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As we collect data for the new State of B2B Influencer Marketing Report, it remains to be seen whether last year's 96% of B2B marketers feeling confident about influencer marketing will come out, especially after the effects of the pandemic. With the shift in B2B go to market models towards digital first, influencer engagement has increased for many marketers as an alternative to spending on field marketing, real-world events and trade shows. As B2B buyers increasingly rely on digital sources of information, stats like 74% of B2B marketers say influencer marketing impacts customer and prospect experience, become even more important. While that confidence before and since the pandemic has opened doors to many more B2B brands experimenting with, piloting and becoming more familiar with influencer engagement, that increase in activity has increased competition. So how can B2B brands raise the bar on their influencer marketing efforts? Here's a pretty compelling statistic from t...

Why B2B Marketers Build on LinkedIn [Infographic] 96 percent of B2B marketers distribute content on LinkedIn (client), which has surpassed the 774 million member mark, including the presence of 97 percent of all Fortune 500 firms — two of numerous statistics of interest to digital marketers contained in newly-released infographic data. Social Media Today CMO-CIO Relationship Needs Tightening To Improve Performance: CMO Council Report Just 23 percent of firms rate their CMO-CIO working relationships as very effective, while 60 percent of CMOs who have very effective relationships with IT say that they utilize multi-year strategic planning, according to recently-released survey data of interest to online marketers. MediaPost Most Marketers Say They’re Not Getting the Most Out of Their Marketing Automation Tools. Why? 39 percent of marketers see lack of training and resources as the top challenge to fully utilizing marketing automation tools, followed by 32 percent who view lack of...

What are some of the top autumn B2B marketing conferences that will take place both in-person and in hybrid fashion? As we move ever closer to 2022, more physical marketing events are on tap than were available last year, although most either offer a hybrid online option or are still entirely digital experiences. To help you sort out the B2B marketing conference options available this fall through the end of the year, we've compiled our latest list of the top B2B marketing events to elevate and inform your business strategy. Marketing conferences undoubtedly offer a wealth of benefits to marketers seeking new learning, networking opportunities, and the latest industry research and insight to increase brand awareness, but finding events that match your business and B2B marketing needs can be a challenge. Over the past decade the number of conferences has skyrocketed, making it harder than ever to hone in on the ones that can best help build your business, boost your networking opp...

Last week I talked about where B2B Marketers are seeing the most impact from influencer marketing efforts based on the research done with hundreds of marketers for the State of B2B Influencer Marketing Report. Three of those specific areas where influence can help B2B brands optimize for greater marketing impact include brand, growing the influence of key executives and driving leads / sales. While just about everyone in B2B Marketing is aware of how working with influencers can add relevance, reach and engagement to content, not everyone makes the connection between their particular business problem and the influence solution. Here are three examples from many that can help you connect the dots. Build Credible Awareness of Your Brand with Customers Business Problem : The industry is not aware of your brand, solution or your category. This is a situation many start-ups, new products or services, re-brands and challenger brands experience in the industry. These awareness issues are ...

Almost Half of B2B Orgs Say It’s Become More Difficult to Close Deals Finalizing B2B deals has become more difficult since the pandemic began, with some 46 percent of B2B organizations citing buying decisions being placed on hold as the primary cause, while 43 percent said that their organization viewed buyer re-prioritization as the top reason, followed by budget cutting, according to recently-released survey data. MarketingCharts Marketing's Tech-tonic Shift: 90% Have Changed Their Digital Strategies [Salesforce Study] 66 percent of marketing leaders expect revenue growth in the coming 12 to 18 months, with the top portions of B2B marketing budgets being spent on advertising, tools and technology, account based marketing (ABM), content, and staffing, according to newly-released survey data of interest to digital marketers. MediaPost LinkedIn Adds Ratings & Reviews to User Profiles Microsoft-owned LinkedIn has begun offering both reviews and ratings to user profiles, wi...

What can we learn about breaking free from the same old thing from some of the top subject matter experts in B2B marketing? A robust and exciting third season of TopRank Marketing’s Break Free B2B Marketing video and podcast series has now wrapped up, and as we look at the totality of the powerful episodes it's clear that shaking things up can lead to newfound marketing successes. Interviewing a strong group of 12 of the smartest B2B marketers in the industry, we've explored how they’re developing new horizons and reinventing the role and function of B2B marketing in 2021, and learned what they see ahead in 2022 and beyond. We’re fortunate to have 12 takes on a number of important topics from some of the top subject matter experts in B2B marketing, with a wide range of insight on how marketers can smash through traditional boring-to-boring marketing. Our third season of the Break Free B2B Marketing series of video interviews has given us a new group of experts, influencers, ...

Sophisticated B2B marketers understand that the effectiveness of a given strategy or set of tactics is tied to goals. When it comes to influence, there are applications across the customer lifecycle from increasing reach and attention from hard to connect with audiences to creating more credible and authentic content experiences to improving trust and inspiring decision making. Of course, working with external influencers and improving the influence of internal experts is not a silver bullet across all marketing goals. However, in our research on influencer marketing for B2B brands , there are some outcomes where marketers are seeing greater impact. Rather than simply provide a laundry list of the highest impact marketing outcomes, I've clustered similar goals together to provide more category level insight into where B2B marketers have seen the most success when working with influencers. B2B Influence and Brand Impact Brand Awareness 84%, Brand Reputation 58% and Brand Advocacy ...

B2B US Digital Ad Spend Forecast for 2021-2023 Digital advertising spending in the U.S. is expected to nearly triple from 2018 levels, to some $14.57 billion by 2023, with $5.09 billion expected to be spend on display adverting in 2021 — a 32.6 percent increase from 2020, according to newly-released forecast data. MarketingProfs Zoom Initiates $14.7B Acquisition Of Five9 Zoom has agreed to purchase Five9, with the $14.7 billion addition of the contact center as a service (CCaaS) firm poised to augment Zoom’s enterprise offerings, the firms recently announced. Demand Gen Report Spotify ties Nielsen demos to audience measurement on podcasts Spotify has released a new podcast measurement tool utilizing Nielsen audience demographic data, in an expanded collaboration that is set to provide additional insights to podcast marketers through Spotify's Megaphone advertising unit, the firm recently announced. Campaign US Google restricts ad targeting of under-18s Gender and interests...