Throughout her presentation, Hopkins will discuss how to transform existing martech stacks from a budgetary burden into a powerhouse of efficiency with a focus on:

• Practical and free tools to audit tech stacks and compare to 1,400 similar companies;
• Action plans to consider how to move forward with owning the stack; and
• Actionable and creative solutions.

To learn more about her session and dive deeper into the world of martech efficiency, the Demand Gen Report team sat down with Hopkins for a deeper discussion.

Demand Gen Report: In your opinion, what are some of the latest trends or factors impacting the modern martech landscape today?

Jeanne Hopkins: There is an increased focus on first-party data and privacy compliance along with a growing importance of martech stack integration and interoperability. There are a lot of trends, many asks and little support in terms of budget or people.

In addition, with the rise of AI and machine learning for personalization and automation, an emphasis on omnichannel marketing and seamless customer experiences call for a complete integration of customer data platforms (CDPs).

DGR: Being that practitioners are working in a world oversaturated with marketing technology, what steps can they take to audit their tech stacks to determine what’s essential and what’s not?

Hopkins: First and foremost, do a complete map of current tools and their functions. Who owns what? When is the tool/platform up for renewal? Who pays for it? Who is the administrator?

Then, identify overlaps and gaps in functionality by gathering feedback from users across departments (it’s not just marketing!)

Finally, prioritize tools based on strategic alignment and performance and define clear business objectives for each with KPIs that are reported. No data = no ownership.

DGR: What are some of the factors that led to over-accumulation of technology?

Hopkins: I’d start with the siloed decision-making within organizations. Many times, the owner of technology sits with IT. And, with a lack of visibility or training, they are not able to properly vet the technology needs of sales, customer support, or marketing teams.

Throw on top of this a lack of long-term strategic planning AND insufficient evaluation of existing tools before new purchases, and the tendency to chase what is ‘shiny and new’ causes waste of time (which marketers do NOT have) and budget (again, ‘do more with less, please’).

DGR: What’s your biggest piece of advice for practitioners who want to onboard a new piece of technology?

Hopkins: Ensure alignment with overall marketing strategy AND clearly define goals and success metrics for the new tool. You also need to involve key stakeholders from the beginning of any new purchase and develop a comprehensive implementation and training plan. Consider starting with a pilot program or phased rollout.

Additionally, regularly assess adoption and gather user feedback. Consider a debrief discussion six months into the purchase and develop a document that assesses the value received from the technology.

DGR: Similarly, do you have any advice for those who want to eliminate a component of their tech stack?

Hopkins: You have to ask yourself, ‘How would eliminating the component impact current workflows and integrations?’ In other words, what does that tool ‘touch’ in the stack?

Have a data migration and preservation plan to ensure a smooth transition to alternative tools or processes. Don’t kill something without having a backup and make sure there is solid, consistent communication to all affected teams about this modification of the tech stack.

Then, provide the necessary training (often overlooked) for any workflow changes, and monitor your performance metrics to validate the decision for the change.

To learn more about how your martech stack can you hold you back from achieving great results, make sure to register for #B2BMX East now and add Hopkins’ session to your agenda!

The post Why Commitment Is The ‘Real Magic’ Of Martech Effectiveness appeared first on Demand Gen Report.

The combined offering seeks to leverage the power of composability, an API-first architecture and generative AI to help customers identify, select, experiment and analyze personalized experiences across channels without creating new workflows.

“Personalization has long been a goal for marketers, but driving meaningful ROI at scale has been challenging due to fragmented tool chains, high development and content production costs and poor customer data integration,” said Karthik Rau, Contentful’s CEO, in a statement. “Ninetailed seamlessly integrates with Contentful, providing smooth workflows, code-free experiment creation and robust connectivity. Ninetailed’s products radically simplify personalization of digital experiences.”

The post Contentful Set To Acquire Ninetailed To Enhance Personalization appeared first on Demand Gen Report.

Bridging The Marketing Gap

Board meetings are about top-line company performance, but the CEO and the CFO aren’t the only people contributing to that goal. CMOs — like other executives — play a critical role yet are often left off to the side. One reason CMOs may not speak at board meetings is because few board members have marketing expertise, which often means that “marketing speak” is lost on the people in the room.

In the Fortune 1000, one study found that only 26 seats out of more than 10,000 were held by former CMOs, which means that the marketing leader is often speaking to a room of people that have different priorities and terminologies. With these challenges in mind, CMOs may find that they get more from the meeting if they take an approach that connects with the people in the room based on their knowledge, goals and style of communication.

CFOs Can Help CMOs Translate To “Board Speak”

While a CMO is an expert at everything from their ideal customer profile to the competitive features of their products and even the capabilities of marketing technology investments, most board members are not — and usually get lost when presented with that level of detail. It’s best to stay away from marketing jargon or getting too much into the weeds.

Collaborating with your CFO can be an effective way to figure out the right balance of data and narrative to communicate with a board. This level of partnership will help align the marketing narrative with the rest of the board materials when the time comes. While day-to-day discussions are tactical, the CFO should be able to help the CMO determine which elements are important at that particular board meeting.

This help can come in the form of measuring and quantifying the financial and sometimes non-financial impact of marketing activities and collaborating on how to best present the information. CFOs typically have the most frequent communication with the board in between quarterly meetings and can help prepare CMOs for likely questions or concerns or validate a positive reaction.

Play To The Audience

Understanding the expertise and focus of the board members can also help marketing leaders shape their presentations. It is critical to learn about the composition, interests and priorities of the board of directors, which are usually heavily slanted toward financial expertise.

The other members of the board may or may not be marketing experts and often have their own focus. They could be former CTOs, sales leaders or have another value to bring to the meeting. Understanding what they care about will help CMOs relay the value of marketing more effectively. Getting to know individual board members by asking for insight between meetings can help the CMO better understand their perspective and build consensus that will help during budget or strategy discussions.

Data is also a great equalizer. CMOs can use data to demonstrate the impact of marketing efforts on key performance indicators (KPIs). The marketing leader should be able to provide examples of successful marketing campaigns that directly contributed to the achievement of strategic goals. Be it brand recognition, a product launch, an increase in pipeline, MQLs or something else, each will have its own set of expectations and measurement of KPIs. This approach is especially key when starting any new initiatives to set goals, milestones and hurdles along the way for easy measurement and flexibility to pivot. Actual results with data supporting it will excite any Board member.

Accept The Board Meeting For What it Is

Board members are people that are invested in the success of the organization, which means they’ll scrutinize the information delivered to ensure that it makes sense. The right approach for a CMO empowers board members with information and showcases the valuable role of the CMO and their team without going so deep as to lose their interest.

CMOs that successfully navigate a board meeting aren’t just good communicators, they’re also good interpreters and smart strategists that ultimately win the respect of the board. Board members are rarely as interested in the details as the company executives, and only get a snapshot of what’s happening. The marketing leader needs to play their cards right and not make big promises or hype up a new idea so much that the board members grab onto it too tightly. This is a time to play it safe, stick to the script of initial goals and their results and any learnings from that activity which the data provides.

Jim Ogle is the Chief Financial Officer of Anteriad, a full funnel marketing and B2B data solutions provider.

The post Navigating The B2B Boardroom: CFO Insights For CMO Impact appeared first on Demand Gen Report.

Through the partnership, Kantar will leverage AnswerRocket’s platform to help joint clients create custom generative AI assistants ingrained with Kantar’s proprietary data, models and analytical frameworks. According to the companies, key benefits for brands reportedly include:

• Reducing data analysis time to hours or minutes;
• Accessing advanced analytics to inform decision-making; and
• Automating data analysis and insights to help brands reallocate resources to focus on core business activities and innovation.

“AI and generative AI are not only helping us be more effective, they are [also] giving us, and therefore our clients, a competitive edge,” said Ted Prince, Chief Product Officer of Kantar, in a statement. “Working with AnswerRocket on joint clients means brands and marketers at all levels can talk to our data and get access to valuable insights faster than ever before using AI and new technologies, [which is] vital in the fast-moving landscape they’re operating in.”

The post AnswerRocket & Kantar Join Forces To Accelerate Data Analysis With Gen AI  appeared first on Demand Gen Report.

Specifically, the new additions to Outreach’s platform include:

• Display product licensing and usage data directly within Outreach (including competitive and complementary products) to help monitor customer health metrics;

• Sequence blueprints for account management designed to streamline workflows related to onboarding, customer training, NPS detractor management and expansion;

• Time-based triggers based on specific dates such as an upcoming renewal, account check-in, key milestones or in relation to marketing communications and events;

• Custom objects that bring custom data into Outreach to reportedly unlock unique selling workflows; and

• Smart Kaia Coach for Conversation Intelligence, which includes the ability to select a meeting recording for review and apply the appropriate card, as well as understand what topics are trending in conversations.

“Retaining and expanding current customers has never been more important,” said Abhijit Mitra, President of Product and Technology at Outreach, in a statement. “At the same time, customer expectations are rising, and organizations face tighter capacities and resource constraints on their customer teams. As a result, each team member must understand customer interactions, opportunity history and product adoption to effectively execute coordinated workflows that land, retain and expand accounts. Our latest release delivers full lifecycle visibility, while enabling teams to take relevant and timely action that leads to account growth.”

The post Outreach Introduces New Features Designed To Boost Customer Retention & Expansion appeared first on Demand Gen Report.

Misconception 1: It’s All About The Subject Line

For lots of marketers, “A/B email testing” starts and stops at the subject line. The truth is that there’s several variables you can and should test, such as:

• Open rates at different times of the day and week, along with varying subject lines; and
• Post-open engagement and conversion factors, such as body copy, headline copy, offer/promo, CTA, background colors or the order of content blocks.

You should make a point of updating your list periodically with other elements to test. The more you test, the more you learn.

One last note on this subject: Changes in open rate are relatively murky post-iOS 15, which is even more reason to expand the scope of variables to test.

Misconception 2: You Can Test Everything, Everywhere, All At Once

Clean A/B tests involve one variable, not many: Don’t switch up a subject line and time of send and day of week, or you won’t know which one(s) made a difference. Beyond that, they require focus on specific elements within that variable.

Since people love to talk about subject lines, let’s use that as an example. Wildly different subject lines will perform differently, but you won’t understand why. On the other hand, if you’re testing specific differences like emojis versus no emojis, question versus statement, etc., you’ll have a clear takeaway from the data.

Misconception 3: Instant Wins Abound

One of the biggest misconceptions is that each A/B test might just produce a silver bullet. In fact, A/B testing results are best seen in aggregate, over the long term. If you’re structuring your tests well and getting information to optimize future sends, the wins will mount steadily over time.

One reason you shouldn’t expect instant results is that the audience for the test will be split in half: Even if one version knocks the other out of the park, 50% of your audience will still be underperforming in comparison.

Last thing here: Depending on the test, you might not find any kind of winner. Inconclusive findings are fairly common, and it doesn’t mean the test was flawed. Instead, it simply means the variable you introduced — e.g., changing the copy format to bullet points — didn’t move the needle one way or the other.

Misconception 4: Once A Winner, Always A Winner

A winning test from six months ago might not be a winner if the same test were run today. That’s not to say you should relaunch tests in rigid six-month intervals, but you should keep an eye on any winning campaigns to make sure their performance remains strong. If you see engagement trending steadily down over time (rather than witnessing one bad send and over-reacting), it might be your signal to take another look.

Misconception 5: The Truth Is Universal

We love a good best practice at DMi, but we also know there are exceptions to every rule that you won’t know until you test. For instance, for one client, we personalized a CTA to reflect the person’s location (e.g. “Find businesses in {city}!”), and performance was far lower than the email with the non-personalized CTA.

In other words, work with guidelines — not assumptions —and be prepared for some surprises along the way.

Misconception 6: A/B tests Are Always A Good Idea

Speaking of universal truths, while we love A/B tests, they aren’t always a good strategic move! If you need to push out an email for the sake of engagement and performance, put your best foot forward (informed by all the learnings from past A/B tests, of course) rather than segmenting your audience and risking a less-than-optimal performance from 50% of the list.

Misconception 7: There’s No Value In Failure

If you test a great idea that falls flat, it can be hard on the ego — but it’s also important knowledge that you need to file away for reference. Remember that the aggregate value of A/B testing comes in the insights you can apply over time, and you’ll reframe “failure” as a valuable piece of information.

How important is it to get A/B email testing right? Well, as media costs soar and first-party data usage becomes even more important, email marketing has a very important role in holistic marketing strategies. Great A/B testing that helps you raise the levels of your email engagement over the long term is one of the best investments you can make for your marketing growth.

Lauren McGrath is an Associate Email Strategy & Execution Manager at digital marketing agency DMi Partners, which she joined in 2021. Lauren, a New Jersey native who earned a bachelor’s degree in fashion merchandising and an MBA from Thomas Jefferson University, builds and optimizes email campaign execution processes for a portfolio of brands across B2C, CPG and B2B verticals. She began her email marketing career in 2018 and is passionate about raising the bar for email performance standards across the marketing industry.

The post 7 Misconceptions About Email A/B Testing appeared first on Demand Gen Report.

In an exclusive interview with Demand Gen Report, Tiga’s CEO Andre Ye revealed that the platform came to fruition based on a series of discussions he had with GTM professionals in his network. Throughout those conversations, he realized that about 80% of his peers were rethinking their GTM motions due to the need for change in traditional outbound marketing tactics.

“There was a time when uploading a list of 5,000 names and blasting them with a templated email worked, but we’re past that,” Ye explained. “The move away from cold outbounding caused people to rethink traditional GTM motions and the role of the SDR. A lot of people are saying, ‘I’ve done the SDR thing, the ROI isn’t there; I’m going with full-cycle account executives (AEs).’ And then even the ones still using SDRs are rethinking those roles, whether it’s using fewer of them or reserving them for enterprise accounts. Whether they decide to use full cycle AEs or SDRs, one thing is clear: Cold outbounding with these mass-market methods isn’t working anymore, and businesses need to prospect a different way.”

With that in mind, Ye and his co-founders built Tiga to serve as an AI co-pilot purpose-built for signal-based selling, which focuses on finding the signals that matter, identifying in-market accounts and generating relevant messaging. He continued that Tiga can be trained each user’s unique business content to serve as a custom generative pre-trained transformer (GPT).

“The future of selling is about 1:1 signal-based selling rather than cold, mass market outbounding,” said Ye. “Whether you’re an account executive or a strategic SDR, you need to prospect in this new way and Tiga.ai was designed to help you do so, at scale. Our proprietary AI platform makes it possible for you to discover custom buyer signals that matter to your business and autonomously execute the optimal sales play for that signal.”

The post Former Eloqua Executives Launch Tiga.ai, An AI Platform For GTM Teams appeared first on Demand Gen Report.

A key part of ChannelMix’s offerings include a Marketing Impact Modeling (MIM) platform, which reportedly accesses real-time granular data to generate actionable and timely recommendations for improving marketing performance, leads and revenue. InMarket plans to combine MIM with its Lift Conversion Index multi-touch attribution solution to help marketers unlock access to real-time optimization, long-term strategic planning, advanced AI capabilities and privacy-first and compliant data integration capabilities.

“We are excited to bring ChannelMix’s pioneering, next-generation solutions to InMarket’s clients,” said Todd Morris, CEO of InMarket, in a statement. “In an era where data and real-time decision making is paramount for marketing efficiency and effectiveness, the integration of ChannelMix’s sophisticated analytics with InMarket’s industry-leading, real-time marketing and measurement capabilities will empower our clients to make more informed, data-driven decisions. This acquisition reinforces our commitment to providing the most comprehensive and effective marketing solutions on the market.”

The post InMarket Acquires ChannelMix To Enhance Data Analytics & Media Mix Modeling Capabilities appeared first on Demand Gen Report.

“More than 50% of leaders who don’t really see the full potential or are really hesitant to integrate generative AI into their business,” said Calen Holbrooks, VP of Integrated Marketing for go-to-market (GTM) platform ZoomInfo. “On the other hand, a measly 3% are already recognizing and actively realizing business value from their AI initiatives. It’s really the leadership and executives that are falling behind because of their concerns around data. The root cause or concern is around the data quality, reliability, accuracy and compliancy.”

To shed more light on how poor data impacts AI usage and buyer engagement, Holbrooks teamed up with her colleague Kayla Prunier, AVP of Sales, to host, “Where Are The B2B Buyers? And How Do We Find Them?”, a webinar that discussed practical ways to combine AI with high-quality data. Throughout their presentation, Holbrook and Prunier dove into the power of leveraging AI in tandem with clean data, which can ensure sales is always working with accurate, real-time buyer intent signals.

Create A Foundation Of Robust, Granular & Up-To-Date Data

Access to clean data is a common problem that most companies face — a recent survey by Experian found that 55% of corporate leaders distrust their own data, and according to Prunier and Holbrook, there are layers to this skepticism, which might include:

• A lack of data;
• Inconsistent or duplicative data; and
• Too much data to make sense of.

“Bad data is clearly a problem, and adding AI to the mix will only exacerbate that issue,” said Prunier. “As exciting as AI is and as useful as it can — and will — be when leveraged properly, it’s nothing without good data. AI won’t be able to revolutionize your go-to-market (GTM) approach or your company if it’s grabbing from incomplete or flat-out wrong data pools.”

Use That Clean Data To Fuel Clear Buying Signals

One of the most critical aspects of leveraging AI and data for business growth, according to ZoomInfo’s experts, is identifying the best signal — aka the one most likely to convert. Marketers traditionally know when a lead or MQL source is close conversion, but they often don’t understand what’s happening at the account level. To generate that understanding, businesses must understand the signals, motions or actions that are most likely to propel conversion.

“Understanding which signals are most predictive to conversion is key to effectively targeting and engaging potential buyers,” said Holbrooks. “These signals can come from a variety of sources. We have intent data that most people use now, different behavioral cues, and information coming out of earning reports or demographic statistics. There’s so much data that we can pull together to identify these signals. So, ask yourself: ‘What’s the best signal to convert my business?’ Understanding that will be the next clue to helping solve those elusive buyers.”

Close The Gap Between Sellers & Buyers

When salespeople (and their AI counterparts) aren’t working off of clean data, it creates a disconnect between buyers and sellers. Everyday buyers are on a journey, and the reality is that they’re starting that journey before sellers can even have a conversation. This is because most of the time, buyers are largely unknown and only 10% of your total addressable market is actively looking for a conversation, meaning that most teams are pursuing leads that really aren’t ready to engage.

“When you’re not using AI and data effectively, it’s truly impossible to get in front of that 10% to ensure that you’re maximizing your sellers efforts,” said Prunier. “To address this problem, it’s essential that you harness AI and clean data, because AI can analyze a vast array of buyer signals. We can turn what seems like a challenge into a solvable mystery by aligning your sales team’s efforts with real time needs of your buyers, which ultimately helps you win opportunities at the right time.”

To unlock the full insights “Where Are The B2B Buyers? And How Do We Find Them?”, register for the Buyer Insights & Intelligence Series now — it’s currently available for free on-demand!

The post The Secret To Unlocking Anonymous B2B Buyer Engagement appeared first on Demand Gen Report.

And just like Olympic viewership is skyrocketing, so are content budgets: 91% of leaders anticipate budget increases and, consequently, content production is expected to increase by 3X to 5X. As practitioners ramp up their content machines, practitioners need to balance quality with effectiveness to ensure their content meets buyers’ preferences.

“Content plays a pivotal role in B2B demand generation as it serves to educate, engage and build trust with potential customers,” said Ken Stout, SVP of Data Axle, a data, technology and marketing services provider. “Quality content positions a company as an industry authority, attracting prospects seeking valuable insights.”

With crafting quality content in mind, it’s time to look at B2B buyers’ contenders for the gold, silver and bronze medals of content formats to determine what assets resonate most strongly with prospects and customers.

Bronze: User-Generated Content

Coming in at the No. 3 spot is all forms of user-generated content, which encompasses everything from case studies to product reviews. Third-party validation is crucial to generating credible content: Sure, your team can tell buyers about how great your offerings are, but the bias is abundantly clear. Instead, savvy buyers are turning to industry thought leaders and influencer feedback to paint a clearer picture of the solution they’re about to purchase. But if you’re a marketer not already leveraging user feedback, don’t sweat: You likely have all the information already at your fingertips.

“Every marketer has excellent access to zero- and first-party data,” said Sarah Sehgal, Director of Demand Generation for OpenSesame, an educational technology company. “Zero-party data, specifically, comes from people raising their hands and intentionally sharing information, while first-party is coming from whatever platforms you have on your website that connect into our CRM or marketing automation tool. To generate more first-party insights, you need to go into those systems to segment and activate your audience by action to unlock that type of engagement.”

Silver: Digital Events & Webinars

Ah, the mighty webinar. While it was a close runner-up, it didn’t secure enough of the vote to jump up to the No. 1 spot on the podium. The medium’s popularity is clear, as it helps facilitate virtual connections and allows attendees to interact with their peers and learn from experts. In an era where time is valuable and buyers are looking for the most streamlined journey possible, webinars emerge as a formidable contender to provide comprehensive content and distill detailed explanations that are often not possible in static formats. However, to make the most out of this lucrative medium, webinars aren’t something marketers can sprinkle in whenever they want — it’s a strategy that requires a full commitment.

“Virtual events can’t be a targeted effort your company does here and there,” said Jason Widdup, VP of Marketing at Metadata.io, a demand gen platform. “They should really be an ongoing channel that’s a key part of your overall marketing strategy. If you’re just ‘spraying and praying’ or hosting one-off events, you can’t connect them to any of your other marketing efforts. You must cohesively weave the virtual events channel into overall marketing efforts.

Gold: Short Form Content

If B2B had a national anthem, we’d start playing it now! Whether you want to refer to it as the Michael Phelps or Simone Biles of marketing, short-form content was easily the GOAT for 67% of B2B buyers. As I’ve said before, the attention economy is in a recession as attention spans plummet: The average time that a person can focus on one thing has dropped from around 2½ minutes to around 45 seconds, meaning short is in — especially with 70% of B2B buyers preferring to learn about a company through articles and blog posts.

“We need to start looking at formats that are shorter and easier to digest: Everything doesn’t have to be this long soliloquy of what buyers need to do,” said Dana Harder, Partner at Unreal Digital Group, a demand generation agency. “Those longer-form content pieces have a place, but we also need to mix it up with short-form podcasts, social posts, video, interactive pieces and web-based content so it’s easier to find and for gen AI tools to pick up.”

If I had the Photoshop/Canva skills, I’d insert a fun image of an Olympic podium or photoshop each medalist into a flag-raising ceremony. However, despite my lack of artistic prowess, there’s no denying the ongoing power of content, as 48% of practitioners plan to publish content daily. With such an uptick expected in content generation, it’s essential that B2B practitioners to maximize their resources and ensure they’re providing buyers with the formats and mediums they’re most likely to engage with.

To uncover more into the current state of content marketing, check out “Navigating The Attention Economy Via Snack-able & Shareable Content.”

The post Ranking B2B’s Top 3 Content Formats For Buyer Engagement appeared first on Demand Gen Report.