What can B2B marketers learn from the top presentations that were on tap during Forrester’s recent B2B Summit North America 2023 event?
Forrester’s B2B Summit North America conference — which took place in Austin, Texas as well as online — explored how B2B sales, marketing and product leaders can defy uncertainty with consistent and scalable B2B growth, and featured an array of top industry speakers.
Let’s take a peek at some of the key B2B marketing takeaways from this compelling event, in the form of social messages surrounding the event that have particularly resonated with B2B marketers.
Favorite moment at #ForrB2BSummit this year was discussing advancement as women leaders in the industry with a brilliant, humble, diverse group from all sorts of careers, companies & backgrounds pic.twitter.com/3N87ykBMFt
Culture, talent, data, change management processes, technology, metrics, language- major things to align to succeed. – Laura Slough #ForrB2Bsummitpic.twitter.com/PpaI0uJlWi
Gately presented during B2B Summit North America 2023, and pointed out how early adopters pushing the boundaries of AI have lessons to help B2B marketers improve their efforts.
— Kate Bradley Chernis (@LatelyAIKately) June 7, 2023
7 — B2B Magic From The Blending Of Art & Science
The magic of marketing occurs when the creative aspects of art are combined with the analytical aspects of science, resulting in a powerful and effective marketing strategy.#forrb2bsummithttps://t.co/k64KsgXtSJ
— Maurizio Capuzzo (@MaurizioCapuzzo) June 5, 2023
Forrester also summed up its B2B Summit North America 2023 event in a series of tweets.
What a week! Thank you to everyone that joined us at #ForrB2BSummit North America. Here’s a recap of just a few of the amazing moments ?? pic.twitter.com/7jlAGFP5FI
Through its series of events, Forrester and the top speakers it has gathered together have helped raise the bar in B2B marketing.
TopRank Marketing was the first and only B2B marketing agency offering influencer marketing as a top capability in Forrester’s “B2B Marketing Agencies, North America, Q1 2019” report, and since then B2B brands have increasingly embraced the power of influence in B2B.
We hope that the insight we’ve shared here from speakers and attendees at the B2B Summit North America 2023 event will help you in your own efforts to elevate B2B marketing throughout 2023 and beyond.
More than ever before, creating award-winning B2B marketing that elevates, gives voice to talent, and humanizes with authenticity takes considerable time and effort, which is why more brands are choosing to work with a top digital marketing agency such as TopRank Marketing.
Ready to elevate your B2B brand? Connect with our team to learn more today!
If you are like me, you’ve been lost in the land of true crime documentaries, way too many zombie shows, and, of course, reality television (shoutout to the Bravo fans out there!). In the endless binging of monotony, violence, and mindless content consumption, I have been craving some feel-good entertainment. Enter Ted Lasso!
Ted Lasso, arguably the most beloved fictional football coach of all time, has captured the hearts of millions with his optimistic outlook and unwavering belief in the power of teamwork. But what if I told you that Ted’s winning mindset could also be applied to the world of B2B marketing to help elevate your brand and help your whole team win? Yes, it’s true! In this blog post, I’m sharing four key lessons that Ted Lasso teaches us about building a winning brand in the B2B marketing space.
Lesson #1: Believe in Your Team
Ted Lasso shows us that having an unshakable belief in your team is crucial to success. As a marketer, you must believe in your team’s capabilities and work together to achieve your goals. You must rally your team around a common purpose and ensure that everyone is aligned and working towards the same objective. When everyone is on the same page, you’re more likely to see success in your marketing efforts. From brand consistency and buy-in to business goals and vision to sales and marketing alignment, the team (or teams) need to all be helping row in the same direction (or should I say run since we are talking football?).
Lesson #2: Embrace the Underdog Mentality
Ted Lasso started out as a coach for an underdog football team that no one gave a chance. But he didn’t let that discourage him. Instead, he embraced the underdog mentality and turned it into a rallying cry for his team. As a B2B marketer, you should adopt a similar mindset. If you are smaller brand, a global enterprise brand or if you are helping create a startup within a larger entity, there is an opportunity to bring in this growth mindset. For marketers, it’s important to recognize that your brand may not always be the most established or well-known in every industry or solution, but that doesn’t mean you can’t succeed. Use that as motivation to outwork and outsmart the competition.
Lesson #3: Be Authentic
Ted Lasso is unapologetically himself, and that’s what makes him so endearing. Similarly, your B2B brand needs to be authentic. TopRank Marketing has talked about this a lot and it is something that we are committed to within our brand and our work, but we all still need a gut-check throughout our days. Is this messaging/creative/campaign feeling genuine and truly authentic to my brand? Don’t try to be something you’re not or emulate your competitors. Instead, embrace the values that make your brand unique and showcase them in your marketing efforts. Authenticity builds trust and helps differentiate your brand from the competition.
It may sound too simple, but to create an authentic connection you have to be authentic.”
– Luxy Thuraisingam, VP of Global SMB & Partner Marketing, Cisco
Lesson #4: Prioritize Your People
At the heart of Ted Lasso’s coaching philosophy is a deep care for his players. He takes a holistic approach to coaching, recognizing that his players are not just athletes, but people with personal lives and struggles outside of the game. We hear it all the time for our brand content, “People buy from people.” That humanization is important to bring into the brand messaging and culture. As a B2B marketer, you should prioritize your people as well. Your employees, customers, and partners are all integral to the success of your brand, and investing in them will pay dividends in the long run.
Postgame Wrap-Up:
Ted Lasso’s winning mindset is not just applicable to the world of sports (or streaming television). B2B marketers can learn valuable lessons from his optimistic coaching philosophy and apply them to their own B2B content marketing and strategy. By believing in your team, embracing the underdog mentality, being authentic, and prioritizing your people, you can set your brand up for success and create a winning culture.
So, let’s all channel our inner Ted Lasso. Let’s work together, lift each other higher and elevate our B2B brands to new heights so we all win at the B2B marketing game!
The B2B Marketing Benchmark [Report]
42 percent of chief marketing officers believe that eagerness to adopt new technology is among the top skills for their teams to possess, with the value of AI technology expected to see a twenty-fold increase by 2030, reaching $2 trillion by 2023, while B2B marketing has shown resiliency and found new ways to drive influence — four of numerous findings of interest to B2B marketers contained in newly-published LinkedIn (client) report data. LinkedIn
“Human interpretation, perspective, and refinement complemented by the speed and scale that technological advances will provide is what will differentiate marketing mediocrity from marketing excellence.” — Allyson Hugley @HugleyA Click To Tweet
B2B Marketers Are Facing These Challenges with Second- and Third-Party Data
44 percent of B2B marketing decision-makers have said that the quality and completeness of data is the top obstacle they face when it comes to second and third party data, followed by 31 percent who pointed to finding trusted sources, and 28 percent to noted budget limitations, according to recently-released survey data. MarketingCharts
The multiplier effect: How B2B winners grow [Report]
B2B firms that deliver top omni-channel experiences have improved their market shares by a minimum of 10 percent annually, while B2B e-commerce has become the most effective sales channel, ahead of in-person sales and video conference channels — two of several statistics of interest to B2B marketers contained in newly-published report data. McKinsey
Instagram Tests New AI Chatbot Experience in DMs
Meta-owned Instagram has been testing a generative AI chat option within its direct messaging system, as the social platform continues building out new AI personas and multi-modal experiences, providing brands new ways to utilize Instagram. Social Media Today
2022 Video Ad Spend & 2023 Outlook: Defining the Next Generation [Report]
When it comes to digital video, ad spending climbed by 21 percent year-over-year in 2022 and is expected to grow by some 17 percent during 2023, reaching $55.2 billion in the U.S. alone, according to recently-released Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) report data. IAB
Publicis Groupe joins human vs. AI content verification initiative C2PA
The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) and its framework to distinguish human-made assets from AI has gained Publicis Groupe as its latest addition, joining the organization’s existing steering committee members Adobe, Microsoft, and Intel, among others, C2PA recently announced. MarTech
LinkedIn Experiments with New AI Assistant for InMails
Microsoft-owned LinkedIn (client) has been testing a new generative AI-powered inbox assistant, which aims to streamline private correspondence on the professional social platform, which would join an array of other recent AI-based updates that have been released by LinkedIn. Social Media Today
Twitter US ad sales plunged 59%, and internal forecasts are grim, NYT reports
During the time since Twitter ownership changed hands, the social platform has seen falling advertising sales, including a decreased of some 59 percent in the U.S. during one recent five-week span, and Ars Technica takes a look at some of the challenges Twitter has faced. Ars Technica
A Long List of Concerns Worry CMOs and Brand Managers
Top-of-mind among chief marketing officers and brand managers are return-on-investment (ROI) and return-on-marketing-investment (ROMI), with inflation and recession concerns coming in a close second, followed by increasing pressure to boost shareholder value and profits — three of several findings of interest to digital marketers contained in newly-published survey data. MarketingCharts
LinkedIn Launches DMs for Company Pages
For the first time, LinkedIn users will be able to privately conduct one-on-one conversations with brand pages — a feature that has previously only been available between users on the professional social platform, in a feature update that brings new interaction options to brands, LinkedIn recently announced. Social Media Today
ON THE LIGHTER SIDE:
A lighthearted look at “AI and Productivity” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist
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.
Thanks for joining us for this week’s edition of the Elevate B2B Marketing News, and we hope you’ll return again 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 for even more timely daily news.
As we work towards elevating the world of B2B marketing, a piece of that includes investing in our own team, and we’ve recently added a new team member to the agency. You may have noticed him make a quiet debut on the blog, but we wanted to take the time to officially introduce you to our new director of business development, Ryan Arnholt.
Ryan is new to TopRank Marketing, but is a seasoned B2B tech and B2B SaaS marketer. He is passionate about the power of great content, and has spent the last 20+ years leading growth for B2B brands large and small through content, social, search and media initiatives. He likes to open a discussion with humor, but always backs that up with data (at least that’s what he tells us). He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with a wild and crazy family, two cats, a bearded dragon and the requisite companion cockroach farm. He’s run a marathon a year since 2007 and just can’t shake the vice.
I had the chance to ask him a few questions about why he wanted to join TopRank Marketing, what pain points he’s hearing within the industry, career advice for B2B marketers looking to advance in their careers and more. Check out the video:
Here’s the full transcript of the interview with TopRank Marketing’s director of agency marketing, Katelyn Drake, and new director of business development, Ryan Arnholt:
Katelyn Drake:
Why were you interested in joining the TopRank Marketing team?
Ryan Arnholt:
TopRank Marketing has been around for a couple of decades. Not in an official capacity, but I worked with Lee Odden a bit in the past. He was in and around companies that I was involved in, and always had a fantastic reputation. At that point, I was running SEO programs and admired what this agency was doing.
TopRank Marketing was one of the early companies that was connecting SEO and the technical side of great performing content.”
– Ryan Arnholt. Director of Business Development, TopRank Marketing
TopRank is a company that I’ve always had a lot of respect for.
Katelyn Drake:
What are you most excited for in your new role at TopRank Marketing?
Ryan Arnholt:
I think there’s an opportunity a lot on the process side of sales. Particularly when you enter a new organization, you’re looking at new ways to do things. A lot of times, there’s a gravitation towards the content, and what it is the company does, and the materials that we have. A lot of my background has also been on the process side of things. Believe it or not, coming into a company that’s been around for a couple of decades, there’s a lot of process things that I feel I can immediately improve upon, and add my mark, and just look for ways to improve on things as I’m learning the business, and learning about clients that we work with, and the capabilities that our team has.
In the early goings, stepping right into HubSpot, it being my home was very helpful. I would say that in the early going, in the grand scheme of things, what I’m most excited about is the fact that this is a company that does content marketing, and does it really well. That’s a role I’ve had in the past, running content marketing programs, and building content marketing teams. Being familiar with the impact that content marketing can make, and having a huge team of people who are experts in it, it’s great just to know that. It’s an area that I have a lot of passion about, and I know it’s important, and we have great people doing it.
Katelyn Drake:
You mentioned that you knew Lee a bit coming in. Is there anything that surprised you about Lee, or about the agency since you’ve started?
Ryan Arnholt:
One of the big surprises is just how the agency is set up. I think every group has different structures of things, and so a lot of what Lee has done in the past, and his position with the company as a spokesperson, an advocate, he’s really out there as an influencer in the industry. In terms of the day-to-day running of the business, there are a lot of great people at senior levels that are making the engine go, which really frees up Lee, at an executive position, to be that ambassador of TopRank, and our capabilities. That was something a bit different. Everybody was reporting up to Lee, and he was giving the daily direction, and I think good executives that have a vision for the future, of what it should be, tend to find ways to get great people in charge, and remove themselves from the day to day, and he’s done that.
Katelyn Drake:
You are new to our team, but you’re not new to the world of B2B SaaS, and B2B tech brands. What pain points are you hearing right now?
Ryan Arnholt:
I think it’s been the case for the last 80 years of marketing, how long has marketing really been official? Trying to do more with less, or, how do you extend yourself into new areas where there are opportunities, when you know some things that work, and you want to try new things, and different things? How do you do that with a team? In a lot of cases, can you build out the internal capabilities of your team, but can you also add agency resources and expertise to do that? I would say that’s always been consistent throughout my career, what are the things that we can do more with less?
One of the current trends, how we’re trying to do more with less, is with AI and machine learning. A lot of that, it was completely expected on the process side, and on data intelligence and gathering, and filtering through things there. Just in the last year here, it’s taken off in terms of how can we use this for content, and how do we do it efficiently in a way that keeps the human element of content in everything that we’re putting together? I think that’s a trend that — it’s new — and it’s a way that people are trying to do more with less.
Katelyn Drake:
How do you think TopRank Marketing uniquely helps solve those pain points?
Ryan Arnholt:
I’d mentioned previously expertise and long-tenured expertise in this area. TopRank, being one of the first companies to embark on influencer marketing and B2B, I think gives us a lot of experience and deep expertise in areas, a network of influencers who we worked with before. I think that long tenure leads to — when you’re working with TopRank — you have people who have seen a lot of stuff before, and they’ve experienced successes and failures, and trials. Being able to translate that into quicker wins, and more efficient marketing for clients is something where TopRank has been able to solve those problems.
Katelyn Drake:
You are joining the team at an exciting time. After 22 years in business, we have a new logo. We launched a new website last month, and part of the rebrand is all around the idea of elevating B2B marketing. What does elevate B2B, Ryan?
Ryan Arnholt:
It is rooted a bit in the fact that B2C marketing often, because there might be bigger budgets, and it’s more visible, you see big television commercials and you see huge, expensive programs, it’s about trying to change the opinions of a billion consumers. B2B can often be overlooked, or the challenges of it are aren’t as readily apparent, as trying to influence a smaller number of people, but get a deep influence. This isn’t for a quick purchase, this isn’t for purchasing something off the shelf. This is about creating a deep relationship, and understanding what you can do in marketing, and business development, and sales, to create a deep, meaningful relationship with that person and that company.
Within elevated B2B marketing, there’s a lot of fantastic work that happens, not just in getting a meeting or transaction to happen, but in really influencing a decision maker, impacting the market, explaining what it is you do in a way that it’s easy for that company and that brand to understand.”
– Ryan Arnholt, Director of Business Development, TopRank Marketing
I think a lot of fantastic work happens across the industry, and a lot of it is in B2B, and a lot of those stories just aren’t told. Part of it is the fact that a lot of companies in B2B do not like to share who they’re working with, and how they got things done. There are no visible commercials for a lot of B2B stuff. For Elevate B2B marketing, it’s really about highlighting, in ways that we can, the great work that goes into putting together fantastic programs that ultimately make a larger impact in the business world than a lot of the consumer programs do.
“The idea of elevating B2B marketing is about creating relationships, and understanding what you can do in marketing, business development, and sales, to create deep, meaningful connections.” — Ryan Arnholt @ArbenAngstrom Click To Tweet
Katelyn Drake:
Do you have any advice for B2B marketers looking to make a move internally, or externally, really build their career?
Ryan Arnholt:
In my experience, and this is where you can take it or leave it, having a diversity of experiences, different roles, different company sizes, different environments, has been helpful to understand the different challenges you face. Working at a company with two people, understanding what it is to take something across the finish line, is very valuable when you’re working at a company with 10,000 people. It’s those same skills that are necessary.
One of the other things I wanted make sure is something people at least embrace as a possibility is working with an organization. Whether it’s in a professional capacity — I was on the board of the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association for a number of years — or it could just be a nonprofit board, but there’s a huge opportunity to work in an environment where people aren’t necessarily paid to do the work. They don’t necessarily have to listen to what people say, or the commands that are coming out from the top of the organization, but you learn a great deal about the influence that you can make, and how good of a leader you are if you can challenge people with a problem, and try to get them to solve it when they’re not just paid to do it. It’s not just their job to do it, but it’s something that they want to do, and they feel that it’s something that could be valuable for a community, for a sector of their people with like-minded interests.
The takeaway there, get a diversity of experience and do some volunteer opportunities with a board or an organization.
How can small online communities help large B2B brands deliver big-time results?
When marketers tap into the power of B2B influence, relatively little digital communities transform into hotbeds of brand storytelling, sharing, and new connections.
Let’s take a look at the cyclical nature of online communities, and the changing ways that B2B marketers are using industry subject matter experts to get the most from these often-overlooked digital venues for growing business.
1 — Internet Forums: From the BBS to Web & Social & Back Again
Online communities started out small, primarily because few people owned home computers, and even fewer had modems to go online.
When I got my first 300-baud modem and eventually started operating a computer bulletin board system (BBS) nearly 40 years ago in 1984, I set up a message forum that included some 20 separate topical discussion areas where people who called in could share information in the form of messages.
Even then and in that very simple format, people formed niche groups to share information relevant to others interested in the same topics.
When the Web came along in 1993 and 1994, online communities began to grow larger, with the type of more centralized online locations that bulletin board systems couldn’t match.
The push was on to ever-larger communities, especially with the later rise of social media platforms that made audiences of hundreds of millions of people possible. Our client LinkedIn recently celebrated its twentieth anniversary, having topped the 930 million member mark, and our CEO Lee Odden — along with other top B2B marketing industry leaders — recently shared thoughts as LinkedIn reflected on its first 20 years, in “Marketing Leaders Reflect on 20 Years of LinkedIn.”
Along the way, as community sizes skyrocketed, some social media mega-forums became so large that it wasn’t long before a shift back to smaller and much more focused and niche communities was underway — whether in the form of special interest groups on large social platforms or private brand or industry-specific communities.
This return to smaller and more specialized communities has been made possible by the vast worldwide increases in Internet adoption, allowing micro-communities to form in highly specialized areas.
2 — B2B Influence & The Growing Power of Community
B2B brands have increasingly turned to influencer marketing, and a primary reason why has been the ability of influencers in niche areas of expertise to share brand solutions that are genuinely relevant to the people in related micro-communities.
Micro-communities are typically places where influencers have already established a reputation as subject matter experts, including many digital hangouts such as:
Public and private LinkedIn and other social media platform groups
Reddit communities and subreddits
Discord channels
Slack channels
Public and private brand message forums
These are only a sampling of the ever-growing number of small online communities, as new social platforms continually launch and rise in popularity, while others lose favor and wind down.
“With private communities, you need to develop a community where you have truly one-to-one relationships with the community manager and the community members,” Levy observed.
“With private communities, you need to develop a community where you have truly one-to-one relationships with the community manager and the community members.” — Justin Levy @JustinLevy Click To Tweet
3 — Subject Matter Experts Thrive In Specialist Forums
B2B influencers often have both a broad base of social followers and fans in what on the surface may look like general topics such as social media or marketing, however when the digital venue changes to their particular specialized topical areas, it’s there that their true influence will shine the brightest.
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 main benefits of B2B influencer marketing.
“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 main benefits of B2B influencer marketing.” — @lanerellis Click To Tweet
Taking the time to find and vet influencers to find the right ones pays off for B2B brands when campaign launch time comes around. An ideal process should include both the use of discovery tools and the right kind of human touch to develop a well-researched list of potential influencers.
Our own comprehensive comprehensive 59-page 2022 B2B Influencer Marketing Report also shows the growing value of online communities, as 20 percent of B2B marketers said they maintain an active community and network of influencers, while 50 percent said they would like to.
Additionally, the report found that 76 percent of respondents who maintained an active community and network of influencers said they provided a platform for connecting with the brand, and included influencers in communications between the brand and community, while only 41 percent say they provide a platform or social outlet for influencers to connect with each other.
We’ve written extensively about the many nuances of finding the best influencers for B2B brands, including the following articles:
Let’s look at a few simple ways to take a list of potential influencers and dig deeper into how well they may match up with a B2B brand, involving online communities.
Automated tools for finding potential influencers can only go so far, and the real work begins by making the effort to go the extra mile with additional research.
A part of this process that can reap large rewards when it comes to culling an existing list of potential influencers is simply seeking out the online communities where an influencer posts and interacts with others using comments.
Browsing a potential influencer’s full feed of past public activity on LinkedIn can quickly show the groups where they post, and by examining their posts and how they interact with community members, a picture can be developed of just how active and invested they are — signs that are vital when choosing potential influencers to work with.
Some considerations to weigh when researching potential B2B influencer community interactions include:
Do they initiate conversations?
Do they reply to questions and comments on their postings?
What tone and digital demeanor do that take in their postings?
How frequently do they post?
How long do they wait before responding to questions?
Does what they post stay consistent over time?
Do they clearly identify sponsored or paid postings?
Each micro-community represents another opportunity to learn more about a potential influencer, and each will have its own archive of posts and comments to consult when trying to learn more.
5 — Finding Influencers With The Right Mix of Expertise & Community Followers
The immensity of the online world of 2023 isn’t so daunting when you break it down into manageable groups of people interested in specific topics, and the Internet has reached a level of maturity after more than half a century of growth that makes it easier and more rewarding for brands than ever.
We hope this brief look into the world of B2B communities large and small will help with your own efforts in 2023 and beyond.
More than ever before, creating award-winning B2B marketing that elevates, gives voice to talent, and humanizes with authenticity takes considerable time and effort, which is why more brands are choosing to work with a top digital marketing agency such as TopRank Marketing. Reach out 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 many others.
The B2B Stash: Most Firms Are Spending More On Marketing, Especially Social Media
70 percent of B2B marketers have said that they plan to increase marketing budgets during 2023, with 19 percent planning on significant increases and 51 percent expecting a moderate increase, while social, media, content marketing, and email topped the list for most effective revenue drivers — some of the findings contained in newly-published B2B survey data. MediaPost
B2B Buyers Report Evaluating More Brands During the Purchase Journey
Technology and manufacturing B2B buyers evaluate an average of 3.4 brands during purchasing — up from 3.3 during 2022, with buyers having higher expectations, while 51 percent said that they consulted social media mentions in the decision-making process during 2023, up from 46 percent last year, according to recently-released report findings. MarketingCharts
Are B2B Brands Out of Touch with Younger Buyers?
64 percent of B2B buyers are in the millennials and Gen Z demographic, with 47 percent of those in the combined groups noting that they use technology information websites to gather buying information, 42 percent consulting message boards and forums, and 38 percent tapping into industry websites — some of the findings included in newly-published survey data. ANA
“Gen Z does not respond to traditional push marketing. They are looking for engagement with brands as opposed to being sold to.” — Mark Beal @MarkBealPR Click To Tweet
LinkedIn Shares New Insights to Help SaaS Marketers Capitalize on Current Trends
Microsoft-owned LinkedIn has released new data showing that investments in the software as a service (SaaS) sector are expected to reach $208 billion by the end of 2023, with some 72 percent of SaaS customers utilizing LinkedIn (client) ads to generate conversions, recently-released guide data shows. Social Media Today
Google opens access to Search Generative Experience today
Search giant Google has begun offering limited access to its AI-powered Search Generative Experience, rolling out early access to those who had previously signed up to test the new generative search tool, Google recently announced. Search Engine Land
The Top Types of AI-Generated Content in Marketing [New Data, Examples & Tips]
When it comes to business professionals who use AI, 58 percent have said they use the technology to create social media posts, while 50 percent tapped AI to make product descriptions, with 43 percent having used AI for composing email content — three of numerous statistics of interest to B2B marketers contained in newly-published study data. HubSpot
Study: Marketers Quickly Take To Generative AI
73 percent of B2B and B2C marketers have reported that they are using AI tools, with some 31 percent planning to do so within a year, and 46 percent expecting to use AI within they next two years, with top uses including brainstorming, content outlines, and draft material, according to recently-released survey data. MediaPost
YouTube’s Retiring YouTube Stories Next Month
Google’s YouTube recently announced that come June 26, users of the social video platform will no longer be able to create content in its story format, as YouTube will retire the feature that it introduced in 2018, while encouraging users to instead utilize its Community, Shorts, and Live content. Social Media Today
Microsoft Introduces Insights For Universal Event Tracking Tags
Microsoft will offer more precise ad targeting, as it will begin rolling out an array of updates to its Universal Event Tracking (UET) tags along with a new and more powerful website data dashboard beginning on July 3, the firm recently announced. Search Engine Journal
The Future of Social Media [Research]: What Marketers Need to Know
When it comes to how consumers search for brands online, 24 percent of those in the 18-54 age demographic have said that they use social media instead of traditional search engines, a figure that rises to 36 percent of Gen Z consumers — two of numerous findings of interest to online marketers contained in newly-published HubSpot survey data. HubSpot
ON THE LIGHTER SIDE:
A lighthearted look at “Push Notification Fatigue” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist
Absolute mad lad renders Doom in teletext — The Register
TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:
Lee Odden — Ep 97 – B2B Influencer Marketing, Thought Leadership, and Community w/ Lee Odden | The LinkedIn Ads Show [Podcast] — B2Linked
Lee Odden — How To Think Differently About Influencer Marketing w/ Jason Falls — The Social Media Hat
Lee Odden / TopRank Marketing — Lee Odden: B2B influencer marketing, client/agency side work, evolving your team | Madvertising #10 [Podcast Video] — AdQuick / YouTube
Have you come across 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.
Thank you for taking the time to join us for this week’s edition of the Elevate B2B Marketing News, and we hope that you will return 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 for even more timely daily news.
What can B2B marketers find at the intersection of strategy and authenticity in 2023, when both elements are playing greater roles than ever?
Luxy Thuraisingam, vice president of global SMB and partner marketing at Cisco, knows the importance of both strategy and authenticity in B2B marketing — and how together they act as a force multiplier greater than the sum of their parts.
Luxy has a passion for catalyzing new thinking in B2B marketing, and for the newest episode of our Elevate B2B Marketing Podcast, she sat down with our CEO Lee Odden to explore the combined power of authenticity and a strategic mindset.
The Elevate B2B Marketing Podcast features unique conversations that inform and inspire some of the world’s leading B2B marketers, and each episode digs deep with conversations between Lee and top industry voices, who are creating impact and inspiring the world of B2B marketing.
In this interview, Luxy shared her insights on many of today’s key issues B2B brands are facing today, including:
Creating an environment that’s inclusive and supportive to all perspectives, where we can be safe and authentic
Following your professional and personal passions
Showing tangible impact on how you’re driving business
Leaving your organizational ego and your organization silos behind
How brands are authentically helping communities, investing in sustainability, and focusing on diversity and leadership
You’ll find the full interview podcast here, and you can also listen on your favorite podcast platforms including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Libsyn:
Check out the full video of Luxy’s conversation with Lee here:
Be sure to also subscribe to the Elevate B2B Marketing Podcast to stay up-to-date as each new episode premiers.
B2B Marketing Insights From Luxy Thuraisingam
Let’s also look at some of the highlights of Luxy’s insightful podcast episode.
What are you most excited about in your current role at Cisco as vice president of global SMB and partner marketing?
Luxy: I am so fortunate, and it’s been just over four years and I’m just still really happy and excited to be here. It is such an amazing organization, and it’s also amazing when one finds themselves in an organization that truly is aligned to your personal values. And that’s what I find — Cisco stands up on all things from purpose to social justice. It’s so close to what is important to me at this stage of my life, and then the people — I get to work with some of the smartest customers, partners, and, leaders who are really respected in the organization. There’s a reason that three years in a row we are the number one best place to work according to Fortune’s list. The work I and my team get to do has real impact on the organization.
What is the importance of strategic mindset for marketing leaders?
Luxy: I think being strategic to me is in my DNA, and I don’t think it’s limited to marketing leaders. I think every leader in every industry needs to be strategic, as individuals who can connect the dots, and see the ripple in the ocean and know how that’s going to impact the bigger ecosystem and the bigger company in the future.
Something that I take pride in is the ability to go from a strategic idea and then being able to influence others so we can take pragmatic action. Because a strategic idea is just an idea until you can execute on it. At the end of the day, our environment is changing. It’s changing so fast, and we cannot be comfortable with what we are doing today. We have to innovate, we have to be agile, and we have to look for new solutions for problems that probably don’t even exist right now.
What do you do as a leader in your organization to create a great environment for your marketing team?
“Leadership is always a hundred percent work in progress. Start with is what kind of environment do you want to work in. What kind of environment do you thrive in? Use that as the goalpost to lead by example.” — Luxy Thuraisingam @Luxythu Click To Tweet
Luxy: Leadership is a hundred percent work in progress, and I’m still learning every day how to create that environment, because it is personally really important to me. Start with is what kind of environment do you want to work in. What kind of environment do you thrive in? Use that as the goalpost to lead by example. For me that means being an environment that’s inclusive and supportive to all perspectives. It’s an environment where we can be safe and authentic. My team and I celebrate our wins. We take a lot of pride and we actually equally celebrate our fails because those are learning moments. It’s also a place where we could do more than just work, right? And what I mean by that is really encouraging people to follow their passions outside of work. Whether that is getting involved in our Cisco programs or giving people time and space to get involved in their local communities and neighborhoods, to dig in and do more than just work. That’s what it means for me in terms of creating a great environment.
What is the number one thing B2B marketers should be focusing on right now?
Luxy: One of the boards I sit on is the Canadian Marketing Association. I sit with some of the smartest CMOs and executives that lead brands in Canada. The number one opportunity that came up was how increasingly important it is for CMOs to be able to show tangible impact on how they’re driving business. And when I say tangible impact, it’s across all parts of marketing, right?
Whether it is top of the funnel brand activities or even bottom of the funnel digital, we have to show how the entire marketing mix is driving and is interdependent in driving that impact. It can’t just be last touch attribution. It has to be the multi-touch attribution model. You have to start to build and invest in new functions, everything from a martech operations team to really robust insights and analytics, to teams that are committed to performance mapping so that marketers can also be scientists.
This is also important because then the collective organization, whether you are a B2B marketer or a leader that is part of a company of 50 marketers or a thousand marketers, we all have to be scientists so that the collective team never misses an opportunity at every level to demonstrate the impact that marketing’s having on the business. I think that’s where we need to really focus, and this is why with AI and technology there are so many amazing tools out there.
What advice do you have for other enterprise-level marketers who are balancing the demands of serving multiple entities, units, products, and messages, to simplify?
Luxy: What I’ll say is simple is hard. Really hard. You have to be really ruthless about starting with a customer in mind, and what does the customer care about? Sometimes that actually means, and I hope I’m not going to offend anyone, but that means you’re going to have to leave your organizational ego and your organization silos behind. You have to innovate and find champions and influencers within your organization who are going to partner and drive with the customer in mind. That’s where simplicity starts.
I’d love to give you a pragmatic example of a situation that my team found ourselves in. We found ourselves with the need to really simplify how we communicate to our partners, and especially during the pandemic — I don’t know about you — but I think I got an email from just about anybody and everybody I ever signed up for, right?
And our organization found ourselves in a situation where email became the go-to. All the different functional teams were sending emails, and there was a lot of noise that we were creating. So we came up with some new ideas on new platforms and found ourselves with champions, getting some really great senior leaders to be our advocates. We developed what we call the partner launch experience — a digital platform that allowed us to bring bite-sized content from across Cisco. And the format was tiny, it was small, and it was videos, it was TED Talks, because again, the business consumer is also a consumer.
I don’t know about you, but I consume content not as a B2B marketer but as a human. We reduced the noise. We sent everything in one package, an easy bite-size format, and we had 80 percent of our highest profitable partners all engaging in this mechanism. Wow — 20,000 content views every single time, and here’s what I love. It was such a great idea that even after the pandemic, it is still live and we continue to invest. When you put the customer first, it works.
What do you think B2B brands can do to create a more authentic connection with their customers and even prospective customers?
“To create an authentic connection you have to be authentic.” — Luxy Thuraisingam @Luxythu Click To Tweet
Luxy: To create an authentic connection you have to be authentic. I mean, it sounds so obvious, but you have to be authentic, and you know I laugh because I’ve seen brands not do that, right? In the spirit of sort of jumping on the latest trend but not necessarily living it. You have to be authentic and lead with the customer in mind. My background is that I’m both a B2B marketer and a B2C marketer. I do both, and increasingly it’s no longer about B2B or B2C — it’s about human-to-human. And it’s not about the products, right? It’s about how we’re helping solve problems. It’s also about how brands are authentically helping communities, investing in sustainability, and really focusing on diversity and leadership.
The great news is that now there are statistics that say, well — guess what? — doing good is also good for business. I recently completed a blog on the importance of diversity. And the stat that I referred to was ethnically and gender-diverse companies are 36 percent and 25 percent more likely to outperform businesses that have average levels of diversity.
Be authentic. Be human-to-human. And again, it is so much now more about communities, diversity, and sustainability and the gray news stats speak for themselves. It’s good for business.
What advice do you have for marketing leaders that want to do more, especially when it comes to greater diversity in all the places where that can manifest?
Luxy: Personally, start small. Start with yourself, start with your team, create spaces however you can. We all have abilities to create space to have these courageous conversations about biases and the importance of representation. Number two — be curious and learn. Proactively do work to read, research and learn.
Educate yourself on what’s happening out in the world and how you can be a better leader. I still learn every day. I still learn from others. Cisco has this amazing program, so anyone listening who wants to create a program — because sometimes that’s what you need to do — you need to formalize. We have a program called the Proximity Initiative, and it really came from saying, you know, you have to get close enough to really understand. So this idea of the Proximity Initiative is having every senior leader at Cisco paired up to have a one-on-one with someone who is considered different from you. The whole intent of that is it’s 30 minutes and you just sit and listen. You listen to someone who is different from you talk about their life experience, whether at work, at home, in their communities, whether that was part of their upbringing. It’s probably one of the best one-on-ones I’ve ever had, and these are ongoing, and a way to get close to people who are different from you. The last thing I would say is be an ally. We need more allies. Be sponsors, speak up, and drive change.
What advice might you share with other aspiring marketing leaders to achieve the level of success that you have?
Luxy: One of the biggest reasons I always say yes to speaking opportunities is to be visible. Because when I was growing up, there weren’t people that looked like me in roles like this one. Guidance I have for others is to never stop learning. Be open, and be curious to new ideas and new experiences. Sometimes you have to kind of nudge your way into a seat, and then hopefully create space for someone else to join you at the table. And then last — and this is really important for me and sort of my own personal story — is dreaming bigger than you think you can. Sometimes that means dreaming bigger and outside of restrictions that are put on you, whether that is cultural or community or biases. Dream bigger than what you think you can do.
What is it that brings you the most joy in your work as a marketer?
Luxy: Hopefully you can see it from my energy — I love what I get to do for a living. I love what I get to wake up and do. I love it because marketing is ever-changing. I read a lot, and this is something else that I read that stuck with me: the consumer is the most complex entity you will ever encounter. So what that means is we have the most exciting and the hardest job. I love it, and I get to do it at a great company. I get to do it with leaders in a team who inspire and challenge me.
We extend many thanks to Luxy for taking the time to share her B2B marketing passion, storytelling, and insight with us on the Elevate B2B Marketing Podcast.
Be sure to listen and subscribe to the Elevate B2B Marketing Podcast to learn from each episode.
