B2B marketing and sales are constantly evolving. As new tools and technology enter the space, new challenges and innovations come to fruition. Buzzwords and new (but not-so-new) terms such as account-based marketing and revenue operations have shaken up the industry in positive ways. But at the end of the day, true success all comes down to organizational alignment — especially around sales and marketing teams, including marketing ops, sales ops, etc. Ultimately, teams work better together.  

It’s been an exciting time for B2B technology companies, as more vendors and startups secure funding to expand and enhance their offerings.

When it comes to content binging, the usual crop of names often comes to mind: “Stranger Things,” “Orange Is The New Black” and “Big Little Lies.” But content binging is no longer confined to just Netflix and Hulu.

NetLine, a B2B content syndication and lead generation network, launched a new, free tool called Audience Explorer, which is designed to help marketers search and analyze buyer consumption and engagement behavior in real time.

Last week, the AMB Leadership Alliance hosted ABM Revealed: How to Align, Engage and Measure for B2B Success, a two-and-a-half-hour virtual “master class” designed to provide registrants with strategic takeaways to help them maximize their ABM achievements.

Although ABM has become an increasingly popular strategy for B2B companies, many organizations have a difficult time carrying out an effective account-based strategy from start to finish. That’s where the ABM Revealed event comes in.

Vidyard, a video marketing platform, added new updates to its free video messaging and screen recording app Vidyard GoVideo. The updates are designed toprovide innovative ways for sales professionals to connect with buyers on a more personal level. 

The B2B buyer’s checklist continues to grow and nearly one-third (31%) of buyers say the length of their purchase cycle significantly increased in 2018, according to Demand Gen Report research. In addition to considering deployment time (77%), features/functionality (72%), pricing (71%) and peer reviews (65%), B2B buyers are adding new criteria to the list: brand values and philanthropy.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have long been on marketers’ radars, but it’s only recently that they’ve begun to show up in customer relationship management tools. AI and ML are often viewed with skepticism, but many B2B marketers will discover that these features can enhance their effectiveness in contacting the right leads, closing deals and nurturing client relationships. The underlying fear has been that machines will replace marketers, but the reality is much more promising.

B2B business has a bad reputation for continuing to push traditional, lengthy, inhuman sales cycles on its prospective buyers. However, a variety of vendors and practitioners in the space are making the push to turn the B2B buying process into a conversational, personal experience. At this year’s Adobe Summit, in particular, we saw Marketo and Adobe unveil integrations with a variety of companies in an effort to better enable companies to offer frictionless customer experiences with a conversational approach.