Celebrity has long been a staple of B2C advertising, but in B2B, it's historically been treated as nothing more than a huge flex. Too often, an A-list name signals budget more than insight. When it's misaligned, the backlash can outweigh the buzz. Look no further than the ire Salesforce received in 2023 for paying Matthew McConaughey millions while simultaneously laying off thousands of employees.
To build long-term buyer momentum in B2B marketing, it's essential to focus on connecting mental availability to buying triggers, rather than solely relying on short-term campaigns. Here's a strategic approach to achieve this: Understand buyer personas and journey Research Key Personas: Gain a deep understanding of the different buyer personas involved in the decision-making process. Identify their roles, pain points, and triggers. Map the Buyer Journey: Develop a detailed map of the buyer journey stages, from awareness to decision, highlighting key buying triggers.
Lately, one of the biggest challenges in growth for eLearning and HR tech companies is lead generation. The market is so crowded, with customer acquisition costs rising and buyers being hard to reach, making lead generation a challenge. As a result, HR leaders, L&D teams, and enterprise decision-makers are becoming increasingly skeptical of marketing claims. Taking into account this environment, relying solely on ad hoc campaigns and generic SaaS playbooks seems to no longer work.
I was riding the 5 train when I saw an ad above my seat for a company called Brex: "SeatGeek controls spend like a rock star with Brex." These words have the trappings of a sentence but do not mean anything together. I kept repeating them, like focusing my eyes on an optical illusion and waiting for something to appear. Nothing.
It's a proud moment when a B2B marketer presents a robust ICP to executives and cross-functional colleagues. You've done the work not as an academic exercise but to fulfill a promise to deliver a crucial driver of efficiency, revenue acceleration and sustainable differentiation for your marketing, sales and product teams. You've committed to making the ICP a foundational force in your go-to-market strategy, ready to move the team from a generalized spray-and-pray approach to a highly targeted, profitable model.
ABM is a proven marketing approach that has been a viable option for targeting B2B brands (and their purchasing committees) for decades. CTV is one of the newer marketing channels around and adoption, especially for B2B brands, has been modest enough to stave off the rapidly inflating engagement costs of channels like Google, Meta and LinkedIn. The intersection of the two is relatively unexplored, but I've seen it work beautifully
AI adoption is already widespread among B2B marketers. In fact, 95% are using AI-powered tools in some capacity, according to Content Marketing Institute, though most applications remain experimental, like generating marketing copy (used by 89%) and creative assets such as images and video (53%). Meanwhile, AI is reshaping how buyers discover vendors. 80% of global B2B tech industry buyers use generative AI as much as traditional search when researching vendors, with 47% using it specifically for market research and discovery, according to Responsive.
Two thirds of tech buyers (61%) feel that B2B advertising is too vague to be relevant to their business, according to a new LinkedIn report. But five key trends will help brands to stand out, says Aggie Anthimidou (head of technology marketing EMEA & LATAM). B2B technology now plays a central role in business success and buyers are under pressure to make the right decisions about their tech investments.
Seemingly overnight, we've shifted away from search to the answer economy. In the last year, B2B buying channels have transformed, altering how customers search, discover and evaluate SaaS solutions. Already, up to 6% of B2B organic traffic comes from AI sources and is growing monthly by 40%. By the end of 2025, over 20% of organic traffic is expected to come from AI sources.
"Most marketers think in terms of targeting individuals," says Jann Schwartz, senior director of Marketplace Innovation at LinkedIn. "We've inherited a lot of B2C thinking, but in B2B, the real picture only comes into view once you start looking at groups of buyers within the same company. The question isn't just 'who's clicking?' but 'have we created enough collective confidence within the buying group to make it safe for them to choose us?'"
The way most marketing teams approach AI is probably the way I approach my inbox at 4:59 PM on a Friday. With reckless optimism and zero follow-through. But Katie Miserany, SurveyMonkey's Chief Communication Officer and SVP of Marketing, thinks the real problem isn't AI - it's that most marketers have forgotten a fundamental truth: Just because you can talk about something doesn't mean you should.
The pandemic years reshaped B2B marketing in ways few could have predicted. Emergency pivots that were implemented to keep business moving have evolved into lasting shifts in how companies connect, persuade and build trust. Traditional tactics once considered untouchable are giving way to digital-first, human-centered approaches that prioritize flexibility and authenticity. Buyers have changed too-now preferring to do their own research on hybrid channels that balance efficiency with human connection.
If there were a demand generation playbook, it would definitely include lead generation templates as one chapter. These predesigned frameworks are easy to create and usually gather a lot of attention. No, you are not reinventing the wheel here. A free lead generation template is the perfect type of gated content you need to get more leads through your door. While other tactics, like email marketing and ads, are necessary, templates offer something valuable without being pushy. But why should anyone care about your templates?
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"I guess I got a little bit disillusioned with only having one string to your bow," he reflects. "If you're given a whole set of marketing and business challenges, there are a gazillion ways of solving those problems. But a media agency will always say you need to buy some advertising, which, of course, is part of the mix, but is only a very small part that usually takes up a big part of the budget."
Product thinking involves solving real user problems through structured, iterative, value-driven systems. Instead of asking what campaign to run, product thinkers ask: Who are we building for? What problem are they trying to solve? What can we deliver to help and how will we measure success? This mindset is how product teams build features. And increasingly, it's how successful marketing teams scale impact without scaling headcount.
Social media marketing can feel like a world built for flashy consumer brands. It's easy to see how a new sneaker or a trendy restaurant can build a huge following online. But what about a product that is the definition of a B2B industrial asset? Marketing something as specialized as a tank trailer requires a completely different playbook. Your customer isn't a casual scroller; they are a logistics manager, a chemical plant operator, or a project foreman with a very specific and urgent need.
Welcome to B2B buyer disengagement-what I call "quiet quitting" the funnel. This silent withdrawal isn't dramatic; it happens as decision-makers become overwhelmed by content, touchpoints and noise. And let's not forget that "68% of millennial B2B buyers prefer self-service research tools over speaking to a sales rep, and many complete up to 70% of the buying process online before engaging with a supplier," according to Salesforce.
Trade shows are one of the best ways to spark qualified conversations in complex, high-consideration industrial sales, emphasizing lead nurturing post-event.
The number one thing B2B buyers want isn't the best product or the best price - it's a decision they can defend two years from now if everything falls apart. What they're really buying is a career-proof rationale.
