B2B

Kyall Mai, SVP and chief innovation officer at Esquire Bank, says the overriding challenge for B2B marketers seeking resources is demonstrating to the C-suite that they are capable of simultaneously generating revenue and developing a personalized communications strategy for customers and prospects.

Despite the dizzying and proliferating number of digital channels available, marketers continue to rely on an old standby to better serve existing customers, land new ones, and generate revenue: direct mail. And while the bulk of marketers are boosting their direct mail investments this year, per a recent study, they need to tread carefully due to a spate of postal rate hikes imposed by the United States Postal Service.

Business marketers could be forgiven for thinking that B2B publications born of the analog age had been left for roadkill by the internet and social media. But amid the ongoing atomization of media, trade publications have held their own and continue to provide B2B marketers with a way to connect with senior executives and major decision-makers.

A slight bump in B2B marketing budgets in 2025 won't be enough to fund bigger ad campaigns, new technologies, and more staff. The most effective method for B2B CMOs to boost revenue for the short term — and bolster the perception of marketing for the long term — is to foster greater cooperation among their marketing teams with senior executives from other departments.

Deena LaMarque Piquion, who recently took charge as chief growth and disruption officer at Xerox, is working more closely with the company's go-to-market teams and taking a decidedly consumer-ish approach to reaching customers and prospects.

After sitting on the sidelines for years, B2B companies are launching their own podcasts to better distinguish their brands from competitors. As they craft their programming, it's crucial that marketers ensure the podcast won't be just another asset but a compelling medium for storytelling that speaks directly to B2B decision-makers who need valuable content.

Data quality has not been at the top of the priority list for B2B marketers in recent years, as they have grappled with dramatic changes in buyer behavior. However, the rise of generative artificial intelligence and the growing currency of first-party data have added to a sense of urgency among marketers to bolster their data management.

According to a recent study, nearly three-fourths of B2B marketers are growing their investments in customer acquisition activities in the next two years as marketers look to play a greater role in landing new customers — and keeping them. However, the investments come despite several challenges to improve prospecting, ranging from a lack of data to measuring performance.

While the vast majority (nearly 90 percent) of B2B marketers are currently running lead nurture programs, per a recent study, such programs still leave a lot to be desired. Amid the growing power of purchasing committees and their unwillingness to engage with salespeople directly, the onus is on B2B marketers to segment their content to align with various stages of the sales funnel and make their communications with buyers much more personalized.

The time between when a piece of content is requested and the moment it is actually opened — called the "consumption gap" — is getting longer, according to a recent study. However, there are several remedies to shrink the gap, ranging from creating the kind of content that will help prospects do their jobs better to modeling on-demand webinars on live events.

Lenovo recruited award-winning actor and entrepreneur Queen Latifah to be the face of a marketing campaign supporting women- and minority-owned businesses, with assistance from generative artificial intelligence.

Can AI solve the sales and marketing stalemate? The technology may be an elixir for one of the most common ailments between sales and marketing teams: aligning on prospects who need what the company sells, have the budget to buy, and are ready to move into the sales pipeline.

Eager to align their ad dollars into more mainstream programming, a growing number of B2B companies are boosting their marketing spending on sponsorships for popular sports events as well as influencers with niche yet loyal audiences online.

After years in which one-to-one account-based marketing (ABM) dominated the market, a majority of B2B firms now deploy at least two types of ABM — whether one-to-one, one-to-few, or one-to-many — while almost a third use all three types, according to a recent study. That's a significant bump from 2017, when just 35 percent of marketers used more than one type of ABM. The numbers may indicate that B2B firms are getting back to the basics to refuel their various ABM initiatives.

Bari Komitee, VP of B2B marketing at New York Times Advertising, talks about the consumerization of B2B advertising, why games are an increasingly useful tool to reach decision-makers, and the meaningless distinction between personal and business lives.

A convergence of factors, including the rise of digital media, continue to alter B2B marketing. Ruth Stevens, a close observer of the sector, shares advice for driving leads, cultivating branded advertising, and inserting more of an emotional hook in B2B messaging.

Attendance at B2B in-person events has returned to pre-pandemic levels, but marketers face a significantly changed landscape for live events and conferences.

A recent study shows that B2B buyers are two-thirds into the purchasing process before they reach out to sales reps, underscoring B2B marketers' need to feed prospects and buyers original content early in the sales funnel.

Tony Ezell, EVP, president North America, and CMO at medical technology provider BD, says B2B marketers should think about crafting advertising campaigns that reflect more on human experiences than product specifications.

As they build their generative AI strategy, B2B marketers should be aware that the benefits of AI are often contingent on having clean data.