Monday, October 11, 2021

50 Top B2B Marketing Influencers, Experts and Speakers To Follow In 2022

50 Top B2B Marketing Influencers, Experts and Speakers To Follow In 2022 Collage Image

50 Top B2B Marketing Influencers, Experts and Speakers To Follow In 2022 Collage Image The business landscape of 2021 includes a wealth of B2B influencers who are shaping the future of marketing for 2022 and beyond. To honor and celebrate our industry's B2B marketing subject matter experts, including many who happen to be speaking at this week's MarketingProfs B2B Forum virtual event, we're thrilled to publish our annual list of some of the world's leading B2B marketing influencers. Each year MarketingProfs B2B Forum is filled to the brim with the latest insightful B2B marketing tactics and strategies presented by a powerhouse lineup of exceptional B2B influencers, and this year is no different. MPB2B will take place October 13 - 14, 2021 and features a stellar group of B2B marketing professionals the programming team at MPB2B has carefully assembled, in an updated virtual format designed to bring you all the freshest industry knowledge without any of the screen fatigue. In the spirit of helping B2B marketing professionals learn more and connect with new voices, we've compiled our latest list of B2B marketing influencers — many who will be speaking at #MPB2B — to follow and learn from in 2022 and beyond. List Methodology — Relevance Rules: Our starting point for this year's list is a focus on the increasing value of resonance in today's B2B marketing landscape, highlighting influencers with audiences that actively engage with their content centered around the practice of B2B marketing. Today's B2B marketing influencers face greater expectations for sharing content than ever, and the experts on our list all rate especially well when it comes to audience engagement and resonance. Using a variety of ranking signals, we've identified and validated the credentials of a powerful group of B2B marketing experts, utilizing influencer marketing platform Traackr along with other metrics. Our list this year highlights the increasing importance of resonance over mere follower numbers, as audience size itself is not a predictor of a successful outcome, and we've also placed increased importance on the degree to which each influencer's social activity drives engagement on the topic of B2B marketing among their audience. A variety of criteria go into such a ranking, including:
  • Audience resonance
  • Topical relevance of the content each influencer publishes
  • Network engagement with on-topic content
Online data for these rankings is pulled not only from Twitter, but also from blogs, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, SlideShare, and several other platforms — an important item to know, as many lists rely entirely on Twitter and don't take into account relevant influencer activity from additional platforms in the social media universe. Network B2B Marketers Many thanks go out to each of these generous B2B marketing influencers who provide top-notch B2B marketing best practices, tips, and advice during this year unlike any other. In our list for 2021 you'll likely see a few familiar faces, along with many new B2B marketing industry influencers, together forming a refreshing mix of professionals to follow and learn from into 2022 and beyond. If you’d like to follow all 50 top B2B marketers in one shot, we’ve made a handy Twitter list for you. Enjoy! Ann-Handley Ann Handley @MarketingProfs Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs #MPB2B Speaker, Presenting: KICKOFF KEYNOTE Michael Barber Michael J. Barber @michaeljbarber Brand Consultant and Marketing Strategist Andy-Crestodina Andy Crestodina @crestodina Co-Founder & CMO, Orbit Media Studios #MPB2B Speaker, Presenting: Start Here: The (Non-Obvious) Prioritized Framework for Digital Marketing David Meerman Scott David Meerman Scott @dmscott Limited Partner and Strategic Advisor, Stage 2 Capital Melanie-Deziel Melanie Deziel @mdeziel Chief Content Officer, StoryFuel MargaretMolloy Margaret Molloy @MargaretMolloy Global Chief Marketing Officer, Siegel+Gale Jason Miller Jason Miller @JasonMillerCA Senior Director, Brand Marketing, CampaignX David Berkowitz David Berkowitz @dberkowitz Marketing Consultant, Serial Marketer Joe Pulizzi Joe Pulizzi @JoePulizzi Joe Pulizzi, The Tilt Stefan Doering Stefan Doering @MrStefanDoe Brand Strategy Lead, PwC LeeOdden Lee Odden @LeeOdden CEO, TopRank Marketing #MPB2B Speaker, Presenting: The State of B2B Influencer Marketing Mark Schaefer Mark Schaefer @markwschaefer Executive Director, Schaefer Marketing Solutions ChrisPenn Christopher Penn @cspenn Co-Founder and Chief Data Scientist, Trust Insights #MPB2B Speaker, Presenting: What, Why, and How: Analytics Foundations of B2B Marketing Justin Levy Justin Levy @justinlevy Director, Social and Influencer Marketing, Demandbase Larry Kim @larrykim Founder, MobileMonkey Amisha Gandhi Amisha Gandhi @AmishaGandhi SVP, Marketing, Tipalti Ashley Faus Ashley Faus @ashleyfaus Content Strategy Lead, Software Teams, Atlassian Tom Webster Tom Webster @webby2001 Vice President, Strategy and Marketing, Edison Research Dave Gerhardt Dave Gerhardt @davegerhardt Chief Brand Officer, Drift Cara Hogan Cara Hogan @CaraHogan27 VP of Enterprise Marketing, Tomorrow.io Mary Ellen Slayter Mary Ellen Slayter @MESlayter CEO, Rep Cap Jay McBain Jay McBain @jmcbain Principal Analyst - Channels, Partnerships & Ecosystems, Forrester Juntae DeLane Juntae DeLane @JuntaeDeLane Founder & Chief Strategist, Digital Delane #MPB2B Speaker, Presenting: Five Ways to Readjust Your Digital Marketing Plans for 2022 Jay Baer Jay Baer @jaybaer Founder, Convince & Convert Justin Keller Justin Keller @justinkeller Vice President of Marketing, Terminus Peter Isaacson Peter Isaacson @peisaacson Chief Marketing Officer, Replicant Pam Didner Pam Didner @PamDidner Sales Enablement & Content Marketing Keynote Speaker, Relentless Pursuit #MPB2B Speaker, Presenting: KEYNOTE with Pam Didner: It’s Time to Crush Your Campaign Plan Joel Harrison Joel Harrison @joel_b2beditor Editor-in-Chief, B2B Marketing Justin Rondeau Justin Rondeau @Jtrondeau Head of Growth & Acquisition, Teamwork Scott Monty Scott Monty @ScottMonty Communications Executive, Chameleon Collective Ashley Zeckman Ashley Zeckman @azeckman Vice President, Inprela Communications #MPB2B Speaker, Presenting: The SCHITT’s Method for More Successful B2B Influencer Marketing Chris Moody Chris Moody @cnmoody Senior Directory, Analyst, Gartner Corinne Sklar Corinne Sklar @csklar Chief Marketing Officer, IBM iX Jeannie Walters Jeannie Walters @jeanniecw CEO and Chief Customer Experience Investigator, Experience Investigators #MPB2B Speaker, Presenting: Three Universal Truths about Customer Experience Jen Spencer Jen Spencer @jenspencer Chief Revenue Officer, SmartBug Media John Jantsch John Jantsch @ducttape Founder & President, Duct Tape Marketing #MPB2B Speaker, Presenting: Rethinking the Customer Journey Justin Gray Justin Gray @Jgraymatter CEO & Founder, LeadMD Kathleen Booth Kathleen Booth @WorkMommyWork Chief Marketing Officer, clean.io Maureen Blandford Maureen Blandford @MaureenB2B Managing Director, B2B Unleashed Melissa Ariana Case Melissa Ariana Case @startabuzz Director of Content & Communications, ControlUp Oli Gardner Oli Gardner @oligardner Co-Founder, Unbounce #MPB2B Speaker, Presenting: KEYNOTE with Oli Gardner: The Marketing IQ Manifesto Charlie Riley Charlie Riley @Charlieriley VP of Growth, Havoc Shield Joe Chernov Joe Chernov @jchernov Chief Marketing Officer, Pendo.io Matthew T Grant Matthew T Grant @MattTGrant Director, Content Marketing, LeanIX Gemma Davies Gemma Davies @gdavies2 Senior Director, Head of Global ABM & CXO Engagement, Service Now Gopi Kallayil Gopi Kallayil @GopiKallayil Chief Evangelist, Digital Transformation and Strategy, Google Kelvin Gee Kelvin Gee @kgee Head of Strategic Client Marketing, Central Programs, Oracle Masha Finkelstein Masha Finkelstein @masha3003 Marketing Technology Innovation and Best Practices, Intuit Sangram Vajre Sangram Vajre @sangramvajre Chief Evangelist & Co-Founder, Terminus Tyrona Heath Tyrona Heath @tyrona Director, Market Engagement, The B2B Institute, LinkedIn BONUS: In addition to this list of 50 B2B marketing über-smarties, here is a list of some of our most insightful articles about B2B content marketing from the past 12 months: And here are the previous B2B marketing influencer lists we've published: Thank you to influencer marketing platform Traackr for the use of their software to make this list possible, and to all of the top-notch influencers on the list. Be sure to connect with TopRank Marketing CEO Lee Odden at the virtual #MPB2B conference,as he presents "The State of B2B Influencer Marketing" on Thursday, October 14 at 11:50 a.m. Eastern, and stay tuned for more B2B marketing industry coverage here on TopRank's Online Marketing Blog.

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Friday, October 8, 2021

B2B Marketing News: B2B Content Consumption Rises, LinkedIn’s Ticketed Events, New Google Spending Report, & Microsoft’s Zero-Party Data

2021 October8 Domo Chart

2021 October 8 Domo Chart B2B Purchasers Are Consuming More Content Before Buying 60 percent of B2B buyers find value in receiving relevant information throughout the purchasing journey, while half say that they are consuming more marketing content before making purchases than they did before 2020 — two of several statistics of interest to digital marketers contained in recently-released survey data. MediaPost LinkedIn is testing a new, paid ticketed events service Comments Feed Microsoft-owned LinkedIn (client) has tested new paid event features hosted on the professional network's platform, which would expand on its events hub and other virtual event offerings, and TechCruch takes a look at how the addition may help event organizers. TechCrunch Amid Growing Reliance, How Will Marketers Enhance Their First-Party Data? Some 63 percent of advertisers say that growing marketing email lists from newsletters is a top choice when it comes to growing first-party data, while 60 percent see website and app visitation behavior and social media activity as the best ways to gather first-party information, according to newly-released survey data. MarketingCharts New Google Ads Budget Report Tracks Daily Campaign Spend Google has rolled out a selection of new visual monthly spending reports for Google Ads campaigns, highlighting daily and monthly budgeting spending, limits, and forecast data, the search giant recently announced. Search Engine Journal Microsoft Advertising Pushes Reliance On Zero-Party Data Microsoft is increasingly looking at the digital data that people willingly share online, with its latest Microsoft Advertising offering incorporating what it calls zero-party data, voluntarily shared information the firm makes use of for increased transparency and control, Microsoft recently announced. MediaPost Instagram ditches the IGTV brand, combines everything but Reels into an 'Instagram Video' format Facebook's Instagram has ended its IGTV brand, in a change that also brings a new video tab with more long form video options to the platform, allowing some video content up to an hour in length to be shared, the firm recently announced. TechCrunch 2021 October 8 Statistics Image Google search’s next phase: context is king Google's latest shift in its search engine evolution has come in the form of its Multitask Unified Model (MUM) update, the firm announced recently at its Search On event, and The Verge takes a look at how the update works to deliver more context-rich answers within search results. The Verge New Spotify campaign aims to prick up ears of advertisers With podcast advertising revenue expected to top $2.4 billion in the U.S. alone by 2025, Spotify has rolled out an initiative highlighting the power of deeply immersed listening audiences to bring more advertisers to its platform, Spotify recently announced. The Drum TikTok reached 1 billion monthly active users Short-form video creation firm TikTok has surpassed the one billion active monthly user milestone — a mark that the firm hopes will attract greater numbers of B2B brands, with the platform's top markets being the U.S., Europe, and Brazil, TikTok recently announced. https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/27/tiktok-reached-1-billion-monthly-active-users/ What Happens on the Internet Every Minute (2021 Version) [Infographic] What happens during each digital minute online in 2021 is the focus of the ninth-annual “Data Never Sleeps” report in infographic form, showing Internet population and social platform use growth and other insights of interest to digital marketers, Domo recently announced. Social Media Today ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: 2021 October 8 Marketoonist Comic Image A lighthearted look at the “pain in the supply chain” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist They Said It at the ANA Brand Masters — ANA Workplace Hero Unmutes Microphone to Laugh — The Hard Times 9 Best Youtube Ads of 2021 and 2020 — HubSpot TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:
  • Lee Odden — Webinar: How to Create Marketing Impact with Business Influencers — Digital Marketing Institute
  • Lee Odden — How Companies Can Use Digital Brand Ambassadors for B2B Influencer Marketing — MarketingProfs
  • LinkedIn — What’s Trending: Excel at Both Halves of Content Marketing — LinkedIn (client)
Have you come across your own top B2B marketing news item from the past week of industry news? Please drop us a line in the comments below. Thanks for visiting and having a look at this week's TopRank Marketing B2B marketing news, and we hope that you'll return again next Friday for more of the week's most relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us on our LinkedIn page, or at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news.

The post B2B Marketing News: B2B Content Consumption Rises, LinkedIn’s Ticketed Events, New Google Spending Report, & Microsoft’s Zero-Party Data appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Optimizing Digital Assets: How B2B Marketers Can Combine the Best of External & Internal Search Findability

Professional black woman with digital assets collage image.

Professional black woman with digital assets collage image. How can B2B marketers optimize a digital asset workflow that combines best practices for search findability both externally and within your organization? With the global Digital Asset Management (DAM) market valued at $3.4 billion in 2019, and expected to reach $8.5 billion by 2025, according to study data from IMARC, it’s little wonder that more B2B marketers are looking at and utilizing solutions that help with search findability. Another recent report shows that the global DAM market size is expected to climb to $10.2 billion by 2027, representing a rise of 18.3 percent from 2021 levels. From better external search engine findability to increased internal search efficiency, let’s take a look at just what digital assets are, and explore some of the solutions B2B marketers are using to manage ever-expanding digital content.

What Are Digital Assets In B2B Marketing

Just what is a digital asset, anyhow? As we first explored in Why B2B Marketers Should Give a DAM: Top Tips on Digital Asset Management, digital assets are simply any computer files, stored anywhere — whether on your phone, tablet, desktop, network, or in the cloud. Digital Asset Management — known as DAM, is a category of software that runs either on a local computer network or in the cloud, and is built to ingest and make it easy to organize an unlimited number of files — all those digital assets that business marketers create and use daily. The more complex your marketing strategies and brand or business are, the greater the benefits of DAM will be, especially when accumulated over time. The pandemic has also brought to light certain weaknesses for some businesses, as remote workers have placed additional strains on internal systems not necessarily designed for unified online access to digital asset libraries. So how does DAM technology help with getting your content found?

Better Search Findability Externally

Most of the same signals search engines use to determine which online content is the best for solving the questions people are asking also help organizations with internal findability efforts, which means that well-optimized content successfully serves both purposes. This dual power makes optimizing content and the individual elements that make up digital assets a smart choice for B2B marketers. When potential customers can find your content through search, digital asset optimization has more often than not played an important role in ranking well within search engine result pages (SERPs). Search marketers also benefit from a powerful and properly optimized DAM system, being able to systematically find internal search campaign assets, analytics data contained in spreadsheets or other formats, in ways that help make more data-informed search marketing efforts easier. In many ways, the so-called findability of search marketing goes naturally well with a smart DAM solution, as both are centered around finding things — whether in the form of search engine query answers or finding a file you know you have but haven’t been able to quickly find until the arrival of a DAM system.

Better Findability For Your Organization

If your organization is like most others in the digital technology and B2B marketing sector today, you’re faced with more data in more locations than ever before — information that is likely ripe for optimization using digital asset management best-practices and techniques. By nature B2B marketing involves large quantities of content in all its various digital forms, and a powerful DAM system enhances marketing by making it easy to find all the digital assets a business has ever created, both for current campaigns and when gathering past performance and return on investment (ROI) data. DAM helps businesses elegantly and efficiently keep track of the entirety of their digital assets going back to their earliest files, preserving digital histories, and allowing teams to:
  • Organize in multiple ways using many different views, such as timelines and maps
  • Perform advanced searches such as “show me all photos from 2018 taken in winter that contain both our old spokesperson and our new one, and which contain a blue car and which were taken at night using a Canon camera older than 2015, which we haven’t yet used in a public campaign.”
Trying to do this could take ages to do manually, but a good DAM can make the task a snap, and ends up saving a great deal of time in the long run. [bctt tweet="“The more complex your marketing strategies and organization are, the greater the benefits of digital asset management (DAM) will be, especially over time.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

Bringing It All Together With A Digital Asset Management Solution

It’s entirely possible to implement and consistently use your own digital asset management plan, making use of your organization’s existing software and processes, however this approach will have a hard time matching the efficiency and effectiveness of making the jump to a dedicated and purpose-built digital asset management solution. I took a look at over 30 of the leading players in the DAM world in our Why Digital Asset Management Matters in B2B Marketing, with solutions running the gamut from popular photo-centric consumer-oriented packages such as Adobe Lightroom, to enterprise workflow DAM systems including Canto and Adobe Experience Manager Assets. That list was only a sampling of the many DAM solutions available, and with new or revised DAM providers entering the market regularly, such as Pics.io, if you’re searching for the ideal DAM match it can pay off to test both the established players and newcomers.

Jump Through The Digital Looking Glass

via GIPHY It doesn’t take a fairy-tale mirror to create your own digital adventures in wonderland, just the proper planning, implementation, and consistent use of your own DAM system. We hope the digital asset optimization areas we’ve touched on here will help guide you as you move ahead into 2022 and beyond, to a future that’s more findable than ever. No matter how you slice it, creating award-winning B2B marketing takes considerable time and effort, which is why many firms choose to work with a top digital marketing agency such as TopRank Marketing. Contact us today to learn how we can help, as we’ve done for businesses ranging from LinkedIn, Dell and 3M to Adobe, Oracle, monday.com and others.

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Tuesday, October 5, 2021

Boosting B2B Marketing Credibility with Social Proof and Influencers: 4 Tips

Customer Leaving Online Review image.

Customer Leaving Online Review image. This is gonna be the greatest blog post EVER. Did you believe me there? You probably didn't. Sure, I might think it’s an awesome piece of content. But I’m not exactly an objective source. Now, if you were to come across a post on social media from someone you know and trust, linking to this blog post and saying it’s the best thing they’ve read all year? That’s a different story. Therein lies the immense value of social proof, which is only growing more impactful as businesses and society evolve into a new era. A survey from Kantar Media last year found that 93% of people trust brand recommendations from family and friends, while only 38% trust information from advertisers. Meanwhile, 84% of people say they trust online reviews as much as their friends. As a marketer, accepting this reality may cause some discomfort: We can’t control what people say! That’s why a great product and customer experience are table stakes. But when those pieces are in place, today’s marketers can take plenty of steps to strategically encourage and elevate social proof and influencer content.

Building Credibility for Your Brand the Right Way: 4 Key Steps

Going above and beyond with transparency, highlighting third-party voices, portraying influencer authenticity, and creating buzzworthy experiences are among the best ways to build credibility in our current business landscape. A closer look at each: #1: Embrace Radical Transparency In business, the term “radical transparency” is usually evoked as an internal management philosophy — keeping employees looped into everything that’s going on, good or bad, to increase engagement and investment. I feel the concept can also be applied externally. Heightened business transparency is largely happening on its own, in a digital environment where customers and communities can keep a closer eye on a company’s activities and positions. Why not lean into this transparency? When you proactively put everything out there for people to see, it fuels a perception that you’re not trying to hide anything. That’s a huge credibility booster. A few examples of transparency that might be considered “radical” but should really start to become the norm:
  • Openly acknowledge and address negative reviews instead of burying them
  • Share product/service pricing upfront instead of obscuring these important details
  • Own the mistakes you make as a company, and share what you learn from them
  • Recognize the relative strengths of your competitors in marketing materials, rather than playing up only their weaknesses
  • Be forthright about who your product or service is NOT a fit for
If there’s one thing business buyers don’t like, it’s surprises. Given the stakes, nobody wants to find out down the line that there’s an unexpected cost, or unmentioned implementation complexities, or unspoken functional limitations. Radical transparency helps eliminate surprises and can dramatically increase buyer confidence. #2: Put Third-Party Reviews and Analysis Forward As noted earlier, customers tend to be more interested in hearing what other people say about your solutions than what you say about them. That’s not to say a company can’t toot its own horn, but this should be balanced by objective third-party voices. Think about ways you can incorporate these trusted, unbiased perspectives into your own content. Highlight research from authoritative market analysis firms (e.g. studies from Gartner, Forrester, Nielsen) that helps establish a need for what you offer. Let trends and statistics do the talking. Build out authentic case studies that are more focused on illustrating your solution’s impact in a customer’s organization rather than just heaping lavish praise. And of course: Point prospective customers to user review sites so they can see for themselves how people describe experiences with your brand. A recent article at Forbes shares tips on getting more reviews and leveraging them effectively. [bctt tweet="“Customers tend to be more interested in hearing what other people say about your solutions than what you say about them.” — Nick Nelson @NickNelsonMN" username="toprank"] #3: Aim for Authenticity in Influencer Partnerships Influencer associations can be excellent sources of credibility for your brand … provided they are handled the right way. From our view at TopRank Marketing, that means taking a relationship-based approach more so than a transactional one. Influencers who are recognized, respected, and trusted in a particular industry or niche can be tremendously valuable advocates. But when your association with them is superficial, that value is lost. Customers will see through it. Nobody’s putting a lot of stock into the genuine sentiments behind a glowing social media post that has an #ad hashtag at the end. However, when you’re building long-term relationships with these influencers, to the point where they speak positively about your brand unprompted? When their audiences see them engaging with your people and co-creating impactful content? This is where the true credibility-boosting power of B2B influencer marketing lies. Helping forge these kinds of authentic influencer ecosystems is an area where our agency specializes, so feel free to give us a shout if you want to learn more. [bctt tweet="“Influencers who are recognized, respected, and trusted in a particular industry or niche can be tremendously valuable advocates.” — Nick Nelson @NickNelsonMN" username="toprank"] #4: Give People Something to Talk About Increasingly, this is the primary task of the new-age digital marketer: It’s not so much about coming up with different ways to say great things about your brand — it’s about coming up with different ways to get other people to say great things about your brand. How is this done? There are many ways, including:
  • Creation of compelling thought leadership that counters conventional wisdom and gets people talking.
  • Virtual events that bring together like-minded people around shared passions and interests pertinent to your industry.
  • Delivering notable customer experiences or content experiences that generate buzz on their own.
  • Providing exceptional employee experiences that compel team members to openly share how much they enjoy the company and culture.
  • Running polls, conversation-starters, and hashtags on social media that expand your brand’s relevant reach and connect it to key topics on your target audience’s mind.
Meanwhile, the type of radical transparency cited in Tip #1 can itself be a means to generate positive chatter about your brand and its credibility. In an older but still highly pertinent article for WIRED about the see-through CEO, Clive Thompson summarized why this is really the only way to go: “Here's the interesting paradox: The reputation economy creates an incentive to be more open, not less. Since Internet commentary is inescapable, the only way to influence it is to be part of it. Being transparent, opening up, posting interesting material frequently and often is the only way to amass positive links to yourself and thus to directly influence your Googleable reputation. Putting out more evasion or PR puffery won't work, because people will either ignore it and not link to it - or worse, pick the spin apart and enshrine those criticisms high on your Google list of life.” Be part of the commentary. Take the lead in key conversations. Engage with leaders in your space. Act in a way that inspires other people to speak highly of your brand. Credibility isn’t given; it’s earned. That’s a directive to which everyone across an organization must contribute. But marketers play a key role in earning and showcasing credibility for the brand, and I’d argue that it’s increasingly becoming our most critical job duty. Social proof and influencer marketing are vital cornerstones to doing it well. Looking for specific guidance on advancing brand credibility through your marketing strategy? Check out my post from last year featuring six tips for infusing credibility into B2B content.

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Monday, October 4, 2021

One Simple Step to Elevate the Practice of B2B Influencer Marketing

B2B Influencer Marketing Survey

B2B Influencer Marketing Survey The uncertainty of 2020 created an environment of rapid digital transformation for B2B brands that impacted every area of business including marketing. B2B brands pivoted pre-pandemic marketing strategies to new go to market models for a digital first customer that in many cases is less trusting of traditional sources of information and paying more attention to industry peers, experts and influencers. So what do these changes mean for the rest of 2021 and into 2022? Will B2B marketers continue to rely on partnering with trusted voices in the industry to drive full funnel impact for their marketing? Answers to these questions and more are essential in order for B2B brands to continue in their efforts to innovate on marketing effectiveness, differentiate from the competition and accelerate the sales journey. B2B marketing has evolved over the past 18 months and will continue to evolve with your help. To do that, we invite you to help elevate the practice of B2B Influencer Marketing by sharing your experience and opinions in the 2021 B2B influencer marketing survey. For more perspective, watch the video below to hear directly from our chief executive Lee Odden about why you should share your experience and contribute to shaping the future of B2B influencer marketing:
Hi, I'm Lee Odden, CEO and co-founder of TopRank Marketing. In 2020, before COVID, our survey of hundreds of B2B marketers found that 96% that work with influencers found their efforts to be successful. This is an overwhelming amount of confidence, but is it still true in 2021? Will it be true in 2022? We’d love to hear your opinion on this and many more important questions about the role of influence in B2B marketing by taking the second annual B2B Influencer Marketing survey. With fresh insights from B2B marketers like yourself, we’ll be able to provide an analysis for post-COVID influencer strategies, tactics, measurement, technology and more for 2022 and beyond. I invite you to take the survey using the link below. It takes just a few minutes. You can get early access to the report which will include rich data, case studies, and insights from some of the top voices in the B2B marketing world on the future of influence. Together we can elevate the practice of influencer marketing for B2B brands. Thank you!
Your contribution to this year's survey will help our team identify the key strategies, trends and best practices that will propel B2B marketing forward in 2022 and beyond. We'll pull those insights into a special report, The State of B2B Influencer Marketing Research Report which you can get early access to when you take the survey. The report will feature important data about the current and future state of influencer marketing for B2B companies as well as case studies you can learn from and contributions from top B2B marketing experts and practitioners. Go ahead, take the State of B2B Influencer Marketing Survey today!

The post One Simple Step to Elevate the Practice of B2B Influencer Marketing appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Friday, October 1, 2021

B2B Marketing News: Webinars Top List of B2B Nurturing Tactics, Digital Ad Revenue Jumps, More B2B Buyers Purchase Online, & LinkedIn’s New Reach Study

2021 October 1 MarketingCharts Chart

2021 October 1 MarketingCharts Chart Study warns that digital B2B economy held back by tech and logistical issues B2B buyers say that some 49 percent of purchases are now made online, with 93 percent seeing a permanent purchasing change that has been driven by the pandemic, according to newly-released survey data also showing that 78 percent of buyers are seeking better mobile experiences. The Drum Microsoft Enables 'Purpose' Attribute Advertising Microsoft has augmented its text and products ads by offering brands 32 new Purpose Business Attributes, broken into categories such as responsibility, values, and inclusion, the firm recently announced, bringing a new option to digital marketers using Microsoft Advertising services. MediaPost US advertising rebound intensifies, on pace to grow 23%, Magna says Digital advertising revenues in the U.S. climbed by 49 percent year-over-year during the first half of 2021, outpacing the 11 percent growth of traditional ad revenue, with spending expected to rise 23 percent to $278 billion by the end of the year, according to recently-released forecast data. Marketing Dive Google Announces Search Redesign Using MUM Algorithm Google has made changes to its search features, as visual image data joins with text search in a united new Multitask Unified Model (MUM) update rolling out next year, featuring a new visual results page and new Lens features, the search giant recently announced. Search Engine Journal B2B Influencer Marketing Survey Luxury consumer brand advertising on LinkedIn growing: ‘much larger than expected’ As Microsoft-owned LinkedIn (client) topped $1 billion in advertising revenue this year, an increasing number of luxury brands have also begun thriving on the professional social platform, and The Drum examines some of the recent success stories. The Drum Study: Brands Cite Redundancy And Speed As Martech Pain Points 58 percent of brands say security is the leading consideration when evaluating new marketing technology tools, followed by 38 percent who note cost and scalability as the next two top factors, with 37 percent viewing integration with additional systems as a leading factor — one of numerous statistics of interest to B2B marketers contained in newly-released study data from Treasure Data (client). MediaPost Twitter accelerates again with Bitcoin tips, NFTs, recorded Spaces, creator fund and more Twitter will roll out an upcoming change to Twitter Spaces — the audio-call-based communication feature the firm launched to offer its own take on Clubhouse’s functionality — that brings new audio recording capabilities, alongside a slew of other updates to areas including the platform's new creator fund, digital tipping features, and more, Twitter recently announced. TechCrunch 2021 October 1 Statistics Image LinkedIn Outlines the Strength of its Reach and Ad Targeting Options [Infographic] LinkedIn has released helpful overview information about how brands are successfully building audiences and increasing engagement using the professional social platform, in the form of a new infographic of interest to digital marketers. Social Media Today Google ads to get more transparent by offering access to advertiser's recent history Google has given users of its industry-leading search functionality several new features offering greater disclosure and transparency, coming primarily in the form of a month’s worth of previous advertising content that searchers can peruse, Google recently announced. TechCrunch Webinars Considered Most Effective for B2B Lead Nurture Programs 48 percent of B2B marketing executives said that webinars have performed the best when it comes to their nurturing programs, followed by 41 percent who noted that thought leadership articles were a top nurturing tactic, with 40 percent viewing email newsletters and sales emails as tops for nurturing initiatives, according to recently-released survey data. MarketingCharts ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: 2021 October 1 Marketoonist Comic Image A lighthearted look at the “marketing in the metaverse” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist Reachdesk wraps up $43M to expand its B2B gifting marketplace — TechCrunch 15 Effective Ways Business Leaders Can Inspire Employees to Constantly Learn and Grow — Rolling Stone TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:
  • Lee Odden — Five things B2B Content Marketers need to know about working with influencer — Brightvision
  • Lee Odden — How to Create Marketing Impact with Business Influencers — Digital Marketing Institute
  • Lee Odden — Content Marketing World Bookstore — Content Marketing World
  • Debbie Friez / TopRank Marketing — What’s Trending: Brand Recognition and Resonance — LinkedIn (client)
Have you found your own favorite B2B marketing news item from the past week of industry news? Please drop us a line in the comments below. Thank you for joining us and having a look at this week's TopRank Marketing B2B marketing news, and we hope you'll return next Friday for more of the week's most relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us on our LinkedIn page, or at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news.

The post B2B Marketing News: Webinars Top List of B2B Nurturing Tactics, Digital Ad Revenue Jumps, More B2B Buyers Purchase Online, & LinkedIn’s New Reach Study appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.