B2B Marketing

With collective commute times down to zero and face-to-face meetings all but impossible, we’ve seen the B2B buyer journey become an almost exclusively digital experience. It’s time for B2B marketers to close the gaps in their customers’ digital experiences with the assistance of automated conversations created by chatbots and virtual assistants (VAs). These solutions are already popular in B2C and B2B markets, creating experiences that: Meet modern buyers’ expectations of immediacy. Help marketers chase the leads sellers never get to (or the ones you never get […]

In Forrester’s recently published report, “The Forrester Wave™: Sales Content Solutions, Q3 2020,” we evaluated the nine most significant ones — Accent Technologies, Bigtincan, ClearSlide (a division of Corel), Highspot, Mediafly, MindMatrix, Pitcher, Seismic, and Showpad — against 40 criteria. After researching, analyzing, and scoring each vendor’s current offering, strategy, and market presence, we identified […]

B2B marketers are turning to virtual event solutions as an alternative to physical conferences and meetings during the coronavirus pandemic. Successful marketers start with strategy and define the customer experience they want their online events to deliver. Technology supports this but is ineffective without a solid strategy and set of customer experience goals.

Sales enablement and marketing professionals interested in the current and future state of the sales enablement function should take this survey and be the first to receive results.

It’s been two years since we first evaluated the account-based marketing (ABM) platform market — and a LOT has changed. My just-published “The Forrester New Wave™: ABM Platforms, Q2 2020” report shows that at the landscape level, numerous vendors moved out of or into this space. But it’s also true that 10 of the vendors […]

As B2B analysts, we’ve been asking ourselves whether organizations have been responding to this health crisis in a way that is truly helpful to their customers. Our recently published report, “Messaging In The Time Of COVID-19,” which details our findings after reviewing 60 B2B websites and social accounts across 12 industries, seeks to answer that […]

To successfully navigate the shifts in B2B buying behaviors, organizations must chart a course based on a more strategic understanding of the relationship between buyers' expectations and specific offerings.

Mmmmm . . . Millennials. If you haven’t already heard (about a million times), this generation is taking over the workforce and becoming more responsible for making purchasing decisions on the job. Whether or not you believe the projections that most of the US labor force will be run by Millennials by 2025, many studies […]

The theme of Forrester’s “Predictions 2020: B2B Marketing And Sales” report was “accelerating response to the great expectations for the B2B buying experience.” The report made five unique calls; one of them was mine: The number of organizations with audience-based structures will more than double. Since we published the report late last year, I’ve had […]

In this video, I introduce my latest report, “Building The Business Case For A Modern Sales Enablement Toolset.” This research features a customizable financial analysis of the ROI of sales enablement technologies, co-created with Total Economic Impact™ consultant Dean Davison. For more on the topic, Forrester clients can view my research here.

B2B marketing’s AI-powered future is closer than you think. In just a few years, AI has progressed from a promising enabling technology found in a few B2B applications to a staple of modern martech. The data that powers this machine-driven marketing — and delivers the experiences today’s B2B buyers expect — comes in many different […]

What is the most effective way to generate qualified leads and make your account-based marketing (ABM) strategies pay off? Start with a customer-centric message. This advice sounds laughably basic but proves to be very difficult to accomplish in practice. Few get it right. How do I know? Earlier this year, Forrester published new research examining […]

Employees’ Advocacy Boosts Your Content And Customer Interactions While trust in brands has dwindled, B2B buyers hold those same brands’ employees in high regard as authentic and compelling sources of information. And they want to engage with them. In our new research, “Mobilized Employees Engage Buyers With A Trusted Voice,” Matthew Camuso and I explored […]

The idea of online marketplaces is not new, especially on the consumer front, yet in the enterprise IT world, they have developed with fits and starts. But growing frustration with outdated sales processes (and channels) and shifting buyer preferences are creating a perfect storm for B2B marketplaces to come into their own and disrupt large […]

Do you know how to measure your events' ROI?

We first published research on social selling in 2016, and B2B sellers continue to flock to various networks to interact with their customers and prospects. Social provides the opportunity for authentic connections, mutually beneficial professional relationships, and positive business outcomes for both buyers and sellers. But sellers’ inconsistent and boorish behaviors and a lack of […]

More than 500 B2B marketers told Forrester that their company’s website is the most effective demand generation tactic for building awareness and increasing consideration.[i] This same study shows that B2B websites surpass digital advertising, search engine optimization, sales enablement, partner enablement, or events for early-stage demand-gen effectiveness. This means your website is likely to be […]

Woohoo! We just published “The Forrester New Wave™: B2B Customer Data Platforms, Q2 2019” report, which profiles the 13 most significant vendors in this market: Arm Treasure Data, BlueVenn, CaliberMind, Celebrus, Dun & Bradstreet, Evergage, FirstHive, Lattice Engines, Leadspace, Lytics, Radius Intelligence, Tealium, and Zylotech. Based on our comprehensive criteria, Forrester’s take is that Lattice […]

Yesterday, Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) announced its intent to acquire Lattice Engines. Both of us have covered these companies from a number of different perspectives, and we agree that the move makes sense for two primary reasons. First, adding advanced analytics and data management capabilities from Lattice accelerates D&B’s evolution into a comprehensive data platform […]