It was such a pleasure to schmooze and learn at B2BMarketing.net’s Ignite conference in Chicago in late May. Felt like we were back to normal, what with plenty of hugs and the comforts of a terrific venue (Convene) inside the former Sears Tower. Which generated lots of jokes about the foolishness of Willis Group, the iconic building’s new owners, to try rebranding one of Chicago’s most famous landmarks as the Willis Tower.
I picked up lots of new applications, technologies and services of value to B2B marketers. Here’s a quick roundup of the most intriguing.
Access the buying group. Arguably the biggest challenge in B2B marketing today is to identify and reach the specific individuals charged with the purchase decision at target accounts. Christine Broomhead of Quantexa credited Influ2 with enabling her campaign by delivering display ads to specific individuals using their database. Jon Millergave a keynote on Demandbase’s capabilities in “account intelligence” to deliver messages to the right people in the accounts. His informative new ebook Unspam Your Brand is available for free download here.
The latest in chatbot tech marketing applications. Chris Penn brought us up to date (revising his slides up to the minute before his talk), and invited us to download his new guide, How to Write an Effective ChatGPT Prompt. He recommended we try GPT4ALL, which is secure, current, open-source and based on current data. And noted AgentGPT, which aggregates answers from multiple chatbots. It’s a fast-moving and thrilling field.
Get rid of your overstocks. An easy way to manage excess inventory comes from B-Stock, a clearing house for live auction sites. Michele Podesta, director of demand generation, explains that companies large and small value access to a single source that reaches thousands of auctions from retailers and manufacturers, without the middleman.
Find B2B opportunity in B2C companies. Chris Schermer’s Minneapolis-based agency has developed a specialty in helping B2C companies identify and serve business audiences. Says Chris: “More and more B2C companies are realizing the opportunity of creating B2B divisions, businesses and programs. What they don’t always realize is that they don’t have the B2B marketing expertise in-house or on their agency roster that knows how work within their company’s consumer-focused operations, translate their B2C brand to business audiences.” So Schermer steps in to assist in brand building, demand genearation and sales enablement. What a clever idea. Schermer has helped scores of companies like Best Buy, 3M, Capella University and Wells Fargo develop successful B2B business units.
B2BMarketing.net’s third effort to produce an event for U.S. marketers—Covid got in the way of the first one—came off beautifully. Looking forward to next year’s conference, and meantime, I can recommend their new community platform for B2B marketers, Propolis. Get your questions answered, and contribute to the conversation.
