Ruth Stevens
What’s New in B2B Marketing for 2023
Here’s a round-up of new ideas and trends I’m seeing in B2B marketing, to help us plan for 2023. Marketing spend trends for 2023. The Winterberry Group has recently released its annual projections on marketing spend, and I am happy to say that t...
New Trends in B2B Conferences and Events
Events have been an essential part of the B2B marketing mix forever, and they are always evolving, adjusting to market forces. The pandemic was not the only recent driver for change. Buying behavior changes. New tools and techniques e...
B2B Podcasters: YouTube is Your Best Way to Attract Listeners
Mary Ann Bautista and I first met in the ‘90s, when she was a remnant space broker, and I was buying a lot of media for Book of the Month Club. Her company has since moved into direct-response radio, and later video advertising, which is…
Big B2B Marketing Ideas
In-person conferences are back! I recently had the pleasure of attending two B2B marketing events back-to-back. Both were hybrid, which is clearly the new standard for business events. But there’s nothing like being there. I was...
New Tools, Developments and Innovations Transforming B2B Marketing
Business buying is changing, and marketers must change with it—fast. I take inspiration from Brent Adamson’s new article in Harvard Business Review, with the provocative title, “Traditional B2B Sales and Marketing Are Becoming Obsolete.” Ad...
10 B2B Marketing Trends to Watch in 2022
The last time I dared to compile a set of predictions was pre-pandemic, going into 2020. Astonishingly, many of them turned out to be true, or mostly so. Going into 2021, the world was upside-down, and the general uncertainty about everything in ...
Forget Rewards: Why B2B Loyalty Marketing is Different
Business buyers are highly dependent on their suppliers, for the success of their own businesses. Companies need reliable support systems, services and deliveries—consider the current supply-chain crisis. Once in place, companies avoid chan...
B2B CMOs: Shift Your Priorities Beyond Leads
It seems like every week I see a new research report naming leads as the top priority of B2B marketing departments. It’s no wonder CMOs focus an estimated 85% of their efforts on acquisition. Ask any sales person, “What do you want from marketing?’&nbs...
B2B Senior Leadership: It’s Time to Face the Truth About Sales and Marketing
The yawning gulf between sales and marketing is a fact of life in B2B companies. What needs to be done?
Why B2B Marketers Should Try CTV Advertising
Over the last couple of years, Connected TV, via channels like Hulu and IMDB, has emerged as a productive new advertising medium. CTV offers two key benefits: precise household-level targeting, and accurate tracking for attribution. Which is exac...
How to Find B2B Prospects Worldwide
Do you know of a growing B2B company that sells only domestically? I can’t think of one. U.S. producers of products and services for other companies and institutions are highly likely to be selling abroad, whether through distributors or di...
How to Perfect Your B2B Marketing Message
We often think of marketing messages as springing from serendipitous breakthroughs, big ideas that come in a flash of creative brilliance. And that may be true, sometimes. But like many aspects of B2B marketing, message strategy can be deve...
Don’t Be a Jerk on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is one of the greatest business tools ever, but it can be misused—even abused. Your reputation is perhaps your most valuable business asset. So your behavior on LinkedIn must reflect the way you want to be perceived. Here...
Six Ways to Connect with your B2B Website Visitors
Website visitors are among your most valuable prospects. They have found you, searching around for a solution. They’re clearly interested in your category and it’s very likely they are in the market for an offering like yours. The only problem is ...
Fresh Prospecting Ideas for B2B Marketers
Always on the lookout for new ways to identify prospects and generate leads in business markets? This year I’ve come across a handful of services and tools that demonstrate and welcome creativity and innovative by using digital marketing. Here are...
What is Sales Enablement, Anyway?
The other day I was invited to speak on retention marketing as part of a 3-webinar series on sales enablement. It got me thinking: What is sales enablement, anyway? I remember the term in general use when I worked at IBM in the ‘90s.&...
The Ongoing Challenge of B2B Multi-channel Attribution: 7 Practical Workarounds
B2B marketers have long struggled to demonstrate results along the complex path from a campaign investment, to a sales lead, to a closed revenue deal. Digital campaign channels make things easier on the front end. We can track a click to a ...
10 B2B Marketing Strategies for a World Without Face-to-Face Events
The pandemic has taken away one of B2B marketing’s steadiest, most reliable sources of lead generation and customer engagement, on a global basis. What’s to be done? It’s not easy to replace a marketing channel that represents on average 20...
Covid-19 Lessons for B2B Marketers
The global pandemic is affecting every area of our lives and our businesses today. I reached out to my longtime colleague and friend Roger McDonald, a seasoned sales and marketing executive and thoughtful observer of things B2B, to gather up his ...
New Technologies Drive Trade Show Marketing Productivity
How to explain my longtime fascination with trade shows and business events? It’s because events often comprise the single largest portion of B2B marketing budgets, averaging 22%. And because, when done right, events can be the single most ...