Elevate B2B Marketing News: B2B Pipeline Study, AI’s Rising Video Use, Google’s New Verification Tools, & What B2B Buyers Want

B2B buyers want purchasing to be more social and entertaining 62 percent of B2B buyers have said that they would like more entertaining online purchasing processes, with 60 percent noting that they plan to increase their use of digital purchasing channels, while over 40 percent will abort an online buying process if it takes more than three seconds — three of numerous findings of interest to B2B marketers contained in newly-published survey data. Digital Commerce 360 B2B Sellers Should Include Financial Data In Emails, Not Sound Robotic: Study 81 percent of B2B sellers said that an understanding of a client's financial performance is important when it comes to engaging executives, while 72 percent reported greater success when such financial data was used, according to recently-released B2B seller survey data. MediaPost Elon Musk and others urge AI pause, citing 'risks to society' A six month development pause on the most powerful new variants of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been urged by over 1,000 AI industry experts — including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak — in an open letter from the non-profit Future of Life Institute, as the rapid pace of AI evolution has caused increasing concern across industry boundaries. Reuters Google Announces The Ads Transparency Center And 2022 Ads Safety Report Search giant Google is launching new advertising transparency data and tools with the global rollout of a new Ads Transparency Center — combining ad data from its Google Search, Display, and YouTube platforms — along with new insights from its most recent Ads Safety Report, Google recently announced. Search Engine Journal Remove Boredom and Frustration from Your Customer Journey Marketers who are able to recognize and overcome customer challenges relating to frustration and boredom along the purchasing path stand to connect with customers on new emotional levels, and the Harvard Business Review takes a look at the power of making new things familiar and familiar things new. Harvard Business Review Digital Not Immune From Current Ad Recession, Falls 2% YTD Overall U.S. advertising spending fell by 6.9 percent during January and February 2023, however the digital segment recorded a decline of just two percent, as digital's share of overall ad spending climbed to 59 percent, according to newly-published Standard Media Index data. MediaPost Is AI the Future of Video Creation? We Asked Wistia's Head of Production AI has seen growing use within video creation, as content creators look to increase efficiency and tap into a new realm of creativity made possible by the nascent technology, and HubSpot recently explored how Wistia's head of production has implemented an AI workflow in the video creation process. HubSpot [bctt tweet="“AI is opening the door to new ideas, new executions, and new visuals that I may not have come up with on my own. It's expanding my creative palette, not just saving me time.” — Chris Lavigne @crlvideo" username="toprank"] Five new ways to verify info with Google Search Google has published new details about its updated “About this result” and other digital information verification tools, as the search giant seeks to bolster its digital fact-checking features and to help pinpoint contextual information gaps and increase information literacy, Google recently announced. Google Zoom is adding new features to compete with Slack, Calendly, Google and Microsoft Zoom has begun rolling out an array of new and updated features, including meeting summaries fueled by AI, whiteboard generation, and Zoom IQ for Sales which offers video call sales data, among other new functionality, Zoom announced recently. TechCrunch To Boost Conversion Rates, B2B Marketers Look to Better Understand Their Pipelines 43 percent of U.S. B2B marketers have said that improving the quality of the leads they gather and the nurturing they perform is a top priority when it comes to increasing conversion rates, with 39 percent pointing to improved pipeline analysis, and 34 percent who pinpointed better having a better understanding of which leads convert in their organization's pipeline — some of the findings included in newly-published survey data of interest to B2B marketers. MarketingCharts ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: A lighthearted look at “AI Written, AI Read” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist Two Hearted IPA’s new campaign celebrates its utter disdain for what’s trending — Ad Age TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• Lane R. Ellis — This Week in Marketing: Spring Cleaning for Marketing Strategies — LinkedIn (client)
• TopRank Marketing — Manufacturing Best Practices for Influencer Marketing — Industry Today

FRIDAY FIVE B2B MARKETING FAVORITES TO FOLLOW: Jenn Herman @jenns_trends Allen Weiss @allenweiss Ashley Faus @ashleyfaus John Jantsch @ducttape Pam Didner @PamDidner Learn more about TopRank Marketing‘s mission to help elevate the B2B marketing industry. Have you come across a top B2B marketing news item for the week that we haven't yet covered? If so, please don't hesitate to drop us a line in the comments below. Thank you for taking the time to join us for the Elevate B2B Marketing News, and we hope that you will come back again next Friday for another selection of the most up-to-date and relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us on our LinkedIn page, or at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news.

The post Elevate B2B Marketing News: B2B Pipeline Study, AI’s Rising Video Use, Google’s New Verification Tools, & What B2B Buyers Want appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

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The Power Of Play In Business Culture

How To Take Back Control Of Technology

The Difference Between Zero-Party, First-Party & Third-Party Data

We know — and even expect — brands to understand us and offer up personalized experiences. (And at this point, isn’t it annoying when a brand obviously doesn’t “get” us?) While we’ve seen a major shift from third-party to first-party data over the past few years, the latest trend now relies on zero-party data. And, if used correctly, it will become the most powerful source of buyer information.

Quick definitions 

Before we dive much further, let’s quickly recap the different data sources:

• Third-party data is obtained or purchased from an outside source. Think Apple or Facebook’s abilities to provide demographic or other interests based on information collected from those sites. The data is not exclusive to your company, meaning anyone can have access to the same data.

• First-party data is collected by you. You collect it from your website, your app, or within your product itself. Typically, first-party data is behavioral data, such as a user clicking on three different screens — it shows you how the user engages with different experiences.

• Zero-party data is collected from — and shared voluntarily by — the user. Rather than assuming three clicks on different screens shows an intent to buy, you would ask the user directly, such as through a survey.

There’s also second-party data which is the first-party data from another source. It might be a trusted business partner that opts to share the data with you, or data you purchase. But for this discussion, we will focus on third, first, and zero-party data.

Third-party data is more limited than ever

Third-party data used to reign supreme. It was easy to rely on the data of tech giants like Google, Apple, and Facebook — with access to hundreds of millions of users — for targeted advertising. But that changed with increased scrutiny over privacy. GDPR was implemented in 2018, fundamentally changing how individuals can control access to their data in the EU. Apple introduced user privacy options in iOS 14.5 and higher, where users could choose how their data is tracked. And Google has announced its intention to phase out third-party cookies by the end of 2024. Marketers have realized that they cannot rely on third-party data in the future, and that it's better to collect the data — in some form — themselves.

First-party data makes assumptions

First-party data can range from simple web analytics to in-depth product analytics that track every step of the user journey. It can be used for retargeting, personalized experiences, finding that “sticky” factor, and more. First-power data powers the experiences we expect — like Netflix’s “More Items to Explore” recommendations. First-party data goes far deeper than third-party data because it looks at user behavior. Rather than placing users into buckets based on characteristics, first-party data relies on what users do on your website and within your product. Do they spend two minutes looking at a product page? They’re probably thinking about a purchase. Do they click around to a lot of different screens during a free trial? They’re probably trying to see if it’s a good fit and maybe worth a paid subscription. The key here is “probably.” Marketers still need to look at those behaviors and interpret what they mean. Sometimes, the intent is obvious. Other times, it’s speculation. The data can get really complicated, really fast — particularly on the B2B buying journey. [bctt tweet="“First-party data can range from simple web analytics to in-depth product analytics that track every step of the user journey.” — Katelyn Drake @KB_Drake" username="toprank"]

Zero-party data truly shows buyer intent

We’ve been talking about the future of SEO and an intent-based marketing strategy a lot lately. Gathering and utilizing zero-party data layers in even more insights to inform that intent approach, giving brands a deeper understanding of a potential buyer’s goals and intentions before they make an engagement or purchase decision. Brands can use that data to tailor messages and offerings for each individual customer on a much higher level than ever before. What’s the best way to determine a buyer’s interest in your product? Ask directly. Forrester Research coined the phrase “zero-party” data with the definition: "Zero-party data is that which a customer intentionally and proactively shares with a brand. It can include preference center data, purchase intentions, personal context, and how the individual wants the brand to recognize [them]." Zero-party data is the information a consumer willingly shares with a brand, helping brands boost customer trust, personalization, and loyalty. You might collect zero-party data from a survey, chatbot, or profile information or other form fill. You’re collecting very specific information that you can use to target the buyer, such as “What brought you to our site today?” — with a few different selections. It’s even more credible and trustworthy than even first-party data because it removes the guesswork about the buyer journey. And it can reduce marketing waste because you know exactly what the buyer wants. But zero-party data should be collected sparingly and used strategically. You can’t ask an individual customer to complete a 20-question survey or answer a pop-up on every website page of your website. And your follow-through has to be spot-on: if customers share their preferences and then don’t receive a personalized experience, they’ll wonder why they shared anything. Know what to ask, when to ask, and what questions will drive the most value. [bctt tweet="“First-party data goes far deeper than third-party data because it looks at user behavior. Rather than placing users into buckets based on characteristics, (it) relies on what users do on your website and within your product.” — @Forrester" username="toprank"]

Think beyond the initial purchase

Zero-party data should be an ongoing strategy and part of your full-funnel lead gen approach . Whether you’re looking for repeat purchases, upsells, or customer retention, you can always consider ways to get into the minds of your customers. That might mean an email campaign asking about customer satisfaction that you can use to personalize future offers. Or you can craft a survey and offer an entry into a giveaway in exchange for answering a few questions. These asks should always have the same goal: to create elevated and personalized content experiences for everyone in your market, no matter where they are in the decision-making funnel. The use of zero-party data should never feel forced. Instead, you’re showing customers that you understand — and respect — their buying decisions. Learn more about crafting great B2B content experiences with our new free guide, Marketing with Intent: The Future of SEO & B2B Search Traffic.

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How Music Can Help Make Your B2B Content Sing

I asked ChatGPT to write the introduction for this post. Here’s what it gave me:

In the world of B2B marketing, creating engaging and effective content is crucial for attracting and retaining customers. However, the process of brainstorming ideas and putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) can sometimes feel daunting and unproductive. That's where music comes in. Listening to music has been shown to have a multitude of benefits for the brain, including improved mood, increased focus, and enhanced creativity. In this blog post, we'll explore how incorporating music into your writing process can help B2B marketers produce better content and connect with their audience on a deeper level.

Now, that’s not a bad introduction, per se. It reminds me of a high school student writing a 5-paragraph essay. It knows the notes, but not the music — it’s hard to imagine someone feeling passionate about this content, its author, or the brand that brought it to you. But the problem here isn’t AI. B2B brands have been putting out robotic, commodity content for years. AI just makes it possible to churn it out faster. How can B2B content marketers make sure audiences will love their content? How can writers create content that builds a relationship with the brand?  Make it sing. As a writer, I find listening to the right mix of music helps me put soul and personality into my stuff.

Why Music?

Great writing has rhythm. It ebbs and flows, sometimes speeding up and up and up and up until it seems like it can’t go any faster…sometimes…slowing. To. A. Crawl. It shimmies. It jives. It shakes all over like a jellyfish (sorry, Freddie). If a song has the same rhythm, tempo and melody all the way through, it starts to grate—think “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” The same is true with your writing. A little music in the background will work its way into your subconscious and out through your content.

What Music?

Taste in music is highly subjective (except for mine, which is impeccable), and the right music for productive writing will vary from person to person. For example, I can’t write to songs with lyrics—the vocal track captures my full attention. So when I need an energy boost, I go for synthwave music. Think of it as a never ending soundtrack to the best 90s video game that never existed.  For editing, I switch to “lo-fi hip-hop” music. The dirty secret: It’s really just smooth jazz with a makeover to appeal to the youths. Just the same, it’s good for covering up distracting background noises and getting into deep concentration mode. Finally, for a brain break and quick burst of energy, some new-school pop punk is just right: You might substitute gangsta rap for high-energy, classical for editing, and country and western for your brain break. Find what works for you; just don’t sit in stone-faced silence writing staid and bland content.

Music and Your Brand

So far, we’ve been talking about how music can liven up your B2B content and boost your creative process. But music can be more than just a conduit between your brain and your keyboard.  Part of differentiating your brand in a sea of B2B content is developing a unique brand voice. That voice should come across not just in written content, but in every type of media you put out. When you make social media videos for your brand, what’s your soundtrack? It’s not enough to go to your favorite stock music site and search for “Inoffensive Corporate Vibes.” You’ll either get something that sounds like the intro to the nightly news, or one of those ukelele/fingersnap/whistling monstrosities that pass for breezy corporate pop music. For TopRank Marketing's Break Free B2B Marketing series, we wanted something with a little attitude, something attention-grabbing—the audio equivalent of a grizzly bear shooting laser beams. So we did this: As our brand evolves, we’ve been exploring more chill, sophisticated, but still unique sounds: Which type of music matches your B2B brand will vary. What’s important is to be mindful of music whether you're using it to set the mood for creativity or picking the background music for a content marketing project. Don’t throw in whatever comes up on your first search. Be just as strategic developing your brand’s musical personality as you are with the rest of your branding.

Face the Music and Dance

B2B content marketing is currently getting flooded with repetitive, bland, AI-generated content. This is different than just a few years ago, when content marketing was flooded with repetitive, bland content written by humans. The only way to rise above either of these content deluges is by writing with passion, personality and style. It’s developing a brand identity for your B2B business that’s consistent across media, including the soundtrack that plays in the background. So crank up the tunes, keep your content fun, and dance your way into your customers’ hearts.  Want to step up your content game? We’re here to help.

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Weekend Favs March 25

Weekend Favs March 25 written by Felipe Orrego read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but I encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one I took on the road.

• Emitto – A solution that helps businesses send personalized messaging marketing campaigns to their segmented audience across various channels such as SMS, Viber, Messenger, etc. with no coding needed.
• Sotrender – A social media marketing solution that helps businesses enhance their social media and communication strategies by generating social media and ad reports, monitoring campaign goals, analyzing content performance, and discovering insights; using AI and machine learning technology.
  
• Aimtell – A customer experience solution, which lets businesses enhance visitor engagement by sending automated push notifications that are hyper-targeted. This allows customer segmentation, custom branding, retaining customers, and data management.
  
   

These are my weekend favs; I would love to hear about some of yours – Tweet me @ducttape

If you want to check out more Weekend Favs you can find them here.

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Elevate B2B Marketing News: CMOs Shift Priorities, Adobe’s New AI, Changing B2B Buyer Journeys, & Google Rolls Out Bard AI

B2B CMOs Make Meaningful Shifts in Priorities 30 percent of B2B chief marketing officers have said that growth was tops when it comes to what they want to deliver in their role, while 21 percent pointed to better customer experiences, with 19 percent having said greater efficiency — three findings contained in newly-published B2B CMO survey data. MarketingCharts B2B purchasing is for the young — and digital [Report] 35 percent of B2B buyers in the millennial and Generation Z demographic are say that they prefer using enterprise purchasing apps, while 24 percent of older buyers prefer inside sales reps, while dissatisfaction with vendors was also higher among younger B2B buyers — three of numerous findings of interest to B2B marketers contained in recently-released survey data. Digital Commerce 360 The B2B buyer journey is not fit for purpose, here’s how to fix it B2B buyer journeys have shifted from a single hand-off to sales from marketing, as greater overlap between the two departments has begun helping brands appreciate and capitalize on the nuances and strengths of both, and Marketing Week takes a look. Marketing Week Adobe announces Firefly for AI-driven creative Adobe has announced the addition of Sensei GenAI to the its Adobe Experience Platform, along with generative AI-infused Adobe Firefly visual tools for creators, in a move aimed at ramping up Adobe’s AI creative technology for marketers and other professionals. MarTech [bctt tweet="“I'm very excited for Adobe Firefly and how thoughtfully they've addressed issues and concerns in the #AI space.” — Goldie Chan @GoldieChan" username="toprank"] Google Bard Begins To Slowly Rollout - Citations, Limitations & Early Access Google has begin a limited launch of its Bard collaborative artificial intelligence (AI) generative chatbot service, which it has sought to differentiate from the search giant's traditional search services. Search Engine Roundtable Startup behind Stable Diffusion releases AI system for generating videos from text Runway has augmented its AI lineup which already included the Stable Diffusion AI image creator with an early rollout of an AI-to-video tool — limited initially to three seconds in length, Runway recently announced. Reuters YouTube Adds Podcast Analytics, New Hashtag Recommendations for Long-Form Clips Google’s YouTube has added an array of new options for creating and managing podcasts on the video platform — an area that has seen continued growth — among other updates including suggested hashtags for long-form video content, YouTube announced recently. Social Media Today High-Tech Touchpoints Are Changing Customer Experience More intuitive customer interactions can lead to better customer experience (CX) as touch-points undergo changes, and the Harvard Business Review takes a look at creative way to expand on traditional CX components such as convenience, choice, navigation, and payments. Harvard Business Review LinkedIn Adds Native Post Scheduling for Company Pages, New Audio Event Options Microsoft-owned LinkedIn has rolled out a series of new updates, including allowing pages to follow other LinkedIn pages on the platform, along with a full launch of native scheduling, and an array of audio event features, LinkedIn (client) recently announced. Social Media Today Ad-Blocking Consumers Influence Purchase Decisions, Magna Study Finds 53 percent of the millennial demographic have said that they block digital ads — a practice undertaken by just 19 percent of Gen Z and six percent of baby boomers — and marketers are adjusting their techniques when it comes to reaching these ad-averse groups, according to newly-published survey data of interest to B2B marketers. MediaPost ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: A lighthearted look at “Do Something” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist New NCAA Streaming Service Lets Fans Watch 4 Capital One Commercials At Same Time — The Onion TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• Katelyn Drake — This Week in Marketing: Check Your Marketing Mix — LinkedIn (client)
• Lee Odden / NetLine — Celebrate! NetLine’s 6th Annual B2B Content Consumption Report Wins Award for Best Research — NetLine

FRIDAY FIVE B2B MARKETING FAVORITES TO FOLLOW: Masha Finkelstein @masha3003 Ann Handley @MarketingProfs Michael J. Barber @michaeljbarber Melanie Deziel @mdeziel Christopher Penn @cspenn Learn more about TopRank Marketing‘s mission to help elevate the B2B marketing industry. Have you found your own top B2B marketing news item for the week that we haven't yet covered? If so, please don't hesitate to drop us a line in the comments below. Thanks for joining us for the Elevate B2B Marketing News, and we hope you'll return again next Friday for another array of the most up-to-date and relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us on our LinkedIn page, or at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news.

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Exploring The Art Of Messaging

Redefining Strength: How Anxiety Can Be a Leadership Asset

Feeding Today’s Hunger For Better B2B Content Marketing Experiences

It’s a great time to be a B2B content marketer. The appetite for content marketing within B2B audiences is high, and content marketers say it remains by far the best tactic in terms of ROI. But as content marketers we have to tread carefully: to paraphrase the old proverb, an opportunity is just a crisis waiting to happen. We need to make sure we are giving our readers what they want, because if we don’t, they’ll look elsewhere — and they might not come back. And we don’t have to look far to know we can’t take our audiences for granted. The wild and frankly erratic moment happening in the world of social media has seen participation and engagement on social channels drop significantly. All except for TikTok, that is. Lucky for us, we have a bit of insight into what B2B audiences want in their content marketing in 2023. Let’s take a look at the top three demands for content marketing in 2023.

1 — Empathetic, human content

The persistent success of TikTok holds a lesson for content marketers: it’s raw, funny, relatable… in a word, human. B2B content marketing, on the other hand, has a different reputation: boring. In fact, on this blog alone there are over 430 instances of us assuring you that B2B content doesn’t have to be boring. B2B content marketing consumers’ taste is starting to catch up with us. Writing empathetic, human content is a surefire way to engage your audience, because it feels relatable and validating. But you don’t have to go with your gut on writing empathetic content. In fact, writing content based on your audience’s experience is best done with plenty of data. By learning what motivates your audience through research, you can more effectively speak empathetically about the topic at hand. They are then more likely to recognize themselves and their own problems in the content, and are therefore more likely to trust you as a source. [bctt tweet="“By learning what motivates your audience through research, you can more effectively speak empathetically about the topic at hand.” — Art Allen @Punsultant" username="toprank"]

2 — High quality thought leadership

This remains an open secret that I am eager for more of you to take advantage of: there is huge demand for high quality thought leadership. And yet, in 2023, there is still not a lot of it to be found. Why am I making such a big deal about this? It’s not just a hunch: a recent study conducted by LinkedIn* and Edelman found that thought leadership is the most effective type of content marketing a B2B organization can produce. And this isn’t just in good times. Most of the decision makers surveyed said good thought leadership content can persuade them to buy non-essential products and services even in an economic downturn. So what makes good thought leadership content? According to that LinkedIn-Edelman report, it’s content that gets right to the point: how I can help your business succeed and outperform your competitors. If you can demonstrate your value, you’re in. [bctt tweet="“There is huge demand for high quality thought leadership. And yet, in 2023, there is still not a lot of it to be found.” — Art Allen @Punsultant" username="toprank"]

3 — Content that matches intent

The days of capitalizing on search volume by optimizing your content based on a list of keywords are long gone. In 2023, your content needs to match search intent if it’s going to be valuable to the reader. For instance, if the search term you chose for your B2B brand is also related to a popular basketball team, you need to figure out how to tweak that search term to capture the B2B audience and avoid the basketball fans. But search intent is more than just matching the semantic intent of search terms. You also have to match the user’s intent in terms of the type of information they’re looking for. Are they trying to learn the basics about a topic, research the best option for their specific use case, or are they ready to buy? These different search intents map quite neatly onto the marketing funnel, and you should consider where your user is in that journey and match the content and CTA accordingly. No one wants the hard sell when they’re just browsing. For more empathetic, high quality thought leadership from the humans you love, follow the TopRank Marketing blog. Learn more about crafting great B2B content experiences with our new free guide, Marketing with Intent: The Future of SEO & B2B Search Traffic. * LinkedIn is a TopRank Marketing client.

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Humanize, Organize, Strategize & Personalize: 4 Ways To Boost B2B Influencer Marketing With Generative AI

How can B2B brands best harness the power of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help take their influencer marketing to the next level? At this point, it seems unlikely content that has been created with at least some AI-generated tool assistance will be shunned, making it likely that for better or worse it will soon be the rule rather than the exception — if it isn't already. Some organizations may put policies in place that forbid the use of generative AI, however for those that don’t there are many helpful and creative ways these tools can be harnessed to take B2B influencer marketing to the next level. Let’s explore top ways B2B marketers can use generative AI to humanize, organize, strategize and personalize when it comes to influencer marketing.

1 — Humanize Influence With AI

When used wisely, generative AI can genuinely help build better B2B influencer marketing relationships. In what may be a surprisingly counterintuitive twist, AI can also help marketers build and strengthen very real human relationships, and to connect with audiences and potential customers using powerful human touch-points, as we explored in "What Recent Data Shows About The Rising Importance of Human Touch-Points in B2B Marketing." There’s never been a time when our innate human elements have held greater importance as a key differentiator in marketing, however this doesn’t mean that AI can’t also play a role. AI tools can help in a number of areas in B2B influencer marketing, not only allowing marketers to expand on the efforts they can accomplish alone, but to use AI for freeing up time that can be spent on real human interactions — the lifeblood of B2B influence. Whether it’s using generative AI tools to help pre-sorting and pre-analyzing data before a B2B marketer takes that written work to levels that AI can’t, or drawing on the power of AI image, video, and audio tools to quickly build mock-ups, AI technology can play a helpful role in B2B influence. One thing AI has brought to B2B marketing is a new focus on the power of words and the stories they tell. "Whether you believe AI is a game-changer or not... there’s been a 180-degree, hard-turn towards this: WORDS MATTER," Ann Handley, chief content officer at MarketingProfs, recently observed. [bctt tweet="“Whether you believe AI is a game-changer or not... there’s been a 180-degree, hard-turn towards this: WORDS MATTER.” — Ann Handley @MarketingProfs" username="toprank"]

2 — Organize & Craft With AI Assistance

Taking complex and sizable amounts of B2B influencer marketing data and organizing it into the most relevant structures to begin crafting highly-focused influencer campaigns are tasks that generative AI is especially useful for. Begin by gathering the data you wish to analyze, and then focus on winnowing down the prompts you use to query the AI tool of your choice, refining your questions to produce better output with each iteration, until you’re left with results that you can then begin to enhance with the human elements that no algorithm can synthesize. Strong organizational skills augmented with AI tools can then help when it comes time to craft content of all sorts. AI not only offers potential boosts to B2B influencer marketing, but also to content marketing, as we recently explored in "5 Ways ChatGPT Will Change the Future of B2B Content Marketing." "Smartly leveraging AI tools for content creation can drive costs down and boost efficiency, but it's crucial to avoid generic and uninspired content," Benjamin Shapiro, CEO at I Hear Everything, suggested recently. [bctt tweet="“Smartly leveraging AI tools for content creation can drive costs down and boost efficiency, but it's crucial to avoid generic and uninspired content.” — Benjamin Shapiro @benjshap" username="toprank"]

3 — Strategize With Generative AI Insight

Analyzing a variety of influencer marketing approaches from top competitors will help highlight key differences, and allow you to develop campaign strategies that capitalize on your own organization’s strengths. AI tools can be put to use to help compile strategic B2B influencer marketing options that truly stand out from the competition. By using AI to strategize and help with even mundane day-to-day B2B marketing tasks, marketers stand to gain both time and new insights. "My recommendation for anybody who is actually not familiar with artificial intelligence is to look at what you do on day-to-day basis, your roles and your responsibility, and think about how AI can apply," Pam Didner, vice president of marketing at Relentless Pursuit, recently shared in a discussion with our own CEO Lee Odden, in "B2BMX Speaker Spotlight: Pam Didner on Artificial Intelligence Impact on B2B Marketing." Care must be taken to recognize that influencer efforts that rely solely on AI and automation tools can only go so far, while the most successful strategies take off from this point and utilize human-powered marketing skills to reach levels AI alone can’t achieve. "Automation hands many of your mundane and repetitive tasks over to technology, freeing you and your team to focus on the creative elements of content generation," Brody Dorland, co-founder of DivvyHQ, noted recently. "AI allows you to create more in less time," Dorland added. [bctt tweet="“Automation hands many of your mundane and repetitive tasks over to technology, freeing you and your team to focus on the creative elements of content generation. AI allows you to create more in less time.” — Brody Dorland @BrodyDorland" username="toprank"]

4 — Personalize & Grow Your Network of Influence With AI

AI tools can also help with potential B2B influencer identification, sorting, and outreach assistance. AI may be destined to become a built-in part of nearly all the digital tools we use daily, from social platforms and search engines to apps to software of all sorts. A role AI tools are increasingly playing is that of automated personal assistant, and in that capacity they can certainly enhance B2B influencer marketing efforts. Concerns over whether AI is bringing us a general sense of positivity and making us feel that we're heading in the right direction, or instead that we're heading off the tracks, are genuine and will be addresses throughout 2023. It's a topic we recently expanded on, in "The Prompt Whisperer: ChatGPT’s Rising Reach In B2B Marketing & The AI Revolution." "We should be excited about AI. And we should be worried," David J.P. Fisher, global social selling lead — senior sales enablement program manager at SAS recently observed. "Because that means we’ll look at it from as many angles as possible and hopefully avoid as many 'unanticipated' consequences as possible," Fisher added. [bctt tweet="“We should be excited about AI. And we should be worried. Because that means we’ll look at it from as many angles as possible and hopefully avoid as many 'unanticipated' consequences as possible.” — David J.P. Fisher @dfishrockstar" username="toprank"]

Use The Right Generation AI Tools For The Job

via GIPHY By taking the generative AI steps we’ve outlined to humanize, organize, strategize and personalize your B2B influencer marketing, your tactical tool-belt will be ready to tackle a wide range of online marketing tasks in 2023 and beyond. We hope this look at some of the ways that AI tools are being used in B2B influencer marketing will help in your own efforts. Learn more about the nuances of B2B influence in our free B2B Influencer Marketing Research Report, 59 pages rich with survey insights, case studies from B2B brands, predictions from top B2B marketing experts, a list of 20 top influencer marketing practitioners from major B2B brands, and much more. More than ever before, creating award-winning B2B marketing that elevates, gives voice to talent, and humanizes with authenticity takes considerable time and effort, which is why more brands are choosing to work with a B2B marketing agency like TopRank Marketing. Reach out to learn how we can help, as we’ve done for over 20 years for businesses ranging from LinkedIn, Dell and 3M to Adobe, Oracle, monday.com and many others. Whether you are looking for an influencer pilot program or ready to expand your current efforts, our team can help!   

The post Humanize, Organize, Strategize & Personalize: 4 Ways To Boost B2B Influencer Marketing With Generative AI appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

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Weekend Favs March 18

Weekend Favs March 18 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but I encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one I took on the road.

• AdCreative.ai – A conversion-focused generator of ad and social media post creatives in a matter of seconds, using Artificial Intelligence to help you save time and money while growing your business or brand.
• ContentStudio – An integrated cloud-based social media management and content marketing solution that caters to small to midsize businesses and solo entrepreneurs. It generates social media post captions using AI to save time and share quality content that connects with your audience.
  
• TAMI – This platform uses AI technology to help you identify new customers depending on your business’s niche. It gives you direct access to thousands of companies and 400M verified business contacts that allow you to grow your market opportunities.
   

These are my weekend favs; I would love to hear about some of yours – Tweet me @ducttape

If you want to check out more Weekend Favs you can find them here.

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How To Scale Your B2B Marketing Strategy

Elevate B2B Marketing News: B2B Influencer Benchmarks, Top Data Leader Priorities Report, & Microsoft’s AI Ad Insights

Creative Services Professionals Are Most Concerned About AI 23 percent of marketing executives have said that they are interested in artificial intelligence (AI), with the top sectors interested in AI being software development, computer engineering, electronics, and creative services, while 12 percent of advertising executives said they are concerned about AI taking their jobs — three of several findings of interest to B2B marketers contained in newly-published survey data. MediaPost Google rolled out new site names, favicon and sponsored label on desktop search Search giant Google has released a search update that displays an array of additional website information within desktop search, including a secondary website name element, icon images, and more, along with more prominent advertising labels in mobile search results, Google recently announced, presenting new SEO options for B2B marketers. Search Engine Land B2B Influencer Marketing—The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Mike Allton on Marketing Smarts [Podcast] B2B brands have increasingly found success using nano and micro influencers with fewer but more focused followers than traditional high-profile influencers, while patience in developing influencer relationships can reap long-term rewards, as MarketingProfs explored recently with Mike Allton of Agorapulse. MarketingProfs [bctt tweet="“In the business world, we have found, particularly recently, that working with nano and micro influencers works so much better.” — @Mike_Allton of @Agorapulse" username="toprank"] How agencies are multiplying their impact and expertise with AI-powered solutions [Google Report] 56 percent of marketers have said that they rely on agencies for analytics, intelligence, and insights — a figure forecast to rise to 73 percent over the next two years, and AI is playing an increasing role of this and other areas marketing, as Google recently explored in its latest AI guide and report. Think With Google Influencer Marketing Cost-per-Engagement Benchmarks Micro-influencers with fewer than sixty thousand followers, and nano-influencers with less than ten thousand followers, are the most likely brand partners in an influencer marketing landscape that is expected to top $5 billion in the U.S. alone, according to newly-released survey data of interest to digital marketers. MarketingCharts DuckDuckGo Releases Its Own ChatGPT-Powered Search Tool, DuckAssist Search engine company DuckDuckGo has launched a test version of its privacy-focused search engine that incorporates its own implementation of OpenAI's ChatGPT AI technology, aimed at helping to answer specific search queries that would otherwise have no results, DuckDuckGo recently announced. Gizmodo Microsoft Starts To Define How Advertising Works In Search And Bing Chat Queries Microsoft has outlined some of the ways that advertising will function within its AI-enhanced Bing search engine, with forthcoming options that will allow advertisers to customize elements of the tone that Bing's chatbot uses, among other options, Microsoft recently announced. MediaPost How social fragmentation is creating more opportunities for advertisers The nature of social media has shifted over the past several years — with newer platforms such as Mastodon and BeReal entering the fray while certain established platforms such as Twitter have undergone changes causing brands to re-think strategies, combining to make spending choices more complex for advertisers, and DigiDay takes a look at some of the opportunities these changes present. DigiDay The stereotyping of women in ads is getting worse In 2022 a scant seven percent of advertisements featured women in professional settings, with spending representing just 4.7 percent of ad spend, while spending dropped 20 percent from 2021 to 2022 when it came to ads featuring women with darker skin tones — three of numerous statistics of interest to B2B marketers contained in newly-published survey data. The Drum Data Leaders Outline Their Priorities This Year 52 percent of global data leaders have said that improved governance over their organization's data processes was a top priority for 2023, with 46 percent having pinpointed improving data-driven culture and data literacy, while 45 percent highlighted getting a more holistic view of customers, according to recently-released survey data on interest to digital marketers. MarketingCharts ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: A lighthearted look at “influencer stalking” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist Why the Floppy Disk Just Won’t Die — Wired TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• • TopRank Marketing — Four B2B Digital Marketing Predictions For 2023 — Forbes
  • Lee Odden — Be Bold, Be Empathetic, Lean into New Ideas: Lessons Learned at B2B Marketing Exchange (B2BMX) 2023 — Integrate

FRIDAY FIVE B2B MARKETING FAVORITES TO FOLLOW: Gopi Kallayil @GopiKallayil Tyrona Heath @tyrona Sangram Vajre @sangramvajre Kelvin Gee @kgee Matthew T Grant @MattTGrant Learn more about TopRank Marketing‘s mission to help elevate the B2B marketing industry. Have you come across a top B2B marketing news item for the week that we haven't yet covered? If so, please don't hesitate to drop us a line in the comments below. Thank you for taking the time to join us for the Elevate B2B Marketing News, and we hope you will return next Friday for another collection of the most up-to-date and relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us on our LinkedIn page, or at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news.

The post Elevate B2B Marketing News: B2B Influencer Benchmarks, Top Data Leader Priorities Report, & Microsoft’s AI Ad Insights appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

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Cracking the Code of Data-Driven Marketing

What is Search Intent and Why Is It Fundamental to SEO?

When you googled “what is search intent,” you had the informational intention to seek out an answer to your question and learn more about a topic you’ve been hearing about. As you can see, we understood that intent and wrote this blog post to answer your question. In other words: you’ve clearly come to the right place! Search intent isn’t a “new” concept in SEO, but it is a surprisingly overlooked concept, especially in B2B. This is a problem for a couple reasons: First and foremost, there’s the scary reason. As SEO becomes more and more competitive and third-party cookies go the way of the dinosaur, B2B businesses really have their work cut out for them if they want to stand out. Just targeting high-volume keywords isn’t going to cut it anymore; we’ll need to reach the right audience with the right message using the right keywords. Which brings us to a less scary, more exciting reason why it’s so great that you’re looking up search intent right now: because it’s a huge opportunity. Marketing with intent is the way for today’s marketers to stand out in an increasingly crowded marketplace and reach their audience more effectively than ever. Let’s talk about why:

What is Search Intent?

Simply put, search intent is the reason why a user types a query into a search engine. Yoast breaks search intent down into four broad categories:

1. Informational: The user is looking for information, such as the answer to a question. If you found this blog by googling “what is search intent?” or even just “search intent” with the hope of learning more about this topic, then your intent was informational.
2. Navigational: The user is trying to navigate to a particular website. If you searched “TopRank” or “TopRank Marketing” with the intention of finding our website (thank you!), then your intent was navigational. Or if you ever type “Twitter” into Google rather than typing out Twitter’s URL, Google will understand you’re probably trying to navigate to Twitter and provide that website at the top of your search engine results page (SERP), rather than, say, the Wikipedia page for Twitter.
3. Transactional: When the user has transactional intent, they’re trying to buy something on the internet immediately. This often means they’ll type in the exact brand or product name of what they want to buy, or attach “for sale” or “buy online” directly into the search query.
4. Commercial: Commercial intent occurs when the user may be interested in buying a product or service, but they want to know more about it first. “Commercial” intent is primarily for buying research.

If you googled “search intent marketing agency” with the intention of finding an agency to do search intent marketing for your organization, for instance, your intent would be commercial (and we’re excited to help!). [bctt tweet="“Marketing with intent is the way for today’s marketers to stand out in an increasingly crowded marketplace and reach their audience more effectively than ever.” — Nick Nelson @NickNelsonMN" username="toprank"]

Why search intent matters to modern SEO

For search engines, intent is the be-all, end-all. Google became as successful as it is today because at the time it was created, its algorithm was much better at accurately assessing intent than other search engines. That meant when people used Google to conduct their searches, they actually found what they were looking for. The rest, as they say, is history. Search engines are still all about trying to read their user’s intent and provide them with the best answer to their query. And that means they’re all about rewarding anyone who helps them do that. By understanding your own audience’s intent and servicing it effectively, you can earn relevance, reputation, and respect just like Google did. In fact, Google will help you do it! Search engines notice which links users click on in the SERPs they provide. The more users click your links from SERPs, the more search engines will raise your brand’s “authority” on a given subject. The higher your authority, the more likely your content is to appear higher on related SERPs. The higher your content appears on related SERPs, the more likely more highly relevant and qualified users are going to click on it organically. The more relevant clicks your content achieves organically, the higher your authority continues to grow… and so on. Perhaps most importantly, improving your understanding of your audience’s search intent won’t just improve your site’s search engine optimization (SEO), either. As you optimize your on-page content not just for keywords but for actual audience intent, the process also optimizes the real value the pages you’ll point your audience can offer to that audience. In other words, SEO-optimizing for intent isn’t just essential for modern SEO optimization; it’s a way to unite all of your organic marketing efforts around the most important and pertinent goal for any business: serving your customers better.

Why keywords alone are not enough

Historically, search intent has been overshadowed by a somewhat myopic focus on keywords in SEO. This has led to many B2B companies targeting keywords with very high search volumes that seem relevant to their tech solutions — regardless of the intent users have when searching for that term. Unfortunately, this tends to lead to B2B businesses pursuing keywords that are applicable to an extremely wide variety of intents. A keyword like “what is digital transformation,” for instance, is searched 3,600 times every month in the U.S. If we’re only considering search volume in our SEO strategy, that would make it very attractive. However, when thinking about intent, there are two problems with pursuing a keyword like this one:

1. It’s a very competitive keyword (88% difficulty according to SEMrush), because of how broad it is… and because of how many other companies are after it for the same reasons we would be
2. The quality of the traffic this keyword would bring in, even if we could beat the competition and land on page one, would likely be very low. This is because the intent of the keyword is very likely “informational,” meaning users aren’t necessarily looking for a tech solution, but simply want to know what the term means.

By paying attention to intent when selecting keywords, on the other hand, we would know not to pursue an informational keyword this broad and with search volume this high. Winning organic search traffic is only becoming more and more competitive as more and more companies utilize SEO best practices on their sites and content strategies. As third-party cookies are phased out, we’re also losing one of our main ways to identify who audience members are — which will make relying on keywords alone to target them even more difficult. Luckily, search intent is the solution to these twin challenges. By becoming more focused and strategic with SEO intent, businesses can target audiences based on what they’re trying to accomplish, not just who they are. This will help you find users who are qualifying themselves for your content via the questions they ask… instead of pursuing broad targets and hoping some of those users happen to be looking for what you’re providing. [bctt tweet="“By becoming more focused and strategic with SEO intent, businesses can target audiences based on what they’re trying to accomplish, not just who they are.” — Nick Nelson @NickNelsonMN" username="toprank"]

Why search intent is particularly useful in B2B marketing

One more big reason to invest in intent-based marketing: it’s especially effective in B2B marketing. Because the average B2B tech service or solution is relatively complex, the people looking to invest in it have a lot more knowledge about what they’re looking for and why. This means they know what to search for… and know which questions to ask about it, in search engines and otherwise. If you can identify these questions via intent, you can design an SEO-optimized content strategy that can answer them — and nurture your customer every step of the way in the process.

How can I use intent to improve my SEO content strategy?

As a B2B search marketing agency, TopRank Marketing specializes in developing SEO content strategies guided by search intent and audience intel. In our newest guide, “Marketing With Intent: A Guide to the Future of SEO and Qualified B2B Search Traffic,” we break our process down into data-backed steps in order to demonstrate exactly how your B2B business can create an intent-driven content marketing strategy of your own and how you will benefit from doing so. You can download the guide for free right now. And if you need any help making your content strategy a reality, the experts at TopRank Marketing are always ready to help.

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5 Steps to Building Authentic Relationships with Influencers

Has there ever been a time when you were trying to work with an influencer, but found it challenging to get their attention? Having your emails go unanswered and being left unread on LinkedIn is a silent form of rejection we’ve all encountered at some point in time — it’s just inevitable. But there is a method to increasing the chances the expert you have your eye on not only replies to your messages but does plenty more — and I’m not talking about simply using money as a motivator.

1 — Don’t jump directly into their DMs

After hours of searching, you finally find an influencer who’s the perfect candidate for your campaign. Is your first thought to send them a message on social media? You’re not alone. That said, it’s important to hold off for the time being and do some homework.

2 — Find out what they’re passionate about

You’ve scoured their social and know all about the kinds of content they create, and you have a good hold on their areas of expertise. But is there anything on their social feeds that tells you about them as a person? Do some digging. Identify something they’re passionate about. Maybe their technology’s role is in equity, or perhaps they leverage their platform to speak on climate change and sustainability. Knowing the influencer as an individual with unique traits and interests is just as important as knowing them as the subject matter expert they're hired for. It will come in handy further down the line. [bctt tweet="“Knowing the influencer as an individual with unique traits and interests is just as important as knowing them as the subject matter expert they're hired for.” — Alex White of @TopRank" username="toprank"]

3 — Be thoughtful with your engagement

It’s incredibly easy to like or react to someone's social content. Anyone can do it and it takes practically no effort. And if the influencer you have your eyes on receives a high rate of engagement, it’s likely your one-click effort to get their attention will go without notice. Do you know what else is easy? Writing a short comment. So often do I see comments such as “love this,” “great share,” and some short iteration of “nice post.” Take the time to write a thoughtful remark — something that they’ll remember when they see your name in their inbox.

4 — Send a creative, one-of-a-kind outreach message

How many salesy, copy-and-paste messages do you get a week? I average around 15 a week and I rarely read past the first sentence. It’s extremely clear that I’m part of some automated email marketing list. Now, imagine how many your average influencer gets. Stand out from the crowd by taking a creative approach to outreach. It helps to draft a message that makes it clear the message wasn’t duplicated and sent to 50 other individuals. Start with something that makes it clear that you did your research on them. Perhaps a compliment on a recent piece of content they created, or even sending congratulations for a recent achievement. [bctt tweet="“Stand out from the crowd by taking a creative approach to outreach.” — Alex White of @TopRank" username="toprank"]

5 — Connect but don’t neglect

By this point, you’ve been nurturing your prospective influencer for at least two weeks. They’ve accepted your connection request, you now have a dialogue outside of their preferred social media platforms, they’ve agreed to lend their talents to your brand, and you have everything you need from them to include them in your brand’s next campaign. Time to thank them and just say goodbye? Think again. Once the project is complete, thank the influencer and let them know you’ll keep them in mind for future collaborations. (This is of course assuming all went well). Continue to engage with them on your personal social media channels when possible. This is a simple way to stay on their radar and build on the relationship you worked so hard to establish in the first place. Chances are, you’ll have another opportunity for them in the future. The 5 steps above may seem simple, but the vast majority of influencers we engage with have told us that they are much more likely to respond to correspondence from someone who follows a similar iteration of the method above. Good luck with your search! If you are looking for a strategic partner to help elevate your current B2B influencer marketing strategy, reach out to connect with our team of experts.

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Weekend Favs March 11

Weekend Favs March 11 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but I encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one I took on the road.

• Pulse – A cloud-based marketing analytics platform designed to help businesses gain competitive insights and analyze industry benchmarks through data collection from different sources.
  
• Leadfox – A marketing automation software designed for small and medium-sized businesses to help them generate leads and increase sales. Its features include landing pages, email marketing, social media management, and analytics.
  
• Vero Cloud – A marketing platform created to automate decisions and send multi-channel personalized messages in real time. Vero Cloud offers the tools needed for audience-building and driving results.
  

These are my weekend favs; I would love to hear about some of yours – Tweet me @ducttape

If you want to check out more Weekend Favs you can find them here.

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Unveiling The Mystery Of Effective Selling

Elevate B2B Marketing News: B2B Thought Leadership Survey, Top B2B CMO Priorities, Google’s New Trends Portal, & HubSpot Adds AI

B2B Decision-Makers Value Research and Data in Thought Leadership Content 51 percent of B2B marketers have said thought leadership content that is quick and easily-absorbed provides the greatest value, with 49 percent pointing to thought leadership that references robust research with supporting data — two of several findings of interest to B2B marketers contained in recently-released survey data. MarketingCharts [bctt tweet="“In tough times, B2B thought leadership is your key advantage.” — Alexandra Rynne of @LinkedIn" username="toprank"] B2B marketplaces refine their expansion strategies B2B marketplaces such as Amazon Business have shifted strategies in 2023, including greater use of machine learning (ML) applications and artificial intelligence (AI), propelling the industry to annualized sales topping $25 billion, with estimates expecting continued growth that will reach $80 billion by 2025, according to newly-published report data. Digital Commerce 360 The Top Priorities of CMOs at Enterprise B2B Firms 46 percent of enterprise B2B organization chief marketing officers have said that developing technology strategy is the top marketing technology priority that will be faced over the next 18 months, with 41 percent noting the enhancement of data capabilities, while 40 percent said expanding the existing marketing technology stack — three of numerous findings of interest to digital marketers contained in recently-published survey data. MarketingProfs HubSpot debuts ChatSpot generative AI tool HubSpot has introduced an alpha release version of ChatSpot — the firm's new generative AI tool that combines a variety of HubSpot and third-party AI technology including OpenAI's ChatGPT and image-generation tool DALL-E 2, all aimed at augmenting functionality within HubSpot's customer relationship management (CRM) offerings, HubSpot recently announced. MarTech Shopify sees renewed interest from B-to-B merchants Traditionally aimed solely at B2C merchants, Shopify — with gross merchandise value (GMV) of $61 billion during the fourth quarter — has continued its expansion into the B2B sector with its B2B on Shopify and other offerings, attracting a growing number of purely B2B brands, while BigCommerce has made similar moves, as Modern Retail explores. Modern Retail Amazon Business App Adds Purchase Reconciliation Tool for B2B Buyers B2B buyers who use the Amazon Business mobile app can now use its three-way match option previously only available to desktop and handheld scanner users, in a move aimed at helping accounts payable and procurement teams at B2B firms, Amazon Business recently announced. PYMNTS Google launches new Google Trends portal Search giant Google has rolled out a revised interface for Google Trends — its trend-surfacing utility for discovering how various search terms have changed in popularity over time — now including links to relevant news articles and more frequent trend data updates, among other additions, Google recently announced. Search Engine Land Fifty-Eight Percent Of Enterprise Marketers Plan To Use AI For SEO, Study Finds Just 10 percent of enterprise marketers have said that they currently combine AI and search engine optimization (SEO) when it comes to creating content, while 58 percent expect to use AI as a part of their organization's SEO efforts during 2023 — two of numerous findings of interest to B2B marketers contained in newly-released survey data. MediaPost Microsoft aims to reduce “tedious” business tasks with new AI tools Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 business management platform, Power Platform developer tool, and AI Builder product have all received updates that incorporate Microsoft's specific flavor of ChatGPT generative AI technology, as the firm seeks to reinvent its productivity offerings with AI, Microsoft recently announced. Ars Technica The Future Of Human Agency, Give Or Take 12 Years 56 percent of technology experts have said that they predict humans will no longer control key areas of decision-making by 2035, while some 44 percent noted that by 2035 smart machines and similar AI-infused systems will incorporate technology necessary for humans to control most technology-aided decision-making, according to newly-published Pew Research Center survey data of interest to digital marketers. MediaPost ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: A lighthearted look at “Marketing Planning” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist AI Chatbot Obviously Trying To Wind Down Conversation With Boring Human — The Onion TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• Lee Odden — Be Bold, Be Empathetic, Lean into New Ideas: Lessons Learned at B2B Marketing Exchange (B2BMX) 2023 — Integrate
• TopRank Marketing — Four B2B Digital Marketing Predictions For 2023 — Forbes

FRIDAY FIVE B2B MARKETING FAVORITES TO FOLLOW: Oli Gardner @oligardner Gemma Davies @gdavies2 Charlie Riley @Charlieriley Joe Chernov @jchernov Masha Finkelstein @masha3003 Learn more about TopRank Marketing‘s mission to help elevate the B2B marketing industry. Have you found your own top B2B marketing news item for the week that we haven't yet mentioned? If so, please don't hesitate to drop us a line in the comments below. Thanks for joining us for the Elevate B2B Marketing News, and we hope you'll return again next Friday for another round-up of the most up-to-date and relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us on our LinkedIn page, or at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news.

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