Samantha Anderson says, “B2B inbound marketing can be incredibly effective in regards to your specific marketing goals, whether it’s to generate new leads, improve your sales, build brand authority, build brand trust or simply increase brand exposure. However, what some businesses don’t understand is that B2B inbound marketing is a long-term strategy, not a short-term one. Inbound marketing consists of numerous strategies. If one element happens to result in instant results; for example, a video that goes viral and receives thousands of shares, it’s generally an anomaly. Trying... [...]

Aaron Agius says, “While LinkedIn is traditionally used as a networking platform for professionals and job-seekers, it also offers plenty of opportunities to market and grow your business. By the first quarter of 2016, the B2B social platform boasted more than 430 million users. When you add LinkedIn to your marketing strategy, you can build targeted connections, generate higher-quality leads, reinforce relationships with prospects, and greatly improve your brand visibility. Here’s how marketing with LinkedIn can help you grow: 1. Grow Your Presence With Targeted Content Unlike other social... [...]

Ayaz Nanji says, “The 50 fastest-growing B2B companies are investing in blogs, downloadable content, and live chat, according to a recent report from Drift and Mattermark. The report was based on data from the Mattermark platform, which analyzes more than 1.5 million companies to identify the fastest-growing firms based on indicators such as employee count and funding. The researchers manually examined the sales and digital marketing tactics of the top 50 companies to identify best-practices. The top three fastest-growing B2B companies are Upwork, WeWork, and Slack, the analysis found. Below,... [...]

Peter O’Neill says, “At Forrester, “EO + 6” is code for the publication status of a playbook. It stands for Executive Overview plus six reports – at which point, we formally launch the playbook with its special links and landing page on Forrester.com. Playbooks are designed to help clients succeed with complex programs, such as organizational transformation. Get Ready For The B2B Marketing Renaissance The next wave of competitive advantage for B2B companies will come from deepening customer knowledge and taking action based on an obsessive desire to deliver what their customers... [...]

Pratik Dholakiya says, “B2B manufacturers rely mostly on traditional methods of marketing like trade show participation and other paid methods of marketing. Yet, it is becoming increasingly clear that the key people in the process of making buying decisions in a company are using the Internet to make informed decisions on products after going through the reviews and opinions of other customers. It has been reported that 84 percent of industrial professionals use the Internet to find components, equipment and services, 74 percent of them use it to compare products across suppliers, 56 percent... [...]

Ayaz Nanji says, “B2B marketers say the most important goal of their data management strategy is to improve ROI measurability, according to recent research from Openprise and Ascend2. The report was based on a survey of 183 B2B marketing professionals from 101 organizations. Respondents were polled on their goals and challenges with marketing data management (the analysis, cleansing, enhancement, and unification of information). Some 72% of B2B marketers say improving ROI measurability is a top goal of their marketing data management strategy. Other important objectives are improving data... [...]

Steven Wright says, “It’s tempting to think that with all the power of automation for marketing, sales enablement and a multitude of sales processes that marketing and sales work together smoothly. The vision is one of a well-oiled machine generating leads, qualifying opportunities, and winning deals. The reality is somewhat different. While marketing and sales have moved closer together, there are still significant gaps in understanding between the two. For B2B marketers, the challenge is to better understand how Sales Operations, as a set of processes more than technology, drives sellers... [...]

Steven Casey says, “We’ve all seen the ubiquitous martech slides: Thousands of company logos crammed into a single graphic that is both useless and illuminating. Useless as any sort of planning or evaluation tool — but also illuminating because it shows what we all know to be true from first-hand experience: The B2B marketing tech landscape is confusing, and getting worse every day. To help B2B marketers make smart technology choices in the midst of such chaos, Forrester has just published the TechRadar™: B2B Marketing Technologies, Q3 2016. In this report, we evaluate the current state... [...]

Peter O’Neill says, “We know you B2B marketing execs are not in denial. You get that 74% of business buyers conduct more than half of their research online before making an offline purchase — and that 59% of those same business buyers prefer not to interact with a sales rep as their primary source of information. You need to transform from an inside-out (company, product service) perspective to an outside-in (customer, outcome, context) view. Like all transformations, this is brilliant in theory but daunting in practice. Well, come to the Forrester B2B Marketing Forum on October... [...]

Allison Snow says, “There are a number of predictive analytics firms dedicated to helping B2B revenue leaders examine their own successes and losses to inform everything from account selection to next-step action analysis and recommendation. Last year, Laura Ramos introduced them to us in her report, New Technologies Emerge To Help Unearth Buyer Insight From Mountains Of B2B Data. Laura concluded this report with a recommendation to prepare to take the predictive analytics plunge. Well, many of you have “taken the plunge,” or are about to. Nearly two thirds of marketing decision... [...]