11 Must See B2B Marketing Sessions at INBOUND 2022 Plus BONUS Picks for Inspiration

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Evolving Agency Roles: Why Outside Help Is More Important Than Ever For B2B Brands

I know: it probably sounds self-serving for a guy who works at a marketing agency to talk about how agency partners are becoming more indispensable than ever for B2B brands. But it’s simply the truth, and the numbers bear it out. According to CMI’s latest B2B Content Marketing Benchmarking report, around half of all respondents report outsourcing content marketing activities. Of note: 57% of the companies categorized as “most successful” use outsourcing, compared to 36% of the “least successful.” (Source) “Regarding large companies,” CMI wrote in the report, “61% indicated last year that they outsourced. This year, the figure was up to 75%. This suggests that in the early phase of the pandemic large companies pulled the reins back on outsourcing but are now back to the practice. In fact, more large companies are outsourcing now than in 2019 (75% vs. 71%).” [bctt tweet="“According to @CMIContent research, 57% of the most successful B2B organizations outsource content marketing activities, compared to 36% of the least successful.” — Nick Nelson @NickNelsonMN #B2BMarketing" username="toprank"] New research from the World Federation of Advertisers and The Observatory International found that, globally, marketers express less intent to shake up their agency rosters than they did four years ago. It’s not so much the fact that big B2B brands are increasingly turning to agencies that energizes me, but why they are doing so. The role of B2B agency partners is evolving, and the ways in which we can help clients are becoming more powerful as we enter a critical time for businesses.

The Evolving B2B Agency Partner: Key Trends

“I think we're seeing yet another facet of the massive shift in how we think about work and the workplace,” Shama Hyder wrote recently for Inc. “Countless brands are realizing that marketing and PR don't need to be in-house. In fact, these functions have undergone such a dramatic evolution, in terms of responding to what customers and clients want, that it makes more sense to have an agency team of marketing and PR experts working on their campaigns.” Hyder cited two key trends driving this shift:

• Fast-changing client and customer expectations
• Increasing recognition of the value of branding relative to lead gen

I think these are both on point, but there are a few other timely factors that I see contributing to the growing role and impact of agencies and outsourced partners. [bctt tweet="“Countless brands are realizing that … in terms of responding to what customers and clients want, that it makes more sense to have an agency team of marketing and PR experts working on their campaigns.” — Shama Hyder @Shama" username="toprank"]

Marketing teams are being asked to do more with less.

This is a common refrain in the marketing world today. In the CMI research cited before, 67% of respondents agreed that over the past year, their content team had been asked to do more with the same resources. To their credit, many marketers are answering the call by continuing to produce great work and results through these circumstances. Technology certainly plays a role. But at some point, extra help is needed in order to maintain and grow momentum. This is especially pertinent right now because…

The talent war is making it harder to adequately staff teams internally.

Hiring high-quality talent can be an expensive proposition, and that’s if you have the budget for it. Right now, even those with the financial flexibility are often finding it difficult to acquire or even retain the right experience and skill sets. The Gartner 2022 CMO Spend Survey found that 61% of chief marketing officers report that their teams lack the capabilities required to deliver their strategy. “Marketing is experiencing a historic surge in talent demand in 2022,” said Ewan McIntyre, chief of research and vice president analyst in the Gartner for Marketing Leaders practice. “Prioritizing the proper mix of resources should be a mission-critical priority for CMOs in order to attract and retain the capabilities they need to deliver against their CEO’s goals, such as focusing on brand and customers.”

Marketers face a growing need to demonstrate impact and results.

It’s no secret: the business world is bracing for a looming recession. And it’s also no secret that during tough economic times, marketing tends to feel the heat, with heightened pressure to show its worth or lose budget. “Any time there’s economic turmoil, I think there’s much more of a desire and interest to […] get better insights around results and closed-loop attribution,” OpenAP CEO David Levy pointed out in an article at Marketing Brew. As you might guess, agency marketers tend to specialize in being accountable and results-driven. We’re constantly working to win and retain clients who have many other options at their disposal. Brand marketers who want to demonstrate impact and protect their budgets can get a big boost from partnering with agencies that can help maximize the ROI on that budget … and show it. “As our clients prepare for a recession, we are focused on tying the work we — and they — do back to material business results, such as risk management, revenue and shareholder returns,” said Jim O’Leary of Edelman in an article at The Drum. “Amid the current societal issues landscape, the communications profession has seen a significant change in its influence on these metrics.”

Marketing technology is growing more complex and costly.

Technology is routinely cited as the largest source of budget allocation source of marketing budget allocation. Research finds that martech is a $122B industry, with 70% of CMOs increasing their investments in it. The problem is that so much of this marketing technology is not utilized optimally – if it’s utilized at all. (Source) Agency partners that have expertise with various platforms can in many cases help organizations get more out of their technology investments, and sometimes they can even negate a need for certain expenses in this area. (For example, if you work with an agency that offers influencer tracking and reporting services, you might not need to pay for a platform to do it yourself.) “Outsourcing your martech to a marketing agency can be a good decision compared to hiring an FTE (full-time equivalent) since you get to benefit from varied skills with added skill sets in CRM and sales, along with marketing automation,” Brian David Crane, founder of Spread Great Ideas, told CMSwire.

Agency Partners Will Play a Pivotal Role at a Pivotal Time

Managing evolving technologies (including the transition to Google Analytics 4). Navigating an economic downturn. Embracing the creative brand-building movement that is taking hold of the B2B marketing industry. Juggling all of these challenging demands – amidst a pervasive marketing talent scarcity – is made much easier and more effective with the help of seasoned agency partners that can bring deep expertise and a broader perspective through their work across many industries, platforms, and audiences. Now is the time to set yourself up for everything that lies ahead with trusted agency partners who can help solidify your strategy and set your B2B brand up for powerful growth. I’d recommend one to you but … you know, that’d be self-serving.

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Google Is A Child (And We Need To Learn To Educate It)

Google Is A Child (And We Need To Learn To Educate It) written by Sara Nay read more at Duct Tape Marketing



About the show:

The Agency Spark Podcast, hosted by Sara Nay, is a collection of short-form interviews from thought leaders in the marketing consultancy and agency space. Each episode focuses on a single topic with actionable insights you can apply today. Check out the new Spark Lab Consulting website here!

About this episode:

In this episode of the Agency Spark Podcast, Sara talks with Jason Barnard on how Google is a child and we need to learn to educate it.

Jason Barnard is an author and digital marketing consultant. He specializes in Brand SERPs (what appears when your audience Googles your Brand name) and knowledge panels (what Google understands about who you are and what you do).

His backstory – from playing the Cavern Club in Liverpool to touring Europe playing double bass in a punk-folk group to playing the role of a cartoon blue dog in a TV series to remote working from a tropical island in the Indian Ocean.

More from Jason Barnard:

• Kalicube
• Kalicube Pro SaaS
• The Fundamentals of Brand SERPs for Business

 

 

This episode of the Agency Spark Podcast is brought to you by Monday.com, a powerful project management platform. Monday.com helps teams easily build, run, and scale their dream workflows on one platform.  I personally am a user and big fan of Monday.com – I start my workday pulling up the platform and spend my day working within it for everything from task management to running client engagements. Learn more about Monday.com at ducttape.me/monday. 

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B2B Marketing News: B2B Marketers’ Most Trusted Brands, Amazon’s B2B Push, LinkedIn’s New Pinned Comments, & Google’s Quick-Read Labels

The 30 Brands B2B Professionals Trust Most Apple, Adobe, Microsoft, Amazon, and LinkedIn hold the top-five most-trusted brand spots among B2B professionals, with technology firms Google, Zoom, HubSpot, Samsung, YouTube, and Dell amoong the brands with exceptional or excellent trust factors, according to newly-released B2B survey data. MarketingProfs [bctt tweet="“Upholding honesty within your brand allows for your audience to trust you, even in difficult times. Remain authentic and say exactly what you mean, so that you can retain long-term customers and clients.” — Goldie Chan @GoldieChan" username="toprank"] B2B Going Green B2B firms Cisco and BMO were among the winners at the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) B2 Awards that have prominently featured their sustainability efforts, and the ANA has shared summary case studies on these and other B2B firms, the organization recently announced. ANA Amazon Business wants to improve B2B e-commerce journey Amazon Business has sought to bring more seamless e-commerce experiences to B2B interactions, in a market with revenue that reached $12.2 trillion in 2020 — topping even the B2C market — and forecasts pointing to revenue reaching $20.9 trillion by 2027, as FreightWaves' Modern Shipper recently explored. FreightWaves LinkedIn is Working on a Native Post Scheduling Option Microsoft-owned LinkedIn has undergone testing of the ability to schedule posts directly on the professional platform, a feature that could help B2B marketers with an array of social efforts, LinkedIn (client) recently announced. Social Media Today The ‘is B2B boring?’ debate: 6 more experts weigh in A dozen B2B leaders explored whether the B2B marketing industry has gotten more exciting and creative than it has traditionally been, as The Drum recently took a look at a variety of takes on the question. The Drum How Do B2B Brand Marketers Feel About Their Brands’ Performance? 61 percent of B2B brand marketers have said that brand building is a strategic business priority, with 81 noting that brand is critical or very important to growing revenue — two of several statistics of interest to B2B marketers contained in recently-released report data. MarketingCharts LinkedIn Rolls Out Option to Pin Comments in Reply Chains With the rollout of another recent update from LinkedIn, marketers have been given the ability to pin a post comment to the top of a post's comment section — an addition aimed at helping guide conversations on the professional platform, LinkedIn recently announced. Social Media Today Google Tests Quick Read & 5 Minute Read Label In Search Results Google has conducted tests that place an informative label on content within search results that is either quick to read or which can be read in less than five minutes, the search giant recently announced. If eventually rolled out, Google’s quick read label could bring B2B marketers a new way to highlight shorter content. Search Engine Roundtable Twitter Tests New Professional Account Options, Including Updated Link Buttons and Shopping Tools Twitter has undergone testing of a new feature that would offer an array of call-to-action (CTA) buttons as a part of its Twitter Professional Accounts features, along with several new online purchasing tool updates, Twitter recently announced. Social Media Today New Report Show That Reels are Generating the Most Reach on Instagram Online content shared in Instagram's Reels short-form video format have a leading 33.8 percent estimated reach distribution, topping images at 29.9 percent, multi-image carousels at 22.4 percent, and video's 13.9 percent — one of several findings of interest to B2B marketers who utilize Instagram contained in newly-released report data examining more than 77 million Instagram posts. Social Media Today ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: A lighthearted look at “AI Generated Marketing Content” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist Man Puts on Podcast for Something in the Background While He Listens to a Podcast — The Hard Times TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• Nick Nelson — The Most Iconic Video Game Characters Ever (and the Lessons for Marketers) — LinkedIn (client)
• Joshua Nite — This Week in Marketing: Tell Better Stories for B2B Success — LinkedIn (client)
• Lee Odden — What Revenue Teams Want From Social Media Teams — Agorapulse

Have you come across your own top B2B marketing news item this week that we haven't yet mentioned? If so, please don't hesitate to let us know in the comments below. Thanks for joining us for the week's TopRank Marketing B2B marketing news, and we hope you'll return next Friday for another selection of the most up-to-date and pertinent 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 B2B Marketing News: B2B Marketers’ Most Trusted Brands, Amazon’s B2B Push, LinkedIn’s New Pinned Comments, & Google’s Quick-Read Labels appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

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Clone of Weekend Favs August 27

Clone of Weekend Favs August 27 written by Shawna Salinger 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 that I took out there on the road.

• Krisp – a free AI tool that mutes all the background noise during online meetings in real-time.
• Deck Rocks – is an AI-based tool that generates pitch decks using GPT-3. You just have to describe your idea in 1 or 2 sentences, and you get a deck tailor-made for you within minutes.
• Writesonic– is an AI writer trained to help you write high-performing ads, sales copy, SEO content and much more. Enter a couple of keywords, and Writesonic will provide several options in seconds. 

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 Leaders Are Using Systems And Processes To Grow Their Business The Right Way

Never Miss An Opportunity Again With Automated Communication