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During these scorching summer days, let’s take a moment to check our collective B2B temperature. Just as monitoring your body temperature can help detect disease or sickness, so can monitoring various factors in your B2B sales and marketing strategies.

With the seesawing conditions we’ve encountered over the past few years, it’s crucial to maintain a deep understanding of your B2B health and wellness. Doing so helps you make informed decisions and positions your team for success – are you consistently inconsistent or on track?

Give this song by Hot Hot Heat a listen as we stay cool and see what the experts are saying this week.

Heat Alert! B2B Marketing Trends in 2023

Despite the looming threat of recession, 92% of marketers expect their budgets to increase or stay the same this year (at least for now). 86% say that data privacy regulations have impacted their marketing strategy over the past year. And most agree there’s one tactic that’s the biggest trend, has the highest ROI, and tops the to-do list for this year.

Those are just a few of the takeaways from HubSpot’s recently released The State of Marketing: Marketing Trends in 2023 from AI to Z report. This 46-page report is packed with stats and insights on all aspects of marketing from HubSpot and partners including Wistia and Litmus.

While the entire study is worth a read, here are some key takeaways and points of interest from the report:

1. SEO: Surprisingly Enticing Opportunity
   Given that organic search is one of the top two sources of traffic for business websites (at least on the B2B side), and has high conversion rates, it’s surprising that this research reports, “29% of marketers use a search-optimized website and blog to attract and convert leads.”
   Only 29%?! That doesn’t sound right. It’s also inconsistent with findings elsewhere in this study…
2. Video Marketing: Hotter Than Ever
   Video marketing is huge and somehow keeps getting huger. It’s been “the year of video” every year since 2017. Per the new HubSpot report, “Video is the most popular and effective media format for the fourth year in a row.”
3. Influencer Marketing: It’s Social (But Pick Your Platforms Carefully)
   Influencer marketing continues to grow in importance across industries, though priorities, platforms, and practices are much different between B2B and B2C influencer marketing.
4. The Last Word (Acronym, Actually) on Marketing Trends for 2023
   Likely because of the timing of the study, the research doesn’t say a lot about the impact artificial intelligence (AI) will have on marketing this year and beyond. It does note that AI is where everybody’s hanging out… marketing tools are now everywhere; they’ll help marketers with the perennial demand to “do more with less”; and “Content creators and marketers now have a new skill to learn – getting good at using AI.”

Streaming – Communism vs Capitalism?

I think sometimes we expect simple or quick answers to problems when the real solution is a horribly complex mess of contradictions that’ll chew you up and spit you out anyway. With that in mind, there was a weird peace of mind to be found in reading Will Page’s very interesting thoughts on the state of streaming.

Page likens the friction around streaming remuneration as being like communism meeting capitalism. The ‘communism’ view is that every song is worth the same. The ‘capitalism’ view is the opposite.

Seems that artists need to find other ways to generate revenue now, and need to be getting more adventurous, more inquisitive, and more playful in how they are connecting fans with music.

I don’t believe music’s cultural heft has diminished. But at some point, it’s like we all accepted that it’s just worth less now, and that was that. But like share prices, these things can move up as well as down, and perhaps we’re approaching a point where the value of music needs to be focused on a bit more.

What about B2B? As marketers and B2B professionals, unpredictability’s our responsibility. The value of certain things – including the goods and services that we provide – can go up and down unexpectedly. Things like a State of Marketing report can help mitigate some of that unpredictability, though.

So get more adventurous, more inquisitive, and more playful! How do you leverage data from reports like HubSpot’s to connect (or reconnect) with your fans?

As always, don’t hesitate to call me to brainstorm or just say hello!

Looking forward,
Rick

Rick Endrulat, President | ricke@v-causeway.com | www.linkedin.com/in/rickendrulat

The post Have You Done a B2B Temperature Check? appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

What Do B2B Marketers Do Now? is an ongoing email. Join the mailing list to be the first to receive these weekly insights!

What marketer hasn’t been swept up in the AI craze? Maybe it can make our jobs easier. Maybe it can help us hit our sales numbers. Or maybe it’s a big distraction…

Case in point – the other day I spent hours listening to AI-generated isolated guitar tracks from Smashing Pumpkins songs. Fascinating… very helpful when you’re trying to learn parts – but I also got sucked into countless YouTube videos of AI-generated music and guitar solos.

Check out this song by Smashing Pumpkins (non-AI version) while we see what the experts are saying this week…

HubSpot’s AI Solution

As a B2B marketing professional, you understand the importance of creating quality content to engage with your target audience. However, this can be time-consuming and daunting, particularly if you’re managing multiple campaigns.

HubSpot’s latest AI-powered tools, the content assistant and ChatSpot.ai, are designed to save you time and streamline your workflows. These tools use advanced artificial intelligence technology from OpenAI to make work easier for marketing, sales, and customer service professionals.

All in all, AI can be a double-edged sword. Marketers should know both the advantages and disadvantages of using AI in marketing before implementing it in their campaigns. HubSpot’s new tools will be interesting to follow as their user base adopts them.

What do you think? Is AI a friend or foe of marketing? Will it speak to your customers in a language they can hear?

Long Tail, Scarcity & Pop Culture

Within a few weeks, we’re going to see thousands (or millions) of new songs created by AI and available on YouTube and streaming channels. Some of them will be mediocre, others breakthroughs, and even some hits.

Pop culture has traditionally depended on scarcity – with only a few TV stations or a dozen radio stations, it’s likely that many of us have watched or heard the same thing at the same time. A popular TV show from fifty years ago probably reached twenty times as many people as a popular hit today.

But the long tail brings other benefits. More choices, more innovation. Not just a long tail of consumption, but also a spectacular decrease in the cost of production. Innovations in computers, cameras, and AI mean that people can make content without permission from a gatekeeper.

According to Seth Godin, creating music – like writing – is an inherently human activity, and it doesn’t go away. People will make the effort. What does go away is the commercial and creative dynamic of thousands of people in places like Nashville and Hollywood trying to become ‘someones’ with nothing but a typewriter or a guitar.

The end of pop and the rise of the long tail and AI brings us back a century. Just like it used to be – small circles of people, not mass markets. But this time with endless choices and a business model that’s hard to visualize.

What do you think? Can you make it last forever?

As always, don’t hesitate to call me to brainstorm or just say hello!

Looking forward,
Rick

Rick Endrulat, President | ricke@v-causeway.com | www.linkedin.com/in/rickendrulat

The post Heads or Tails? AI and the Long Tail appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

What Do B2B Marketers Do Now? is an ongoing email. Join the mailing list to be the first to receive these weekly insights!

As a guitarist, I’ve listened to my share of loud music. Back in the ’80s, there was no such thing as an unnecessary amplifier… the more the better! Just look at the videos from then – the back of the stage filled with huge amplifiers – which I thought was super cool.

But when it comes to language, Seth Godin advises against unnecessary amplifiers. That got me thinking about our communications and how we love hyperbole.

We might as well jump in and see what the experts are saying this week… so give this song by Van Halen a listen as we do!

AI’s Role in ABM

Artificial Intelligence seems to be on everyone’s mind these days. B2B Marketing Zone lists ways AI can support ABM. These are just a few:

• Segmenting your market
• Generating targeted content
• Scoring leads and determining when to engage

Of course, there are challenges in implementing AI for ABM. Understanding what data to collect and ensuring output quality are some big ones. Will AI-generated targeted content be too full of unnecessary amplifiers? Will it get to what’s real and have the right tone for your organization?

You won’t know until you begin, but there are definitely best practices you can follow when integrating AI. Make sure your goals and objectives are clear from the outset, regularly test your results, and ensure you have the resources available to manage and maintain your AI software… and soon enough, nothin’ will get you down!

Music & Tech Trends

Walls of amps aside, have you been wondering how music tech is trending in 2023? Bob Lefsetz shared some of his predictions. I found them particularly interesting, as just about all of them apply to B2B as well!

• Independent creators will continue to grow
• Ticketing is heading for a crunch point
• If TikTok is killed, Instagram reels will burgeon
• It’s harder to gain traction than ever before – so people will look for new ways to get noticed
• Everything happens slower than it ever did before
• In a digital world, people crave live, breathing events
• In an era of authenticity and credibility, sell out at your peril

Some of these trends sound awfully familiar, don’t they?

It was just last month we looked at a study finding that B2B sales cycles have increased (everything happening slower). And I don’t know how many times I’ve said this, but it bears repeating: in a digital world – that’s now increasingly AI-driven – live, breathing human touchpoints are more important than ever!

There are challenges we may be facing with tech and AI. But there are some big advantages, too. So go ahead and jump – just make sure you’re making the necessary preparations for it!

As always, don’t hesitate to call me to brainstorm or just say hello!

Looking forward,
Rick

Rick Endrulat, President | ricke@v-causeway.com | www.linkedin.com/in/rickendrulat

The post The Growing Role of AI in ABM appeared first on Virtual Causeway.