These surprising results have been recreated in more recent times, as well. A 2022 study by Analytic Partners appropriately titled “The Rules of Recession-Proofing: How to Maintain Advertising Effectiveness in Challenging Times” found that 60% of the brands that increased media and marketing investment during the last recession saw ROI improvements. In fact, over half of the brands that increased marketing investment saw their ROI growth continue in back-to-back years.
Meanwhile, the study also showed how brands that don’t increase their own marketing investments during recessions couldlose almost 15% of their businessto competitors who do.
See the opportunity? As a fresh face on the scene, you can show your B2B customers that you’re the plucky new challenger they’ve been waiting for, arriving to save the day in the nick of time.
With this vision in mind, your B2B market entry strategy starts to take shape: Follow these four strategic steps to help your brand stand out from the crowd as the exciting new answer to your audience’s oldest problems.
Determine the decision makers
Figuring out who makes the purchasing decisions in B2B is a bit more complicated than it is in B2C – which is exactly why prioritizing it when you break into a new market is so important.
According toGartner research, the average B2B buying group consists of six to 10 decision makers, each armed with four or five pieces of information they’ve gathered independently. You need to figure out who these decision makers are, what information they’re likely to bring to the group, and where they’re going to get it.
As you conduct market research and construct your buyer personas, don’t be afraid to deep dive into who these decision makers are. Why are they part of the decision making process? What are their pain points and concerns? How can you speak to these concerns?
The better you get to know the people behind the decision making, the better you’ll understand exactly how to market your B2B solution to them as the new answer to their problems.
Find your unique narrative
Who have your decision makers heard pitches from in the past? Which worked, which didn’t, and why? Most importantly:what can you do differently?
In B2B marketing,innovation has always ruled. This counts double in tough times, when decision makers like yours are looking for something that can challenge the status quo and break them out of a rut.
Finding a new way to stand out from the crowd in your category ishow you become memorable. At a time when what was working isn’t working anymore, show up with something fresh.
Just anynew angle won’t work, though. Instead, you’ll need to speak to what’s happening to your buyers rightnow. Leverage your up-to-date research on each decision maker to speak directly to their most pressing pain points. Offer a narrative as to why they’re experiencing those pain points right now and why you can provide a solution they’ve never tried before.
Chances are, your decision makers know what they can and can’t do. You, on the other hand, have a chance to be the new solution they need right now.
Focus on exceptional customer-centric service
Brand positioning and content personalization are extremely important, but they’re also only helping you talk the talk. The moment you have your foot in the door of your new market, you have to prove you can walk the walk.
Your first couple of transactions as a B2B brand in a new market are some of the most important you’ll ever have. As the saying goes, “you don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression.” Think of your first customers in a new market as an audition of sorts – and crush it.
In B2B markets, your buy cycle is longer, and your clients typically work with you even after the sale has gone through. This is an opportunity, too. Think of each client you close as a chance tobuild a long-term connection and mutually beneficial partnership.
Help your new clients be successful with your products or services in any way you can.Find ways to keep in touch with the decision makersyou pitched long after the initial close. Connect with them on LinkedIn, send them updates and relevant content frequently, and provide ongoing support whenever possible.
In B2B, every sale is neverjusta sale. The world of B2B is smaller than we often give it credit for, and word travels fast. Every connection you form and partnership you build has the potential to make or break your industry reputation – so make sure you treat every single one of your new customers like the golden opportunities they are.
Ask for feedback
There’s yet another reason why making connections with your first customers is so important: they can provide the most valuable into your new market that you’ll ever get.
Outside market research can only ever go so far, especially when you don’t have real in-industry experience. Your clients possess hard-won insider knowledge you could probably never uncover on your own. And if your relationship with them is good enough, you can ask them to share it with you!
After a successful close, ask clients you’re proud of for a reflective interview. Ask them what you did right, why they ultimately chose to work with you, how your products or services have been working out for them, and – most importantly – what they want to see from you in the future. You could even go so far as to ask them how you could better appeal to other businesses in your market.
This kind of interview can be mutually beneficial. Build the insights they provide for you intoa success story for both brandsand encourage them to share it on their social media. You’ll both have the opportunity to benefit from the other’s networks, and you’ll deepen your connection in the process.
Above all: don’t be intimidated. Breaking into a new B2B market is definitely challenging, but it’s also a great opportunity. Done correctly, you’ll make new connections, earn new sources of revenue, and even find a strong new direction for your brand in the process. Good luck!
B2B Marketing Managers See Customer-Centricity as Path to Maximized Budgets
B2B marketing managers say that focusing on the needs of their organization’s customers and relying on data to make decisions are the top ways to maximize budgets, with 36 percent citing a shift to digital marketing from traditional marketing efforts, according to newly-published survey data. MarketingCharts
LinkedIn taps AI to make it easier for firms to find job candidates
Microsoft-owned LinkedIn (client) is preparing an array of new natural language AI capabilities that aim to streamline hiring and ad creation processes on the professional social platform, including job technology that goes behind traditional role titles, LinkedIn recently announced. Reuters
“When you focus on the skills that are required to do the job effectively, all of a sudden, you see there are tens of thousands of candidates out there. You can't just look at job titles.” — Ryan Roslansky @Ryros CEO at @LinkedIn Click To Tweet
WFA Finds Media Taking A Backseat In Setting AI Strategy
73 percent of global marketers have said that their organization’s marketing team is most often involved in setting AI strategy, with 71 percent pointing to legal teams, 48 percent insights teams, and 45 percent media teams — three of the findings contained in newly-released World Federation of Advertisers survey data. MediaPost
TikTok set to surpass Facebook in daily minutes by 2025—but ad spend hasn’t followed
Advertisers are expected to spend some five times more per person hour on Meta’s Facebook platform than on TikTok in the coming years, despite TikTok eventually eclipsing Facebook for the top spot when it comes to the amount of time spent on social platforms daily, according to recently-published forecast data. Insider Intelligence
The Public’s Perception of the Advertising and PR Industry Remains Poor
New Gallup data has shown that the advertising and public relations (PR) sectors have hit a new low when it comes to public perception, with 19 percent of U.S. adults viewing the sectors in a positive light, and a scant six percent perceiving them as very positive, with 40 percent holding either somewhat or very negative views of the industries. MarketingCharts
LinkedIn Expands the Display of Its Profile CTA Buttons to More Surfaces
LinkedIn has rolled out expanded visibility for its recently-added call-to-action profile buttons, which will appear in more areas on the platform including in feed posts and within search results, LinkedIn recently announced. Social Media Today
Microsoft CEO says tech giants battling for content to build AI
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella scrutinized the type of exclusive publisher partnerships put in place by the likes of search giant Google as obstacles to AI industry growth, during recent testimony in the landmark U.S. antitrust case trial against Google. Reuters
YouTube Launches New Subscriber Analytics to Assist in Content Planning
Google’s YouTube has added an array of new channel analytics features including more granular audience viewing data, more flexible sorting options, along with specific new and returning viewer information, YouTube recently announced, providing B2B marketers with new video viewing insight. Social Media Today
Social Media Marketers Seek to Quantify the Revenue Impact of Engagement Metrics
60 percent of social media marketers have said that they plan to focus on the revenue impact of social engagement through likes, comments, and shares, while 57 percent expect to focus on tracking the sales and conversions that come from social media efforts — two of numerous statistics of interest to B2B marketers contained in newly-publish survey data. MarketingCharts
Amid Twitter chaos, Mastodon grew donations 488% in 2022, reached 1.8M monthly active users
Open-source social media platform Mastodon has ridden on the wave of uncertainty surrounding Twitter — renamed X — to amass 5.8 million users and some 1.8 million active monthly users, with the non-profit having recorded a 488 percent rise in financial donations during 2022, according to newly-released Mastodon financial statement data. TechCrunch
ON THE LIGHTER SIDE:
A lighthearted look at “Change for the Sake of Change” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist
The Marimba Virtuoso’s Desktop Planetarium — IEEE Spectrum
TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:
Lee Odden / TopRank Marketing — Feeling B2B with Wil Reynolds: A B2B Marketing Expert Interview — MarketingProfs
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions/Adobe — These B2B Innovation Award Winners Are Breathing New Life Into B2B Marketing — Adweek
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 will 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 for even more timely daily news.
What do B2B marketers need to know about customer engagement in 2024, and why is it more important than ever to utilize all relevant channels for making connections?
Kris Rudeegraap, CEO at Sendoso, knows the importance of both, and for the newest episode of our Elevate B2B Marketing Podcast, he sat down with our founder Lee Odden to explore the power of customer engagement when B2B marketers are able to take advantage of all available channels, where to find joy in B2B marketing, and much more.
The Elevate B2B Marketing Podcast features uniquely insightful conversations that inform and inspire by some of the world’s leading B2B marketers, with each episode digging deeply into the issues and topics that are vital to B2B brands today.
In this interview, Kris shared his insights on many of the key issues B2B brands are facing today, including:
Heightened focus on the customer
Customer engagement in B2B marketing
Utilizing all relevant channels
The power of handwritten notes
Prioritizing intent data
Making B2B marketing fun
Finding the whole data story
You’ll find the full interview podcast here, and you can also listen on your favorite podcast platforms including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Libsyn:
You can also check out the full video of Kris’s fascinating 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 Kris Rudeegraap
You’ll also find a complete transcription of Kris’ fascinating podcast episode below.
Lee: Hello and welcome to the Elevate B2B Marketing podcast, the show where we have conversations that inform, include, and inspire with the best in B2B marketing. I’m your host, Lee Odden, co-founder of TopRank Marketing, and today we’re talking with Kris Rudeegraap, CEO of Sendoso. Chris has extensive experience in the B2B space, is a entrepreneur, an investor, and an advisor. He’s got a lot going on, and I’m really excited about sharing his insights with you today. Welcome to the show, Kris.
Kris: Thanks for having me, Lee. I’m really excited to be here.
Lee: We actually met at the BtoB Summit in Paris, and what a great experience that was — sharing insights in English to people in France. It was my first time speaking in France, I don’t know about you.
Kris: Yes, it was my first time speaking in Europe. I’ve gone to a couple of panels, but this was my first time leading a keynote.
Lee: When we met, you shared a brilliant idea, about something that you implemented early on and you’ve continued at Sendoso, where you’ve been nurturing and managing a community of influential leaders in the industry in which you operate. Can you share more about that and what it does for you?
Kris: I call it my personal industry advisory group. Another way to think about it though is that I have a community of what I call micro advisors. What’s different about this than what most founders, entrepreneurs, or CEOs do is that a lot of founders and CEOs will create a kind of executive advisory group — maybe 5, 6, or 7 people. They might also have a customer advisory group that again, might have 10 or 15 people involved in it. My program has a hundred plus people involved.
It includes folks who I’ve met along this journey over the last five years. There’s a group of customers who are a part of it. There are CMOs, CROs, CCOs — the gambit of different types of people around the world who I will provide an update to once a month, giving them highlights and milestones and interesting updates on the business.
I’ll also come to them with optional asks throughout the month, probably one or two asks that could be related to, “Hey, can I get your feedback on X, Y, Z?” Or, “Can you be a part of this talk track and case study, or a blog post we’re writing?” Or, “Can you help me with some market research? I’m thinking about X, Y, Z — can I get your opinion or referrals? Can I get your referral for someone who we’re hiring or someone who we’re trying to get a meeting with?”
It’s been quite unique, and quite fun seeing that group grow, meeting with them virtually and in person over the last few years, and really having this kind of mini think tank group who I can go to, who all are personally interested in seeing the success of Sendoso happen.
Lee: I think that’s so smart on many different levels. I mean, you’ve got this brain trust, this collective wisdom that you can tap into. And at the same time, I suspect a lot of these folks are influential in their own right. You know, everyone’s influential about something. There are a lot of companies that do what you’re talking about in terms of a customer advisory council or a board of advisors or something like that. And a lot of times they even go and implement influencer engagement types of initiatives, but they usually stop at these small numbers, you know? The idea of you managing a relationship, or building a community really around something that everyone can understand and be invested in, really provides motivation and inspiration for them to help you be successful. I just think that’s great. It’s like influence at scale almost, and from my biased perspective, it’s pretty impressive.
At the conference, you gave a keynote presentation as you mentioned, and the topic was full-funnel marketing. In the session description, it talked about seven plays that you can add to your playbook today, and I was wondering if you could share a takeaway, and give our audience a short version, if you will, of what advice you shared with those B2B marketers in Paris.
Kris:
My goal for the conversation was really talk about a lot of the changing trends we’re seeing, and one of them is the heightened focus on your customer, especially over the last year and a half where times have been difficult, with headwinds from the macroeconomic situation.
It’s five times more expensive to find a new customer than it is to keep your existing customers. With that, a lot of people have been using the term ABM — account-based marketing — for years and years, and some of it implies that you’re going to be doing marketing to your existing customers for expansion. But I wanted to debunk that, and really call it full-funnel marketing, mainly because I see a lot of marketers kind of end with the one opportunity and they’ll say, “OK, I’m doing ABM and I found a target account list, and I’m going to run targeted ads and run programs to target these prospects, and then I’m going to help sales get them to the finish line, and then our job’s done, and we’re going to do more of that.”
“It’s five times more expensive to find a new customer than it is to keep your existing customers.” — Kris Rudeegraap @rudeegraap of @sendosohq Click To Tweet
For me, it was really like, well — are you doing ABM to market to your customers? And if not, here’s a better way to look at it from the lens of full-funnel marketing, and really the takeaway with that is rather than really thinking about expanding your customers as a salesy sales motion, think about driving usage, adoption, and advocacy. And once you have those really honed in, then expansion comes easier after that. I talked about some of those nuances.
Lee:
That’s great. It’s kind of like an adage we have, in our case, the best investment in marketing is the quality of the product, but you know, it’s the usage of the product, the adoption of the product, right? Because no powerful form of marketing exists other than word of mouth and advocacy and that sort of thing. As you mentioned, there’s a lot going on in the business environment right now, including generative AI, AI in general, and autonomous AI — these challenges both economically perceived and real. In the midst of this sort of uncertainty and chaos to some degree, if you had to pick one thing — and I know this is a tough question — but if there is a feeling of uncertainty for a market or a business leader in the B2B space, what’s one thing you think they should focus on first?
Kris:
You mentioned the AI piece, and I’d say tangential to that, I think it’s really worth marketers being educated on what are the trends in AI and which are the solution providers they’re working with, and how are they leveraging AI so that they’re not left behind? I think that’s table stakes.
If you were to ask what is one thing, I have to go back. I know data is kind of all encompassing, but if you have a strong data strategy, you can really use that when you need to use AI, or when you’re looking at personalization, or when you’re prioritizing ABM target lists. So I think data is still the core foundation for a lot of the new things that are coming out. And if you don’t have data right, it’s going be harder to do anything else on top of it.
“Data is all encompassing, but if you have a strong data strategy, you can use that when you need to use AI, when you’re looking at personalization, or when you’re prioritizing ABM target lists.” — Kris Rudeegraap @rudeegraap of @sendosohq Click To Tweet
Lee:
You know, that makes so much sense. And of course, data, just what is that? That’s customers interacting with things, and the evidence of those interactions are your North Star, right? To always know what you should be doing, if you believe in the idea of finding out what people want and giving it to them.
Kris:
When I was back in my early sales days, more than a decade ago, there was a phrase that stuck with me —”If it’s not in Salesforce, it didn’t happen.” And the reason really behind that is because you really need the whole data story in order to layer new technology and reporting on top of it. I think that’s critical — even for this new AI stage — if you have some new AI copilot that’s going to overlay on your Salesforce data to provide smart insights, if you have bad data from the start, it’s going to be bad AI.
I think that going back to the foundation, and a lifelong lesson for me, was if it’s not in Salesforce, it didn’t happen —it’s something that’s still really critical for today’s business, even though that’s a saying from a couple decades ago.
Lee:
Sure, and it really resonates. It’s funny, I recently gave a presentation talking about man versus machine, or human versus machine, and about AI. And one of the takeaways there was, “Garbage in, garbage out.” You know, AI makes you more of what you are. When you put poor prompts in and poor data in, yes, of course, you’re going to get garbage out. Can you tell us the Sendoso origin story? How did the company come to be, what are the key offerings, and who are you selling to?
Kris:
I probably should have started with this, so listeners can understand what Sendoso is for those who don’t know. Sendoso is a gifting platform that helps other companies send out different types of gifts — whether it’s swag, promotional products, handwritten notes, wine — you name it, we can get super creative with it.
It’s really helpful because it integrates into your tech stack, whether it’s through HubSpot, Salesforce, Outreach, or any of the marketing tools that you’re currently using, or your sales tools or your CX tools.
About a decade ago when I was in sales I had really seen first and foremost the power of email, and how people were super responsive. A decade ago, I could send a hundred emails and probably get like 95 replies, and then that started diminishing. It was pretty quickly when these mail merge tools came out and it made it so easy to send a gazillion emails with personalization. It kind of commoditized that space a bit, at least for me personally.
So I said, “Hey, when others are zigging, I’m going to zag.” What other creative ways can I get in front of prospects or build better relationships with customers? I found myself writing handwritten notes and mailing them out. I’d find myself on a call and hear a dog bark, and follow up with a dog toy from Amazon or these different one-off little gifts or thank yous —different ways for me to build better relationships and break through that digital noise that was harder than ever to do. And it worked really, really well. It was just super manual and time intensive to pack boxes, to click on tracking links, and to make expense reports.
So all those things happened, and I said, “Hey, what if there was a platform where you could just click a button or set up an automation, and wallah! — behind the scenes things were sourced, things were kitted, things were shipped and delivered, and things were tracked. That was really the early “Aha!” moment, and it was really about the time ABM was starting to get going too, which was even more of an aha moment for us in our first year as well. It’s kind of snowballed from there, and now we’ve seen millions and millions of things being sent through our platform — tens of thousands of of customers using the platform, and hundreds of millions of dollars being spent across this channel.
Lee:
Wow, that’s amazing, and really speaks to how important customer engagement has become, right? And to differentiate and stand out, when you have something tactile. I mean, I don’t think there’s anybody who isn’t — especially after COVID and the increase in getting packages from Amazon and others — you know, everyone especially now loves getting stuff, right? Who doesn’t like getting something that is gifted to them?
Kris:
One interesting stat is that FedEx boxes have a one hundred percent open rate. If it’s at your door, there you go — no one is taking a FedEx box, seeing it at their door or on their desk and saying, “I’ll just throw it in the trash immediately.” There’s too much human curiosity, and willingness to open a box at the very least.
“One interesting stat is that FedEx boxes have a one hundred percent open rate.” — Kris Rudeegraap @rudeegraap of @sendosohq Click To Tweet
Lee:
You can’t argue with that a one hundred percent open rate, right? I’m curious, what are some creative use cases that you’ve seen from your customers when it comes to gifting?
Kris:
There are a couple of favorites that stand out over the years, in terms of creative ways people are using our platform to send things. One was from one of our sales reps, probably three years ago — right before COVID — was at a conference, and someone was coming by from one of our named accounts on crutches, and he mentioned that he had broken his ribs in a snowmobile accident. We had some conversations back and forth, and our sales rep followed up with a rack of barbecue ribs in the mail that was delivered when the person got back home with a funny note mentioning something like, “Here’s an extra rib for you, and enjoy these, which are my favorite.”
So again, it’s personal and quirky, and how can you not respond to that? It’s personalized, it’s unique, and it’s kind of clever. It has that creativity and that human-to-human touch that I think people really want to see. So that was one example.
Another one that I liked, which was just as interactive involved those red and blue decoder glasses. They’re pretty simple, I mean, they’re nothing high tech or anything, but again, the interactiveness of sending those glasses with a note and some other things in a box, and you know, you are curious — the curiosity of like, well now that I have the glasses and the note, let me see what it really says. I like that interactivity as well. For listeners, if you go to Sendoso.com slash customer-examples, there are hundreds of examples, along with some statistics on how they work, and some of the return-on-investment (ROI) on them. I love sharing other customer examples.
Lee:
Thanks for sharing that. I’d heard of Sendoso and I had a rough idea, but then I thought about the digital and the real world combination, and how important it is to engage with people these days, in the sea of information overload and distractions. So those are great examples.
These days I think there’s a lot going on in terms of what’s effective, and there’s a bigger push for personalization now than ever before. I’m wondering what you think that means for how companies should be implementing their demand generation, their ABM, and their go-to-market?
Kris:
It goes back to the importance of good data, number one. I think the other thing is there’s now interesting tech that you can bolster onto your tech stack to really personalize all aspects of your ABM programs or demand gen markets. Whether it’s personalized ads, landing pages, or your website that changes based on visitors or emails or gifts. I think at the end of the day, you have to personalize, and now it’s easier than ever to personalize every aspect of your marketing touch-points, and every channel. It does create some complexities for B2B marketers because there’s so many moving parts, but I think it’s one of the core competencies that really successful companies do — using personalization at scale.
Lee:
It’s an expectation, isn’t it? You know, you get this sheer volume of inbound to you as a potential buyer of something, and when something is thoughtfully personalized — and you talked a lot about what really resonated with you about gifting is the thoughtfulness. I don’t think it’s just the gifting, it’s the thoughtfulness behind the gifting, and the thoughtfulness behind personalization — winning combination for sure.
Kris:
A hundred percent.
Lee:
You know, LinkedIn* — which I’m sure we’re both equally friends with — we love. As B2B folks, their research shows that 95 percent of buyers are out-of-market, and that leaves only 5 percent in decision-making mode. At times like these, it seems like B2B marketers are focusing 95 percent of their efforts on just that end of funnel, that just that 5 percent. I’m curious if you have advice about how to find a balance between warming up your buying audience and actually engaging them for sales?
Kris:
I think this is an interesting topic, because I think intent data is very over-hyped. At least the focus of saying, “Hey, you should only focus on intent data in market accounts, and focus all of your energy on going after those.” And to your point, what happens to all those other accounts that are not getting hit up, that likely are good fits, that maybe don’t know you exist yet, or aren’t searching yet, but when you hit them up, they could become interesting and they could become interested in converting too. I think there is a bit of a fallacy there. I think pre-intent data in this, like in market data, people were always focused on, “How do I prioritize better?” When intent data and in-market — that 5 percent of accounts that are in market — I think the pendulum shifted over to that field very quickly.
There’s a lot of thought leadership content around that right now, and I think there is a balance. At the end of the day, I think you should still focus on intent data accounts and how you prioritize them — potentially with a subset maybe of a group of your sales development reps or account executives who are focused on those, while also looking across your closed one customers, your close loss customers, your ICP, and really looking at what are these named accounts that you have that you want to go after, that should be marketed to, should be running ABM programs to, should be having sales reps outbound to, that aren’t “in market,” but still look like good fits. I think it’s just that a combination of focusing on one versus the other isn’t going to be as beneficial to pipeline or close one revenue.
“At the end of the day, I think you should still focus on intent data accounts and how you prioritize them.” — Kris Rudeegraap @rudeegraap of @sendosohq Click To Tweet
Lee:
It’s kind of like responding to short-term opportunities, obviously with good insight, makes sense. But it’s also kind of like a brand investment in familiarity, trust, recall, and all those other things that shorten the time it takes for someone to go from, “Hmm. I’m not even sure I have a problem,” to “Gosh, who’s the best solution?” You want to be the best answer. You want to be the first choice in someone’s mind when the time comes.
Kris:
Demand creation and demand capture — and I know those have been talked about for some time now — but I think it goes back to that, how do you capture the people that are already in-market, but then how do you drive awareness for people who don’t even know they’re in-market yet, but should be? You don’t want to miss out on either of those.
Lee:
Fantastic — that’s great advice. There are a lot of aspiring CEOs, especially with AI as hot as it is, in all the funding recently, that’s being just thrown at AI startups right now. What advice do you have for budding entrepreneurs and marketing leaders?
Kris:
I think depending on the stage, there are a few different pieces of advice. If you’re not an entrepreneur yet and you’re kind of a “launch-preneur,” you want to be there but you’re on the sidelines, you should jump in. I think now’s a better time than ever to jump in and be an entrepreneur, with the tools that are out there — the resources.
For those who’ve made the jump, for those marketers, founders, or CEOs who are already out there, a couple of things come to mind. One is, you’ve got to have fun. You know, don’t take your job too seriously. I know it’s stressful. I know there’s the Silicon Valley vibe of working 18 hours a day and don’t do anything else. I think you’ve got to take a step back here and have fun.
It’s a marathon, not a sprint. It could be a 10 year journey for you from the time you raised your first dollar to the time you IPO’d or exited, and if you sprint, you’re going to burn yourself out.
Really think about it as a marathon, and have fun running that marathon.
The last thing is to talk to customers every single day if you can. I talk to hundreds and hundreds of customers a day. If you’re a marketer, I think you should be talking to customers. If you’re a founder or an entrepreneur, you should be talking to customers, or to prospects who should be customers, who will eventually become customers. At the end of the day, you’re trying to solve a problem, and you need to talk to as many people as you can who have that problem, and get as many perspectives as you can so that you can market and solve that problem.
Lee:
Fantastic advice. I’m going to ask you a few more questions, including one about engagement. When you think of engagement opportunity today, and obviously you’re in the business of helping brands create engagement, what is the future of engagement? What should we be looking for when it comes to engagement? Is it some shiny object? Is it data solutions? Is it, if a company’s not prioritizing customer engagement right now, what’s your argument convince people that this is important, and here’s why — what do you say to them?
Kris:
We are in a world today that has a gazillion distractions and so much noise, so driving engagement through as many different channels and touch-points as you can is going to better your chances of success. You might have one channel that you’ve relied on for years — maybe you’re really good at email marketing — and I say great, go do that, but make sure you’re covering all your bases, because you don’t want to miss out on a customer relationship because you’ve sent them an email and they’re just not fond of receiving emails.
Maybe the next customer is, and maybe they love their inbox and they get to inbox zero every day, and read each and every one of them. But I think you have to diversify. You have to know that it’s noisy out there, and you have to look at every single channel that you can touch them with, whether it’s email, SMS, direct mail, gifting, ads, even the ways that they’re searching and finding you. through, you know, s e m and s e o every specific possible way that you could have an engagement you need to be optimizing for.
It’s no longer a nice-to-have, but every single channel needs to have a focus area.
Lee:
Great advice — ABO — “Always be optimizing,” right? My last question for you Kris is what is it about B2B marketing that gives you joy?
Kris:
Good question, and I’ve got to go back to the human creativity side of things. You know, it’s never a dull day in B2B marketing. You have infinite resources in front of you, and you can be as creative as possible. And I think creativity is one of those skill sets that we’ll see that won’t be kind of commoditized with AI anytime soon. It’s something that, sure, you can learn, but the best and most creative people in the world will always have a leg up. Anything that you can do to be more creative, the better. It’s one of the things that wows me when I see an interesting campaign, a really thoughtful message, a really unique way of using a channel, or engaging with a prospect or customer. Creativity — if I had to sum up with one word, is the reason I love marketing.
“It’s never a dull day in B2B marketing. You have infinite resources in front of you, and you can be as creative as possible.” — Kris Rudeegraap @rudeegraap of @sendosohq Click To Tweet
Thanks To Kris Rudeegraap For Helping To Elevate B2B Marketing
We offer many thanks to Kris for taking the time to share his B2B marketing energy and insight with us on the Elevate B2B Marketing Podcast, and for his ongoing work to help elevate the B2B marketing industry.
Be sure to also listen and subscribe to the Elevate B2B Marketing Podcast to learn even more from each new episode.
MarketingProfs B2B Forum 2023 is taking place this week on October 4 – 6 both in-person in Boston and online, and as one of the strongest B2B marketing conferences in the world, #MPB2B annually brings together a fantastic group of top-notch professionals sharing their curiosity for future trends, marketing insight, and aspirations for elevating the industry.
The business landscape of 2023 includes a wealth of B2B influencers who are shaping and elevating the future of marketing for 2024 and beyond.
To celebrate and honor our industry’s B2B marketing subject matter experts speaking at this week’s MarketingProfs B2B Forum event, we’re delighted to publish our annual list of some of the world’s leading B2B marketing influencers.
Each year MarketingProfs B2B Forum is chock full of the latest insightful B2B marketing tactics and strategies presented by a stellar lineup of exceptional B2B influencers, and this year is no different.
In the spirit of helping B2B marketing professionals learn more and connect with new voices, we’ve compiled our newest list of B2B marketing influencers — all who will be speaking at #MPB2B — to follow and learn from in 2023 and beyond.
List Methodology: For this list we utilized the Traackr influencer marketing platform to measure resonance surrounding the topic of B2B marketing.
Many thanks go to all the people who are actively sharing knowledge about B2B marketing in 2023 by engaging and working to elevate others with insight and expertise on the social web. This list is just a jumping off point to help expand your own content marketing learning.
In this year’s list there are plenty of familiar faces along with many new additions. We expect to learn new lessons from each of these 25 B2B marketing influencers, and hope that you’ll do the same throughout the rest of the year and into 2024 and beyond.
Now let’s jump right in with this year’s list of 25 top B2B marketers to follow and learn from.
Top 25 B2B Marketing Influencers To Follow
Of course, we need to kick off the list with the “Queen of B2B Marketing” herself, MarketingProfs’ own #MPB2B host and keynote speaker Ann Handley.
Ann Handley@marketingprofs
Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs
Andy Crestodina@crestodina
Chief Marketing Officer and Co-Founder, Orbit Media Studios
Michael Barber@michaeljbarber
Vice President of Marketing, Charter School Capital
Christopher Penn@cspenn
Chief Data Scientist, Trust Insights
Lee Odden@LeeOdden
Founder and Board Advisor, TopRank Marketing
Tony Gnau@t60productions
Founder and Chief Storytelling Officer, T60 Productions
Christine Gritmon@cgritmon
Personal Brand Consultant, Christine Gritmon Inc.
We Hope To See You At MarketingProfs B2B Forum 2023
Using the most detailed statistical analysis — no matter how comprehensive and well-researched — can only take you so far in finding the people who you’ll consider the most relevant and influential in your own daily professional marketing lives, which is why we’d love it if you’d share the names of other B2B marketers that influence you in the comments section below or on our social media accounts on LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.
To further your own marketing expertise, here’s a bonus list of the additional #MPB2B resources we’ve published surrounding this year’s big event:
If you’d like to learn more about elevating your B2B marketing, you’re in luck, as our founder Lee Odden will be presenting at #MPB2B on the topic. Here are the details about Lee’s session:
We hope to see you either in-person or virtually at the exciting MarketingProfs B2B Forum 2023 conference, and be sure to follow us on Twitter at @TopRank for real-time updates during the conference using the #MPB2B hashtag.
That’s basically what happens at a marketing conference. It’s a concentrated download of the latest marketing trends, best practices and practical advice. So it’s always exciting when conference season comes around again.
This year, B2B Forum by MarketingProfs (#MPB2B) is blowing the doors off with a killer lineup of B2B superstars. Some of these folks are practically synonymous with great B2B marketing, and they’re all in one place for three full days!
Here are the sessions you absolutely shouldn’t miss, who’s hosting them, and why I’m excited for each one. This isn’t every great session, of course, but it’s a good place to start.
Here’s the best part: If you can’t make it to Boston, most of these are available via livestream, too.
12 Can’t Miss Sessions at #MPB2B
Thursday, Oct 5th
Session:AI, Sales Enablement, SEO, Strategy & Planning Round Table
This eclectic mix of topics and experts is worth getting up early for. Ahava Leibtag is the president of Aha Media Group; Allen Weiss is the founder and CEO of Marketing Profs; Andy Crestodina and Carlos Hidalgo are sales and marketing thought leaders; Chris Penn is more data wizard than data scientist, and George B. Thomas is a consultant and HubSpot expert. Any marketer looking to integrate their tactics and take a more holistic approach should rush to this one.
Session:6 Steps to Show Content Marketing ROI to Your Boss
Michael Brenner has decades of experience in marketing. He’s become a champion for quality content that drives measurable business results. Proving the ROI of content marketing is essential in a time when budgets are shrinking and every dollar counts, and Michael’s uniquely qualified to help you do it.
Session:Thought Leadership and Story-Finding: How to Generate a Constant Stream of Story Ideas to Engage Your Audience
The AI boom is going to flood the content landscape with robotic, uninspired content. The only way to stand out is to be creative, genuine and human. This session promises to help thought leaders tell more compelling stories, whether it’s your story or writing on behalf of the C-suite in your organization.
Never pass up an opportunity to hear Joe Pulizzi talk about content marketing. As the founder of Content Marketing Institute, he was instrumental in making content a measurable, strategic and profitable business practice. Now he’s bringing new ideas about social content, more efficient content creation, and even monetizing content. I can’t wait to see what he does next.
Session:How to Elevate B2B Marketing Results With the Influence Trifecta
Our founder Lee is to B2B influencer marketing what Joe Pulizzi is to content marketing. Lee and the TopRank Marketing team have seen incredible success with a holistic, strategic approach to B2B influence that doesn’t just copy what works in B2C. This session will feature a sneak preview of this year’s B2B Influencer Marketing Report, with data from over 400 marketing professionals.
Session:The Marketing Singularity: How Marketers Should Prepare for AI
There’s no hotter topic for modern marketers than generative AI. Most of us are already using it in our day-to-day, but what will we do with it tomorrow? How can we make sure the AI is working for us, not replacing us? Chris Penn is the right person to ask.
Session:Mastering the Art of Cultivating an Engaged Private Community: A Step-By-Step Guide
I had the pleasure of working with Justin on the super cool and insanely successfulDemandbase Smarter GTM campaign. Beneath his laid-back exterior is the mind of a superb marketer — he’s always entertaining and interesting to listen to. As the social media environment gets more fragmented, building a private community is a great asset for any B2B brand, so this subject matter couldn’t be more topical.
Friday, October 6th
Session:Lead From Behind: Ways to Lead When You’re Not in Charge
It can be a sobering experience to come back to work after a conference. You’re brimming with new ideas, but you might not have the authority or resources to start trying them out. This session promises to help the non-CMOs among us get our ideas heard and build fruitful relationships with leaders to get things done.
Session:Recession-Proof Your B2B Marketing Strategy
Samantha is a champion of “results-driven marketing,” a skill that is in high demand in an uncertain economic climate. This session promises a smorgasbord of techniques to help weather the storm, including prioritizing investments, leveraging AI to increase efficiency, and using proven ways to shorten buying cycles.
Session:Cut the BS: B2B Influencer Marketing Strategies that Actually Work
Ashley is a TopRank Marketing alumnus and I had the distinct pleasure of working with her for nearly five years. Now she’s the freshly-minted co-CEO of Onalytica, with even more valuable experience ready to share with the marketing community. If you’re in-person at MPB2B, see her in a small group now. Because in a few years, she’ll be doing the keynote.
Session:Using Data and AI to Foster Engagement Along the Full Customer Journey
If I had a nickel for every time someone promised to explain the new customer journey, I’d have enough to buy all the Martech solutions to get it done. But Carlos has got the inside line — he’s got the know-how and experience to help you make a genuine difference. The future of marketing will depend on smart use of AI to make sense of mountains of data. Now’s the time to get ready.
Session:Navigating the Labyrinth: Three Steps That Lead Every GTM Strategy and Buyer to Great Content
Randy takes a no-nonsense approach to marketing — as evidenced by his book “F*ck Content Marketing.” He’s also the Co-Founder of Uberflip, so he knows a thing or seven about how to deliver the right content to the right person at the right time. This session promises to show you how to streamline your GTM strategy with the judicious application of data, and how to create content experiences that engage your targets.
Keep up your marketing momentum after MPB2B
I remember coming home from my first marketing conference in 2015 — it was Content Marketing World. I had so many new ideas buzzing around my head that it nearly made me dizzy. At that point, there are two possibilities: Slowly return to business as usual, or use those ideas as a catalyst for change. I did my best to take the second option.
The TopRank Marketing team is here to help you turn your great ideas into reality. Whether it’s a new influencer marketing program, more effective content, or a custom strategy all you’re own, we can help you make it happen.
Contact usto get started today, and also check out our additional MarketingProfs B2B Forum resources:
B2B digital ad spend lags post-pandemic, hinting at prolonged recovery
U.S. B2B advertising spending is expected to reach $31.72 billion during 2023, with 37.4 percent accounted for by LinkedIn and Meta alone, while almost half of U.S. digital B2B ad spending will go towards mobile — three of numerous findings of interest to B2B marketers contained in recently-published forecast data. Insider Intelligence
Emerging B2B Trends You Need to Know [Survey / Infographic]
68 percent of B2B business professionals have said that they have utilized AI to improve their organization’s operational efficiency so far during 2023, while the fastest-growing expectations of B2B consumers over the past three years were personalized experiences, always-on customer service, and social responsibility and sustainability, according to newly-released B2B industry survey data. MarketingProfs
Manufacturing, B2B ready for AI overhaul [Study]
When it comes to professionals at manufacturing and B2B companies, 93 percent have said that they plan to increase investments in AI during the coming 12 months, with the most common generative AI area expected to see an impact being business operations, while 42 percent of survey participants said they had positive sentiment about AI, according to recently-published B2B survey data. Supply Chain Quarterly
What’s the Outlook for Media Budgets Next Year? [Report]
59 percent of marketing professionals have said that they plan to increase 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 of interest to digital marketers. MarketingCharts
LinkedIn Adds New Text Accessibility Options for LinkedIn Publisher Posts
Microsoft-owned LinkedIn has rolled out an array of accessibility features bringing text-to-speech, real-time translation, and other new communications options to the professional social platform, all tied in to newly-implemented integration with its Immersive Reader product, LinkedIn (client) recently announced. Social Media Today
The 2023 State of Marketing AI Report
22 percent of marketers have said that they had generative AI policies in place, with CEOs and CMOs the offices most likely to own AI initiatives at organizations, while 64 percent of marketers have noted that they view AI as either very important or critically important to business success during the coming 12 months — three of many findings of interest to B2B marketers included in newly-released marketing AI report data. Marketing AI Institute
“More marketers than every aren’t just paying attention to AI. They know it matters to THEIR success.” — @MikeKaput of @MktgAi Click To Tweet
Facebook Will Now Allow Users to Create Multiple Profiles to Explore Different Interests
Users of Meta’s Facebook will be able to create up to four additional personal profiles with the social platform’s latest feature rollout, which will bring addition opportunities for marketing influencers and creators no longer limited to publishing content from a single account, Meta recently announced. Social Media Today
Most Enterprise Marketers Are Using AI in Their Email Campaigns
57 percent of marketers at enterprise-level organizations have said that they were already using AI in their email campaigns, with some 25 percent planning to do so, while just 14 percent indicated that they haven’t used AI technology for email initiatives and had no plans to do so, according to newly-published survey data. MarketingCharts
Brand interactions evolve on social media: Here’s what the numbers say [Report]
51 percent of consumers have indicated that responding to customers was the top way for brands to make an impact, as 53 percent said that they had spent more time on social media platforms during the past two years than during the preceding two — some of the findings contained in recently-released social media usage survey data. Marketing Dive
Martech Replacement Trends for 2023 [Survey]
When it comes time to replace marketing technology, marketing automation tools, search engine optimization (SEO) software, and work management solutions were those most likely to go, with the leading reasons for switching to new marketing software being better customer experiences, lower cost, and more streamlined integration with existing systems, according to newly-published survey data of interest to B2B marketers. MarketingProfs
ON THE LIGHTER SIDE:
A lighthearted look at “What’s the Marketing ROI?” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist
Spotify uses AI to clone and translate podcaster voices in new pilot program — Ars Technica
TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:
TopRank Marketing — How to Use B2B Influencers to Increase Web Traffic — madison/miles media
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions/Adobe — These B2B Innovation Award Winners Are Breathing New Life Into B2B Marketing — Adweek
Lee Odden / TopRank Marketing — Feeling B2B with Pam Didner: A B2B Marketing Expert Interview — MarketingProfs
Have you found a key 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 taking the time to be with us for this week’s Elevate B2B Marketing News, and we hope you’ll come back 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.
