The B2B industry has seen an influx of AI solutions and programs that promise to streamline processes and marketing strategies. While AI has been helpful, there has been a lot of confusion around what it does, how to choose the best AI solution to implement for success.

StackAdapt, a tactical advertising company, has announced its partnership with intent data aggregator Bombora to further develop its Audience Solutions programs and enhance its digital marketing solutions.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many B2B organizations to pivot strategies and cancel in-person events. But on a positive note, new research from publisher Aggregage shows a majority of marketing budgets won’t be too drastically impacted. Specifically, 72% of marketers project overall 2020 B2B marketing budgets will increase, stay the same or only be cut moderately (by less than 20%).

The company surveyed more than 450 B2B marketing professionals to gauge how the COVID-19 will impact their marketing strategy for the remainder of the year.

Key findings of the research include the following insights:

70% will cancel all or some live events for the next 60 days, and nearly 25% plan to cancel some or all live events for the next six months;

65% plan to reallocate some or most of their live event budgets to online events, such as webinars;

Top spending categories — for those planning to reallocate live event budgets — are content creation, hosted and sponsored webinars, social media marketing, search engine optimization and industry vertical lead generation programs; and

Software and healthcare marketers appear best positioned to maintain marketing spending and activity, while those in manufacturing and business services are feeling the largest impact.

“The impact of COVID-19 on the world and on B2B marketing will be felt throughout 2020,” said Robert Flynn, CEO of Aggregage, in a statement. “Many B2B marketers expect online events and other digital programs to replace the lead generation they were counting on from live events.”

I have been covering the B2B marketing and sales space for four years. When I started in January 2016, I was instantly sent to cover my first industry event about a month and a half into my role. “Book your flight, ASAP,” they said. “We’re sending you to Arizona!” Full disclosure: prior to that, I was a beauty editor who covered Fashion Week, not large industry trade shows. To be honest, the only ones I did attend were because my husband dragged me to Auto and Motorcycle shows in NYC every year.

The challenges for CMOs in today’s B2B marketplace continue to multiply everyday as they struggle to promote digital transformation and customer-centricity to ultimately drive revenue. However, there has never been more opportunity for marketing to take a seat at the executive table as a respected business partner.

As digital marketing continues to evolve and change, the need to engage customers in unique ways becomes even more vital. While new tools and technology emerge seemingly every day, two trends are commanding the B2B world’s attention: augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR). In fact, according to a report from Statista, the economic impact of AR and VR is forecast to amount to $29.5 billion in 2020.

B2B buying cycles are getting longer and more complex. According to Demand Gen Report research, 58% of buyers said their decision process was longer in 2017 than in 2016, while only 10% said purchase time had decreased. Most buyers are conducting more detailed ROI analyses before making a purchase decision (77%), using more sources for research and evaluation (75%) and increasing the number of buying group members (52%).

Customer experience is one of the hottest topics in business right now. Almost every journal you read or website you visit seems to be full of variants stating, “why the customer experience should be important to you” and “how your business will be at risk” if you ignore it.

Getting B2B buyers excited about a product or service requires one thing: cooperation between marketing and sales teams.

First there was direct-mail marketing, then came video and mobile marketing – and now we’re in the era of emojis. Emoji marketing isn’t just here, it’s here to stay. If you’ve already seen some emojis popping up in your inbox or taking over social channels, prepare to see even more.