Dentsu, the global provider of marketing and agency services, recently published the 2024 update to its Superpowers Index study. Dentsu has conducted this research annually since 2021, and the firm says it now constitutes the "largest ever systematic study of B2B buying behavior globally." The 2024 update was based on interviews with 3,528 B2B buyers covering 6,539 buying experiences. Over the four years of the study, Dentsu has interviewed over 14,000 B2B buyers about over 25,000 buying experiences. The Dentsu research had three primary objectives. It sought to identify: The drivers behind ..read more

(Marketing's role in driving revenue generation and growth at B2B companies has never been more important. However, research continues to show that the influence of most CMOs with their CEO isn't as strong as the importance of marketing suggests it should be. This post describes how CMOs can elevate their standing with the CEO and other senior leaders.)  The Vital Role of Marketing Today's business decision-makers have easy access to information about almost every conceivable business issue, challenge, and possible solution. As a result, business buyers are increasingly gathering informa ..read more

(This month's Research Round-Up discusses the major findings of two recent surveys addressing the current state of revenue operations. Revenue operations, a/k/a "RevOps," is a management system designed to align the activities of a company's customer-facing revenue teams to accelerate growth. The RevOps model has been gaining traction in B2B companies for several years, but it's still a relatively young management approach.) Source:  Openprise 2024 State of RevOps Survey by Openprise in association with MarketingOps.com and the RevOps Co-op The survey produced 152 responses from ..read more

 The ultimate objective of marketing is to drive revenue growth, and marketers understandably focus most of their efforts on increasing revenues from their company's current business. Some companies have a vibrant core business that provides plenty of growth. However, sooner or later, most companies will likely see growth from their core business slow. When that happens, company leaders will probably start to think about some kind of business expansion. I believe marketing leaders should play a prominent role in identifying business expansion options. They have (or should have) the know ..read more

Source:  Salesforce (This month's Research Round-Up focuses exclusively on the latest edition of the State of Marketing survey by Salesforce. The new Salesforce survey is a large global survey of B2B and B2C marketers, so it provides a broad perspective on the priorities, challenges, and attitudes of the marketing community.) Salesforce recently published the findings of its latest State of Marketing survey. The latest survey is the ninth edition of the Salesforce research. It was in the field February 5 - March 12, 2024. Survey Demographics The survey produced 4,850 responses f ..read more

One of the most profound developments in B2B marketing of the past two decades has been the emergence of empowered and independent buyers. When I launched this blog in 2010, my second post was about "The Age of the Self-Directed Buyer." The explosive proliferation of readily available information has been the driving force behind this development. Because of easy access to a wealth of information about almost every conceivable topic, business decision-makers now believe they can find whatever information they want or need, whenever they want or need it, on their terms. Information abundance ..read more

  Nearly three decades ago, Michael Porter warned us about the dangers of relying on benchmarking and "best practices" to produce business success. In a landmark Harvard Business Review article, Porter drew a sharp distinction between operational effectiveness - which often involves identifying and implementing best practices - and real business strategy. Porter argued that competing primarily on the basis of operational effectiveness is usually a recipe for disaster. He wrote:  "The more benchmarking companies do, the more they look alike . . . As rivals imitate one ..read more

Source:  Shutterstock (This year, I'm devoting some of my Research Round-Up posts to a discussion of academic research papers relating to the use of artificial intelligence - specifically generative AI applications - in marketing. This post features an unpublished paper that provides an early look at the impact generative AI may have on marketing employment.) The potential impact of generative artificial intelligence on the number of marketing jobs has been vigorously discussed in marketing circles since the public debut of ChatGPT in November 2022. Some marketing thought leaders ..read more

Source:  Shutterstock Consistently producing content that connects with potential buyers remains one of the greatest challenges B2B marketers face. The need to create content that will appeal to individual business decision-makers at every stage of their buying process, to publish content in multiple formats, and to publish new content frequently have combined to strain the creativity and resources of B2B marketers. This challenge applies to all types of marketing content, but it's particularly daunting for thought leadership content because of the high standards effective thoug ..read more

Recent research has shown that CEOs now expect marketing to be a primary driver of revenue growth in their organization. In a 2023 survey of CEOs by The Conference Board, respondents were asked to identify their plans for growing profits in 2024. The second most frequently selected option was "Increase sales via marketing." A 2023 survey of CEOs by Boathouse asked respondents to identify the top five problems they wanted marketing to help them solve. The two problems most frequently selected by the respondents were "create new customers, retain existing customers, drive revenue growth ..read more