B2B marketing

  Influencer marketing is often characterized as a trendy tactic for B2C marketers to tap into the far-reaching audiences of the Insta-famous. As a result, the practice regularly receives negative coverage for short-term-oriented, poorly executed B2C campaigns where consumer brands pay vapid lifestyle influencers outrageous sums in exchange for questionable ROI. There’s no doubt that […]

B2B marketers get it. They know they need to operate across their sales and marketing silos to get beyond portfolio-centric campaigns to connect with buyers via specific, contextually relevant content that engages customers across the entire life cycle. The question is no longer why. The question is how. That’s why I am excited about the sessions […]

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect on May 25, 2018. It’s been a few months, and the repercussions are yet to be fully realized, leaving practitioners anxious and wondering if they have fully prepared. So far, GDPR compliance efforts have largely targeted customer data management, digital marketing, and security. However, […]

Journey mapping can be an energizing and eye-opening exercise in customer empathy. As advisors to B2B CX and marketing leaders in the Forrester Leadership Boards (FLB), we come along on many journey mapping “journeys.” The most common question we receive from executives is, “How do I ensure the journey mapping process is actionable and aligned […]

Can we address the elephant in the room? Account-based marketing (ABM) is not just about marketing. It’s about accounts — and how to win, serve, and retain them better than your competition. In our new research on the state of ABM, we found that B2B marketers are enjoying more measurable, substantial results from their account-based efforts this […]

Can we address the elephant in the room? Account-based marketing (ABM) is not just about marketing. It’s about accounts — and how to win, serve, and retain them better than your competition. In our new research on the state of ABM, we found that B2B marketers are enjoying more measurable, substantial results from their account-based efforts this […]

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak at a dinner event with 20-plus senior marketers and business partners that InsideView sponsored. We wanted to explore how well marketing and sales are facing up to new go-to-market (GTM) challenges associated with buyer behavior change in general, account-based marketing (ABM) specifically. To get the conversation going, […]

Well, that was interesting! We just published our “The Forrester New Wave™: ABM Platforms, Q2 2018” report, which profiles the 14 most significant vendors in this market: 6sense, Demandbase, Engagio, Jabmo (formerly Azalead), Lattice Engines, Madison Logic, MRP, Radius, RollWorks, TechTarget, Terminus, Triblio, True Influence, and ZenIQ. Based on our comprehensive criteria, Forrester’s take is […]

“To survive in a world of ‘killer competition,’ you can either distinguish yourself from your competitors or offer the lowest price.” That’s the opinion of Jack Trout, co-author of Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, late president of Trout & Partners, father of the positioning concept. In this month’s conversation with Johannesburg-based author Mark Eardley, […]

It is such a pleasure to be back at Forrester, especially now when our firm is actively embracing and helping you, our customers, leverage new technologies to innovate and differentiate your business. After three years leading technology strategy and market development for Microsoft Azure and Equinix, what brought me back were three things: The value […]

Marketers today are managing more channels, more content, and more data, while delivering vast quantities of personalized content quickly around the globe. As digital marketing complexity increases, more marketers are embracing automation tools to improve efficiency and speed to market. In our first Marketing Automation Technology Forecast, 2017 To 2023, we expect global spending on […]

  Over the past few decades, sales and marketing leaders have been transforming themselves into predictable, data-driven business units. The CRM stage started in the 1990s and accelerated quickly a decade later with lower-priced cloud offerings. The marketing automation stage began to grow exponentially around 2008 and has reached critical mass in its first decade. […]

You have to feel bad for marketers: For years, they’ve tried to keep pace with changing buyer behaviors and adapt to the cross-device and cross-channel habits of their customers. To guide their progress, they’ve fallen back on familiar routines: benchmarking against past performance, optimizing short-term results, and pushing people through the sales funnel. The problem […]

Top B2B marketing leaders think carefully and thoroughly about which markets represent the best fit for their offerings. Account-based marketing (ABM) is the most recent embodiment of this practice – what is generally called go-to-market strategy. Old timers (like me!) hear the ABM hoopla and think “wasn’t this called major* account management 10 years ago?” […]

Account-based marketing (ABM), demand generation, social selling, channel marketing, go-to-market strategy, marketing mix, campaign execution and almost anything that today’s B2B marketer worries about hinges on having relevant content that engages your buyers. My colleague, Ryan Skinner, defines content marketing as: A marketing strategy where brands create interest, relevance, and relationships with customers by producing, […]

Brands know that video resonates with their buyers, but if you’re new to producing video, the format can be daunting. There’s a great opportunity for B2B marketers to use video to help distill and showcase their company’s big ideas. In our report A Blueprint For Successful B2B Video Marketing we outline 3 steps that marketers […]

Earlier this year, Forrester’s South African PR team approached me with an opportunity to share a bit of our B2B thought leadership worldwide.  Mark Eardley, Johannesburg-based author and a regular column contributor to Marklives.com, came across our team’s predictions for 2018.  He was delighted to find a kindred-spirit in heralding a revival and reawakening in B2B […]

Despite acknowledging that insights-driven firms pack competitive advantage into every decision, marketers give me good reasons every single day that they can’t quite rise to the level of insights they want to. But, as in all things, progress can be as powerful as perfection. Take a look at some of these most common concerns and […]

When was the last time you noticed that a colleague was excited about sales training? After having created many a training deck myself, I frequently feel badly about my inability to muster enthusiasm and prioritize time to invest in skills development. When today’s prospects and clients have high expectations for highly personalized consultative interactions, how […]