centricity is the ability of people in an organization to understand customers’ situations, perceptions, and expectations. Customer centricity demands that the customer is the focal point of all decisions related to delivering products, services and experiences to create customer satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy.” – Gartner

Dina opened with a famous story about my pal Peter Shankman who once tweeted a request to Morton’s Steakhouse that he would like a porterhouse waiting when he landed at Newark airport. And they delivered the steak. Of course this story went viral and served as a great customer “delight” experience.

What can B2B brands learn from that example? Working towards being more customer-centric can create B2B customer delight opportunities as well.

“Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first.” Simon Sinek

Dina advised that for B2B brands to become more customer-centric, they should listen to customers, understand their needs, personalize their experience, and measure their satisfaction. She also shared several best practices:

Build a customer-centric culture – Ensure that every employee, from the CEO to the front-line worker, understands the importance of prioritizing customer needs. Incorporate customer-centric values and vision into the company’s mission.

Improve your data – Enhance the quality of your data to gain better insights into your customers. Make sure the data is consistent and easily accessible to everyone in the organization. Utilize technology to connect with customers and collect relevant data.

Capture customer feedback – Actively seek feedback from your customers through methods like Net Promoter Score (NPS), customer surveys, and customer advisory boards. Use this feedback to understand their preferences, pain points, and expectations.

Think long term – Adopt a long-term perspective when engaging with customers. Focus on building relationships rather than just completing transactions. Show gratitude for customer loyalty, provide sneak peeks of upcoming features or products, and engage customers through social media to gather feedback and thoughts.

The Value of ABX in Customer Centric Marketing

Account-Based Experience is a go-to-market strategy that uses data and insights to orchestrate relevant, trusted marketing and sales actions throughout the B2B customer lifecycle. According to research from the ITSMA, 58% of marketers said that ABM plays a major role in making their entire company more customer-centric.

The benefits of an account-based go-to-market approach are clear and well documented:

Zero waste: ABM eliminates the scattergun approach by focusing on high-value target accounts. It ensures that marketing and sales efforts are directed towards the most promising opportunities, reducing wasteful spending.

Bigger wins: By targeting specific accounts, ABM increases the chances of securing larger deals. It allows for a more personalized and tailored approach, addressing the unique needs and challenges of each account.

Better close rates: ABM strategies typically result in higher close rates. By nurturing relationships with key stakeholders throughout the account, ABM helps build trust, credibility, and alignment, increasing the likelihood of successful conversions.

Drive post-sale expansion: ABM doesn’t end with the initial sale. It continues to focus on nurturing and expanding existing customer accounts. By providing ongoing value and personalized experiences, ABM helps drive post-sale up-sells, cross-sells, and renewals.

Better customer experience: ABM puts the customer at the center of marketing and sales efforts. By delivering relevant and personalized interactions, ABM enhances the overall customer experience, leading to higher satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy.

Align marketing and sales: ABM encourages closer collaboration between marketing and sales teams. By aligning their efforts around target accounts, ABM breaks down silos, improves communication, and ensures a coordinated approach to driving revenue.

Dina finished her presentation with these takeaways on B2B brands becoming more customer-centric through ABX:

• Inspire the whole company to think about the customer first
• Build the right team
• Think personalized but sustainable tactics
• Build content for every stage of the lifecycle
• Implement ABX beyond new logos
• Thank big, but start small

To drill down even deeper into the topic of a more customer centric approach to B2B marketing, check out these top posts:

• Is ABX the Next Evolution of B2B Marketing?
• Why Digital Customer Experience Will Be A Top Focus For B2B Marketers
• 5 Ways to Humanize Your B2B Content Marketing – And Why It Matters
• Flipping the B2B Marketing Script: 7 Brands That Talk to Consumers, Not Companies

To learn more about how B2B content, influencer, search and social media marketing can help your B2B brand deliver better customer experiences and impact revenue, check out our solutions page and case studies.

The post The New Rules of B2B Marketing: Dina Otero on Embracing Customer Centricity with ABX appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

SAP on the New AR for B2B Content Marketing: Authentic Reality

In an age where the allure of artificial intelligence (AI) has captured the attention of so many of us in the B2B marketing industry, the essence of authentic human connection in storytelling is more important than ever. As the dust settles on the GenAI hype cycle, we’ll see that successful B2B marketers are those who recognize the value of integrating emotion and empathy into their narratives and ensuring their messages resonate with audiences. As I like to say, “less mechanical and more meaningful.”

This was at the center of a presentation at Content Marketing World given by my good friend Jenn VandeZande, Editor in Chief, Head of Digital Engagement, I + CX at SAP with an assist from Robert Rose of Content Marketing Institute.

The Human Touch in a Tech-Driven B2B Marketing World:

With each successive generation becoming increasingly dependent on technology, one might wonder where this leaves the human aspect of storytelling and communication. Jenn from SAP emphasized a surprising stat: a whopping 81% of marketers believe that the roles of content writers are at risk due to AI.

“81% of marketers think content writers jobs are at risk because of AI. That said, those that have skills at strategy, creativity and storytelling will come out on top.” Jenn VandeZande, Editor in Chief, Head of Digital Engagement, I + CX at SAP

However, a quick dive into SAP funded, “The Future of Commerce,” site managed by Jenn and her team reveals a different story. This platform prioritizes content that’s intriguing to SAP’s target audience rather than merely reflecting what’s trendy for SAP. Impressively, this content-centric approach has thrived without the boost of paid advertisements.

Jenn VandeZande, Editor in Chief, Head of Digital Engagement, I + CX at SAP

The Magic of B2B Authenticity:

The authenticity of the content on “The Future of Commerce” has attracted significant organic traction. Jenn shared that 70% of the traffic is organic, with 30% being return visitors. Authentic content that resonates on a human level not only establishes trust but also facilitates genuine affinity with the brand. In Jenn’s words, business professionals are humans first, and connecting with them on a personal level is essential for brand success.

It’s evident that while robots might churn out content, they cannot replicate the nuanced, genuine, and relatable narratives that humans craft. The paradigm shift occurs when brands view content marketing not just as a touch-point in the buyer journey but as an ongoing dialogue even outside that journey.

Nurturing B2B Audiences the Right Way:

Interestingly, subscribers to “The Future of Commerce” aren’t bombarded with marketing messages. SAP recognizes the importance of gauging commercial intent. Only when a user demonstrates this intent, say by downloading a whitepaper, are they moved into a nurture track.

One might wonder, on a website dominated by such authentic content, when’s the right time to transition readers to more commercial content for SAP? According to Jenn, every article should thoughtfully guide readers with CTAs, seamlessly intertwining with adjusted landing pages to enhance the user’s journey.

In Defense of Human Writers:

To ensure that the age-old art of writing isn’t overshadowed by AI, certain measures can be adopted:

• Be Prepared: Understand the current utilization of AI in your content processes.
• AI Roadmap: Establish clear governance, responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed (RACI), and use cases for AI integration.
• Practice Quality: Ensure content quality is maintained, periodically checking for AI usage.
• Leverage AI Wisely: While the focus should be on human intent and content, AI can still be employed to streamline processes and enhance user experience.

AI, no matter how advanced, is ultimately limited to what we teach it. With momentum towards substantially greater levels of automation when it comes to content development, the essence of meaningful storytelling lies in authenticity, emotion, and a genuine human touch. Brands that recognize and act upon this truth will thrive, creating genuine, long-lasting relationships with their audience.

For more B2B content marketing insights, check out some of our most popular posts:

• Growth Strategy: How Content Marketing Propels B2B Brand Growth Today
• Creativity’s Rising Role in B2B Marketing
• Take the Lead with Full-Funnel B2B Lead Gen
• Why Intent-Qualified Organic Traffic Will Power the Future of B2B Marketing
• Why Great Top-of-Funnel Content Matters for Lead Generation

Learn more about the content marketing solutions offered by TopRank Marketing.

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5 Winning Ways To Personalize Content With B2B Influencer Marketing

How can B2B brands bring greater personalization to content experiences, and why is personalized content more important than ever?

Personalization has increasingly become one of the most successful methods for creating content that B2B audiences want to engage with, and when context experiences are delivered by industry subject matter experts — or influencers and creators, if you prefer — personal connections occur and more often than not they help drive results.

59 percent of marketing professionals have said that they plan to increase their budget and resource allocation for influencer-created content in 2024, behind only online video and video streaming on the list of media channels expected to grow the most next year, while 59 percent expect greater spending for social media stories, according to newly-published Kantar report data, as we covered in a recent edition of our Elevate B2B Marketing Friday News.

An additional recent survey from Ogilvy paints an even brighter future for B2B influencer marketing, revealing that 75 percent of B2B marketers are investing in influencer marketing, with 93 percent planning to use B2B influencers even more in the coming year.

Influencer marketing spending is also expected to grow by 14 percent this year, while spending on influencer-sponsored social media content in the U.S. is expected to expand some 3.5 times faster than traditional social media advertising spending, according to recently-published forecast data.

Additionally, eight out of ten social media marketers recently indicated that they view influencer marketing as an essential strategy component, with 70 percent having received the most impact from macro-influencers who have between 100,000 and one million followers, while 52 percent of brands noted using a dedicated influencer marketing platform — three of numerous statistics of interest to B2B marketers contained in recently-published Sprout Social influencer marketing report findings.

Let’s take a look at the special power of B2B influencer marketing when it comes to building more personalized interactions both online and in person.

1 — Tap Industry Experts

A fundamental element of B2B influencer marketing is finding and working with the most relevant industry experts in a brand’s particular industry.

B2B brands have increasingly turned to influencer marketing, and a primary reason why has been the ability of expert industry influencers to help promote content that gives audiences the best answers to their most pressing challenges.

With influencer marketing, B2B brands can not only deliver relevant best-answer content, but do so through social media interactions that build trust and instill confidence.

As we explored recently in “B2B Content Revolution: Why Personalization Matters for Engaging Your Audience,” personalization is a great way to create marketing that resonates with your most valuable B2B buyers.

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“The more you know about your audience, the more you can tailor content to them based on facts, not just speculation.” — Joshua Nite @NiteWrites
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Finding the right B2B influencers is key, and brands that rely primarily or even exclusively on an influencer’s overall follower counts instead of their genuine topical industry relevance are likely to miss out on the hefty benefits of B2B influencer marketing.

Taking the time to find and vet influencers to find just the right ones pays off for B2B brands, and an ideal process often includes both the use of discovery tools and the right kind of human touch to develop a well-researched list of potential influencers.

Automated tools for finding potential influencers can only take you so far, and the real work begins by making the effort to go the extra mile with additional research.

By utilizing relevant industry experts, B2B brands are better equipped to deliver the type of personalized content experiences that B2B consumers desire.

During the second quarter of 2023, marketing research on content personalization increased by 522 percent, with research surrounding real-time personalization up 185 percent, according to newly-published study data.

2 — Harness Content Co-Creation

Brands that publish content without B2B influencers can find themselves at a significant disadvantage right from the start when competing with those that regularly co-create content using industry subject matter experts.

Co-created content melds brand initiatives with one or many B2B influencers, who help deliver it in relevant online communities both with their existing audiences and to the brand’s followers.

B2B consumer expectations have risen, especially when it comes to the desire to personalized content experiences. The fastest-growing expectation among B2B professionals for the next three years was for personalized experiences, according to recent research.

Content co-creation excels at delivering personalized content experiences, while also helping to build reach and boost engagement, as we explore in more detail in “How to Accelerate Reach and Engagement of B2B Content Through Co-Creation.”

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“Co-created content drives greater reach and engagement without needing to rely on paid boosting.” — Nick Nelson @NickNelsonMN
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3 — Get Personal With Events

Industry events are inherently one of the best channels for making and growing personal connections, and when it comes to B2B influencer marketing they are certainly a prime ingredient.

B2B brands can see industry influencers in-person or at hybrid events and learn firsthand how they deliver keynotes, sessions presentations, and how they interact with their audiences both in the session rooms and afterwards in conference hallways and during post-session gatherings.

B2B influencers can help take some of the magic that happens during in-person events and keep it alive and thriving throughout the rest of the year.

There are more events to choose and learn from, and we covered more than 50 of them in our look at “50+ Top 2023 B2B Marketing Events To Learn From.”

Marketing conferences truly offer a bounty of benefits to marketers looking for the latest learning, new networking opportunities, and recent industry research and insight to help increase brand awareness, and they should not be overlooked as a way to bring more personalization to your B2B marketing efforts.

4 — Use Social Personalization

B2B influencers are often finely tuned in to which social channels are best for specific types of content — and know how each channel works when it comes to personalizing brand messages or co-created content.

Social channels are not only good for publishing personalized content, but can serve as a powerful way to gain insight into the challenges audiences face. Social listening helps B2B influencers personalize content when they are able to take the time to step back and learn the particular pain points an audience has.

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“Social listening helps B2B influencers personalize content when they are able to take the time to step back and learn the particular pain points an audience has.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis
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Knowing these pain points, B2B influencers can present brand content that directly helps solve an audience’s challenges — oftentimes delivered in a personalized way.

It’s often smaller specialist social communities that can deliver the biggest benefits to B2B brands,  as micro-communities naturally form in the highly specialized areas where B2B influencer marketing is especially well-suited to thrive and grow. We took a closer look at utilizing these smaller online communities in “How Small Online Communities Are Delivering Big Brand Results With B2B Influencer Marketing.”

5 — Utilize AI & Other Relevant Tools

Generative AI tools have exploded in usage throughout nearly every industry from top to bottom, yet the jury is still out as to whether this revolution has helped provide content that is more personalized, or just more automated.

Indeed some have viewed AI as inherently impersonal, however when wielded carefully, the rapidly growing number of these tools can certainly have a place in crafting best-answer content.

Whether it’s finding potential B2B influencers, gathering and analyzing data on how their content performs, or ideation for unique storytelling experiences, when used wisely AI can help B2B marketers with efforts in numerous areas.

We recently took a look at “Infographic: 30+ Top Generative AI Tools For B2B Marketers,” and have also published a more comprehensive list of more than 100 AI tools in our “BIGLIST: 100+ Generative AI Tools For B2B Marketers.”

The risk with using AI is focusing too much on the artificial and not enough on the relevant intelligence needed to shape the technology with the human touch.

When the right balance is achieved, AI can be a welcome addition to personalized B2B content delivered through relevant influencers and creators.

Harmonize Personalization With B2B Influencer Marketing Partnerships

By tapping industry experts, harnessing content co-creation, getting personal with events and social, and by using generative AI and other relevant tools, B2B marketers can use personalization to elevate their content experiences to new levels.

We hope this brief look into the world of personalizing with B2B influencer marketing will be helpful with your own efforts as we make the push towards 2024 and beyond.

If you’re looking for help with your marketing, contact us and find out why major brands such as LinkedIn, Adobe, Dell, 3M, and others have for more than 22 years turned to TopRank Marketing.

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VMware and Jasper on AI as a Turning Point for Marketing Team Structure and Strategy

There’s a significant change happening in the world of B2B marketing, driven largely by innovations from generative AI. As companies around the globe scramble to understand and harness the raw power of artificial intelligence for marketing, VMware stands out with its strategic and successful adoption of Jasper, a generative AI tool that’s proving to be a game-changer.

I learned about this transformative approach to GenAI implementation at the recent Content Marketing World conference in a presentation from Jessica Hreha, Head of Global Integrated Campaigns, Demand Content Strategy at VMware and Meghan Keaney Anderson, VP of Marketing at Jasper.

Here’s a summary of what I learned during their presentation.

• VMware’s goals with the Jasper pilot include improving content quality, saving money on agency fees, and speeding up content production time.
• The pilot started with 40 users in the global demand content team and has since expanded to 205 users and potentially 765 total users across global marketing.
• Early results show that Jasper has helped save over 200 hours per month and boosted productivity and job satisfaction for marketers.
• The positive feedback from marketers led to the creation of VMware’s Marketing AI Council to help educate and empower marketers on responsible AI use.
• The Council has hosted training sessions, created AI guidelines, and been recognized by industry groups for its leadership in marketing AI.
• Within global marketing, Jasper is being used to write video scripts, social media copy, paid search copy, blog outlines, and more.
• Marketers report time savings ranging from 2 hours down to 5 minutes for tasks, and being able to save on agency fees for copy generation.

Generative AI: Breaking Boundaries in Marketing

Generative AI isn’t just a buzzword; it’s breaking longstanding barriers in the marketing world. The technology allows marketers to quickly generate content, but the key is to tap into its potential without losing the unique brand voice or human touch.

Enter Jasper. This AI-driven writing and strategy assistant isn’t about replacing marketers. Instead, it aims to empower them, giving them tools to produce more and elevate their creative prowess. This perspective aligns with the “AI is your co-pilot” messaging coming from Microsoft and even the expression “Assisted Intelligence” I’ve heard from IBM years ago.

Meghan Keaney Anderson – Jasper

VMware & Jasper: A Partnership Born from Innovation

VMware’s journey with Jasper started as an experiment, a pilot program with just eight members in 2022. But like all great innovations, it quickly gained traction. By 2023, a whopping 560 users within VMware’s Global Marketing FTE organization were leveraging Jasper, reaping many benefits.

“The advent of AI is about shifting and adjusting not outright replacement. One for one replacement of humans for AI is just a bad idea.” Meghan Keaney Anderson, VP Marketing at Jasper

But the impact of GenAI on VMware’s marketing operations didn’t stop there. It was the catalyst behind VMware’s Marketing AI Council, established in 2023, aiming to foster collaboration, drive AI-centric initiatives, and set a benchmark in AI excellence. As large enterprises and even mid-market B2B brands work to fully understand and integrate GenAI applications into their businesses, internal teams like an AI Council make a lot of sense.

Jessica Hreha – VMware

Tangible Results & Real-world Benefits

Adopting a new technology is one thing, but seeing tangible results is another. So far, VMware’s adoption of Jasper has resulted in:

• A time-savings of 200 hours every month.
• A cut in agency fees for their global demand content team.
• An impressive acceleration in time-to-market rates, turning day-long tasks into matters of hours or minutes.

VMware marketers’ testimonials further illuminated Jasper’s transformative impact. From content drafting to promotional video script creation, the AI tool has reshaped workflows, driven efficiency and enhanced creativity.

Guardrails & The Road Ahead

Yet as they say, with great power comes great responsibility. Jessica from VMware emphasized the critical importance of responsible AI use. It’s not just about integrating AI but ensuring it aligns with the company’s core values and principles. A focus on education, AI literacy, and ensuring the benefits of AI are widespread underpin VMware’s approach.

I think it’s safe to say that the fusion of human creativity with AI’s capabilities is not just the future — it’s the present. VMware’s journey with Jasper provides a compelling blueprint for companies looking to embark on their own GenAI marketing adventures. It’s a reminder that in the dance between human and machine, when done right, the results can be impressive.

For more perspectives on the intersection of generative AI and B2B marketing, check out these posts:

• 100+ GenAI Tools for B2B Marketers
• GenAI and B2B Content Marketing
• Generative AI and Influencer Marketing
• Generative AI and SEO

Learn more about TopRank Marketing’s Content Marketing Solutions with or without AI integration.

The post VMware and Jasper on AI as a Turning Point for Marketing Team Structure and Strategy appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Webinars as a Pipeline Accelerator for B2B Marketing Featuring Forrester Research & Hubilo

A study from Search Engine Journal reports that 54% of B2B professionals engage with a webinar on a weekly basis. During the digital transformation of marketing and the shift to digital channels for communications since COVID, webinars have become a cornerstone for many B2B marketers.

Recently, I learned of a new study about webinars during the MarketingProfs B2B Forum that was commissioned by webinar software provider Hubilo and conducted by Forrester. This new study highlighted the challenges marketers face with webinars as well as their potential. At B2B Forum the two companies held a panel to discuss the research and share insights.

The panel included:

Erik Newton, CMO at Hubilo
Kathleen Abdeen, Director of Product and Field Marketing at Hubilo
Laura Ramos – Vice President, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research

It was great to see my longtime pal Laura Ramos from Forrester dive deep into the results of her research. Here’s an overview of what she and the marketing execs from Hubilo shared:

Hubilo executives with Laura Ramos from Forrester Research

Challenges and Statistics:

1. Webinar Objectives: Marketers are leveraging webinars for brand awareness, lead generation, and as on-demand content.
2. ROI Measurement: 64% of marketers face challenges measuring the ROI of their webinars. The struggle to quantify impact reveals an opportunity for more sophisticated tracking and analytics.

Evolving Role of Webinars:

• Historical Context: Laura mentioned that her initial research on digitizing events did not catch much attention, but the pandemic changed that perspective. The shift to digital made it essential to incorporate more interactive elements in webinars.
• Strategic Evolution: Initially, webinars were tools for retention and renewal. Now, their role has expanded, making them essential for mid-funnel activation, top-of-the-funnel acquisition, and community building. Laura and the panel stressed that the choice of the webinar host plays a crucial role in effectively reaching and building a community.

The Sales Cycle and Webinars:

With traditional B2B sales cycles spanning 6-9 months, webinars offer an opportunity to break the monotony. They can impact the top, middle, and bottom of the sales funnel, accelerating deal velocity.

To make a lasting impact, think of webinars themselves as campaigns. Create anticipation and a sense of ‘Fear of Missing Out’ (FOMO) around the live event. This not only boosts attendance but also promotes engagement.

Execution and Follow-Up:

• Before the Webinar: Utilize your email list, aiming for 400-500 attendees (or 200-300 for niche topics).
• During the Webinar: Focus on engagement. Use polls, chats, and offer incentives to keep attendees active and engaged.
• After the Webinar: Don’t let those leads grow cold. Remember, most of them are on-demand opportunities. Utilize data from the webinar to craft personalized follow-up messages and equip sales teams with valuable insights.

“Using webinars for post-sale engagement is an untapped opportunity. Webinar attendees are a sort of community and you can use the event to educate through Office Hours style format.” Laura Ramos, Vice President, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research

Technology and Insights:

Webinar platforms that offer actionable insights are invaluable. These insights can inform who the buyer is, enabling better engagement. Registration processes can capture intent signals, offering precious nuggets of information for more tailored follow-ups.

Reframing Your Webinar Strategy:

Laura suggested three ways to re-look at webinars

1. Engagement: Webinars should not just be for prospects but also for existing customers. For instance, hosting “Office hours” webinars can be a platform for Q/A with experts.
2. Always-On: Companies invest significantly in websites but often overlook the prolonged engagement webinars can offer – before, during, and after the event.
3. Integration: Webinars should be a primary component in the marketing mix, akin to the main course in a 10-course meal. It’s crucial to ensure webinar data accuracy and integration with other marketing technology.

Best Practices and Final Thoughts:

• Collaborate with the sales department for a cohesive webinar go-to-market strategy.
• Use webinars to inform your nurture strategy, ensuring cross-functional teams are primed for success from the outset.
• Personalization is crucial – not just post-event but also before and during the webinar. As Laura emphasized, this ensures higher attendance and engagement.

In an age of do more with less and increasing expectations of marketing to prove out ROI, webinars have become an important tool for engaging prospective customers in a way that drives engagement and purchase intent. For that reason, I think webinars represent a substantial opportunity for B2B marketers to enhance the impact of their marketing mix. You can check out the research report on webinars from Forrester and Hubilo here.

For more insights on webinars for B2B marketers, check out these posts:

How B2B Marketers Can Get the Most Out of Webinars

Webinars That Wow: 5 Tips for Create Engaging Webinars

Content Marketing Tactics: Webinar Pros, Cons, Examples & Best Practices

If you’d like to optimize your webinar effectiveness by partnering with top experts in your industry, check out our influencer marketing solutions or connect with our team now.

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