For many marketers, the Fall brings a mixed bag of analyzing and fine-tuning their current campaigns to try and close out the year as strong as possible, while also building budgets and identifying new plans and programs for when the calendar flips to 2018.
To better understand which tools and tactics leading B2B marketers are planning to prioritize for the coming year, we got a sneak peek at the content and presentations from our upcoming Strategy & Planning Series. The week-long series (Oct. 30-Nov. 3, 2017), will feature 12 sessions with industry leading speakers from Heinz Marketing, Ingram Micro, The MX Group and Sage Software, who will review their top successes so far in 2017 and also share new models, tools and tactics they are planning to roll out in 2018.
The series will provide hands-on and tactical tips and guidance to help companies actually apply the hotter buzzwords, acronyms and trends — including ABM, AI, interactive content, localization, as well as marketing and attribution.
Operationalizing ABM
Account-based marketing (ABM) continues to become part of the foundational approach for many B2B organizations. According to SiriusDecisions, 92% of marketers call ABM a B2B must-have. With that in mind, several sessions during the series will help marketers with justifying spend and allocating budget effectively to maximize the overall impact of your ABM efforts. John Dering, Director of ABM Technology & Strategy for Demandbase will share tips on the company’s own ABM approach, including optimizing its program mix and creative ways to find budget dollars for target account initiatives.
In another ABM session, The Mx Group’s Tim Cook will outline a seven-step process to operationalizing ABM that is also refined based on practitioners’ current levels of ABM proficiency. Cook will share a playbook to address every stage of rolling out an account-based strategy and measuring its success.
Adding Intent & AI
As the latest buzzword in B2B, artificial intelligence (AI) is being assessed as marketers look for the best business case to apply these advanced applications across their existing teams and tech stacks.
In a session on Making The Case for AI, Deborah Holstein, CMO at EverString, will share real-world models and formulas for getting budget and buy-in from key stakeholders, with specific formulas tied to the number of sales reps and quota attainment.
In another session focused on real-world applications of AI, Miguel Gernaey, VP of Global Demand Generation with Sage Software will share use case examples to highlight how the company used AI-powered applications to achieve 6x higher opportunity conversions and 12x higher customer revenue.
Author and industry blogger Matt Heinz, President of Heinz Marketing, will also be sharing models and guidance on how to use AI and intent data to be more buyer-centric and relevant by using a mix of buying signals and intelligence in a session titled Right Person, Right Time, Right Message.
Making Content A Competitive Differentiator
Creating unique content experiences and delivering them across a mix of channels will also be a key thread throughout the series. In a session titled Content Hit-Makers, Dana Harder, VP of Strategy for Content4Demand, will share examples of how B2B brands are using new formats to engage different audiences at different stages of the buying cycle.
In a session titled 6 Steps to Building The Ultimate 2018 Marketing Plan, Paige Musto, VP of Corporate Marketing at Act-On Software, will share models for how to build a buyer-centric marketing roadmap, incorporating themes, topics, tools and championing a big idea for the new year.
To help marketers tackle how to use their content to engage content across channels, Radius’ John Hurley will provide a variety of use case examples of how B2B marketers can take omnichannel strategies from their B2C peers by putting intelligence into play across multiple channels.
Another area top of mind for content marketers is whether or not their programs are positioned to scale as their companies expand into new markets. Smartling’s Head of Marketing, Juliana Pereira, will discuss the latest results from new research in her session, which illustrates the scope and momentum of content localization. Juliana will provide actionable steps for how to develop your own future-proof localization strategy, as well as use case examples of practitioners finding success in their localization efforts.
Addressing Measurement & Attribution
Since tracking how campaigns are performing and influencing pipeline remain top priorities for most B2B marketers, there are several sessions planned that will address measurement and attribution.
During a webinar session titled Why You Can’t Afford To Keep Measuring Marketing The Same Way, LookbookHQ’s Elle Woulfe and Chris Vandermarel will share new solutions to traditional metric problems, including:
- Making every click the start of a journey, not a dead end;
- Zeroing in on your most engaged, sales-ready buyers;
- Determining what channels are working; and
- Knowing how your content is being consumed.
During another session, Feng Hong, Full Circle Insights’ Sr. Product Marketing Manager, will share a step-by-step, metrics-driven presentation on how to evaluate performance along the 3Cs (campaign, channel and content), utilize attribution metrics to optimize your marketing mix in 2018 and much more.
Attendees will walk away with actionable takeaways including:
- A guide to create not one but two marketing plans; and
- The keys to using those plans to get smarter over time.
There’s plenty more where that came from. Click here to see the complete lineup and schedule. We hope to see you at #SPS17 on Oct. 20-Nov. 3!
