B2B Nation

There are some things about the art and science of media buying that haven’t changed much in recent years. But other elements of media buying are in a constant state of flux. Social media is one example. Would you have predicted even one year ago that brands would be skittish of Twitter but taking a serious look at Reddit?

Jason Gladu is the president of Avani Media, a demand gen agency that specializes in working with B2B tech companies. Back in early 2021, Jason joined the B2B Nation podcast to talk about media buying strategy. The episode was so popular, we decided it was time to revisit the subject again.

RELATED EPISODE: Why You Need Brand to Support Demand in B2B Marketing

In this episode of the podcast, Jason guides us through the media buying landscape of 2023. This time around we’re talking about the impact of economic uncertainty, old approaches to media buying that are making a comeback, and the quest for more engagement and shorter sales cycles.

Episode Guide

1:42: What has changed the most for B2B media buyers in the last two years?

4:46: What is the “temperature" of marketers and media buyers right now?

8:08: Are media buyers still setting aside precious budget for testing?

10:10: How has the media that marketers are buying changed in the past two years?

13:30: What are the most overlooked opportunities for marketers buying media today?

15:37: What are the downsides of being “safe” with your media buys?

20:05: What is Jason’s advice to marketers for the rest of 2023?

Location, location, location. That’s the age-old advice given to real estate investors. And like the age-old advice given to many areas of life and business, today it’s often tweaked just a bit. Location, location, location – and data.

Today’s real estate investors and developers have access to millions of data points to help them gauge the potential of a property. That level of insight is especially helpful during times of economic uncertainty, when investments carry more risk.

Max LeBlond is the Director of Marketing at Local Logic. According to his company, location impacts 48 percent of a property asset’s value. That’s why decisions fueled by location data provide a competitive advantage in today’s real estate market.

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In this episode of the B2B Nation podcast, Max talks about the proptech market, what 2023 has in store for the Local Logic team, and more. 

Episode Guide

3:22: Max explains the proptech landscape.

5:24: What gets Max excited about 2023? What are the challenges his team will face?

6:58: How proptech tools create value during economic uncertainty.

9:04: What are the goals Max and his team are trying to achieve in 2023?

11:00: The role of events in the Local Logic marketing strategy. 

11:50: What is Max’s favorite tool?

The pressure is on finance teams to better control spending and account for every dollar spent. And that probably doesn’t sound like a great time to be pitching new software to finance roles. But if tracking and managing an organization’s spending is the primary focus of your product, this might be your time to shine.

In this episode of the B2B Nation podcast, we’re talking to Idan Gol from Mesh Payments. Like many marketing teams, Idan’s team is trying to convince businesses of the benefits of its platform at a time when many are working to reduce their spending. And Mesh Payments is not the only one in the increasingly crowded spend management space trying to make their case. 

In the episode, Idan talks about standing out in the payments and spend management space, goals for 2023, lessons from 2022, why “efficiency” will be vital to marketing in 2023, and more.

Episode Guide

2:27: What goals does Idan have for himself and his team in 2023?

5:13: How Mesh Payments uses aggregate data from its platform to create content.

9:30: What lessons did Idan take away from 2022?

11:54: What does “efficiency” mean for Idan’s marketing?

15:34: What are Idan’s favorite tools?

An increasing number of B2B revenue organizations are aligned around their product and customer lifecycle. Marketing generates awareness, sales closes deals with customers, and customer success is tasked with increasing renewals and lowering attrition.

But just because the teams are organized in such a manner doesn’t mean the motions are carried out correctly.

In this episode of the B2B Nation podcast, we’re talking to Greg Bond, who leads enterprise sales and channel partnerships at email marketing vendor Constant Contact.

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Throughout his career in B2B, Greg has held almost every imaginable title in the revenue organization, including sales and customer success roles. Our conversation touches on the lessons he’s learned across his journey, the challenge of marketing to marketers, goals for 2023, and more.

Episode Guide

2:03: What are the biggest lessons Greg has learned from a career in revenue organizations?

8:51: What are the challenges of selling into marketing and revenue roles?

15:00: What are Greg’s goals for 2023?

16:54: What will we be talking about in 12 months, at the start of 2024?

20:33: What is Greg’s favorite tool?

Branding might be the most undervalued aspect of B2B marketing. Just take a look at any list of the dominant brands in the world, and you might see a B2B brand or two, but branding remains synonymous with the B2C world.

But the lack of investment in branding is putting many B2B brands at a disadvantage. Demand generation is the dominant marketing philosophy in the B2B space, and your demand gen efforts are much more effective when your brand works to support demand.

Without brand recognition and trust, B2B buyers are much less likely to respond to demand gen tactics and give up personal information. 

On this episode of the B2B Nation podcast, we talk to Jordan Liebman, Vice President, Global Demand Generation and Brand Marketing at Blue Jeans by Verizon. Among the topics we discuss are the state of branding in B2B marketing; Jordan’s career journey, from agency to brand and from B2C to B2B; and the trend toward consumer-like B2B experiences and more.

Episode Guide

2:40: Why Blue Jeans by Verizon provides self-service B2B purchases for its customers

7:34: Jordan discusses his career path, from agency to brand and B2C to B2B

13:19: What do B2B organizations get wrong about branding?

18:37: How does brand support demand gen tactics in B2B marketing?

21:39: What are Jordan’s goals for his team, brand and himself for 2023?

24:15: What is Jordan’s favorite tool?

27:01: What’s the short-term future for popular social media platforms?

Twenty years ago, software vendors that wanted to sell into an enterprise organization would target the tech team and its leadership. They could develop and distribute whitepapers and product guides, and attend the conferences where technology leaders went to talk shop.

Today, everyone is a software buyer. And that requires a radical shift in the way software vendors market their tools, support their customers, and even develop their products.

On this episode of the B2B Nation podcast, we’re talking to John Ragsdale, Distinguished Researcher, Vice President of Technology Ecosystems at Technology Service Industry Association (TSIA). John and his team spend their time helping enterprise technology companies that are TSIA members evaluate their own business and technology needs.

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With business buyers now playing such a prominent role in technology purchases, many enterprise software brands find themselves struggling to provide consumer-like experiences in their marketing, customer success, and sales motions. 

John discusses these challenges and more in our 35-minute conversation. 

Episode Guide

4:27: What do the technology companies John recommends to TSIA members have in common?

9:15: John identifies an under-valued revenue source for tech brands.

10:31: How business buyers have upended the world of software marketing.

13:22: What are the biggest barriers to providing top-notch customer experience in tech?

18:58: What are the growth opportunities technology companies are not taking advantage of?

24:45: What guidance does John provide to TSIA members that the B2B Nation audience would benefit from hearing?

26:30: Why software vendors have gone sour on customization.

30:50: What is John’s favorite tool?

One of the challenges B2B marketers face today is the perception that their brand is boring. As a new generation of B2B buyers takes control of the market, many of the tried and true – but potentially stale – tactics that worked in the past might not produce the same results.

That’s why today you see more video content in B2B marketing, more brand building, and more top-of-the-funnel content that plays to emotions. This new generation of buyer expects the messages they see from B2B firms to be on par with B2C marketing. 

In this episode of the B2B Nation podcast, we’re talking to Megan Noel of Trava Security about introducing humanity, emotion, and education into your B2B marketing. 

RELATED: Follow B2B Nation from TechnologyAdvice on LinkedIn for more B2B marketing resources

We’ll also discuss how Megan’s background in education helps her succeed with what she calls the “new marketing” and increases the appeal to Millennials and Gen X buyers who don’t research products and services by the same rules previous generations of B2B buyers used. 

Episode Guide

1:38: How will B2B marketers adjust to the changing demographics of the B2B audience?

4:58: What is the biggest challenge Megan’s team will face in 2023?

9:30: What does marketing bring to Meghan’s interest in education and how does her background in education impact marketing?

12:44: What is Megan’s favorite tool?

A surprising number of the daily activities that take place on revenue teams remain manual. Sellers still create reminders to follow up with prospects or customers. Data is manually entered into CRM applications and other tools, increasing the likelihood of human error in the process.

It’s a little hard to believe when you think about it. The combination of automation and business process tools was supposed to save us from all of this, wasn’t it?

In this episode of the B2B Nation podcast, Jim Kaskade, CEO of Conversica, joins us to talk about Revenue Digital Assistants (RDAs). These assistants are AI-powered bots that can take some of the manual, time-consuming tasks that hold back marketing, sales, and customer success teams. They don’t get tired, sick, or stressed. And they can work at a scale that most revenue teams can’t replicate.

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Jim also discusses the cultural shifts that make it possible for companies to deploy AI-powered assistants, the messaging that helps his team appeal to revenue leaders, and more. 

Episode Guide

5:22: Why do revenue organizations still have so many manual processes?

9:28: How do digital assistants work for revenue teams?

21:31: How comfortable are businesses using AI in their revenue organization?

26:03: Which messages are resonating with Conversica’s customers?  

30:18: What is Jim’s favorite tool

Some people encounter a problem at work with no obvious solution and find a workaround. Others see roadblocks as part of their job or the task at hand and learn to deal with them. And for other people, the desire to solve a problem impacting their daily work fires up their imagination.

Chad Waite came across a problem while working in partner marketing that lacked an obvious and easy-to-use solution. Many of his partners wanted co-branded materials to use in their own marketing efforts. So many materials, in fact, that his colleagues in creative couldn’t possibly deliver what was needed.

That experience led Chad to start PieceKeeper, a platform that helps marketers keep their promotional materials on brand and in compliance, without requiring a designer to make every single tweak along the way.

RELATED EPISODE: How Content Marketing Done Right Drives Your Revenue Organization

In this episode of the B2B Nation podcast, Chad shares his story as a marketer turned martech entrepreneur. If you’ve ever thought about solving a seemingly unsolvable problem at work by building the solution and turning it into a calling, this one's for you.

Episode Guide

2:26: Chad shares the story of PieceKeeper

6:31: What is it like to go from marketer to co-founder?

9:27: What has Chad learned from his start-up experience?

12:03: The role of customer feedback in a product-led start up.

17:23: Chad shares his thoughts on what’s ahead in 2023.

22:33: What are Chad’s favorite tools?

Every business needs to think about cybersecurity. As a result, there’s a huge market for the growing number of vendors selling the tools and platforms that help keep businesses, their users, and their data safe. And that means noise.

For B2B marketers in the cybersecurity space, cutting through the noise and reaching information security professionals is a daily struggle. You can’t scare people into buying your product. You can’t chase after every company that’s suffered from a breach or ransomware attack. 

But you also can’t make the mistake of treating all of your prospects alike. Every business and industry operates in its own cybersecurity environment. They all face unique challenges and circumstances that marketers and sellers can’t ignore.

On this episode of the B2B Nation podcast, our guest is Sawsan Hamawandy, head of global demand generation at Heimdal Security. Sawsan has held both marketing and sales roles in B2B organizations. Our conversation covers the Dos and Don’ts of cybersecurity marketing, how marketing can help accelerate the sales cycle, bridging the sales-marketing gap, a look ahead to 2023, and more.  

Episode Guide

3:08: What is working in cybersecurity marketing today?

8:52: How can marketers bridge the gap between sales and marketing?

14:08: How can marketers influence the sales cycle?

20:35: What are Sawsan’s thoughts on the year 2023 for B2B marketers?

30:45: What’s the difference between marketing for large and small organizations?

35:46: What is Sawsan’s favorite tool?