The Marketing Technology trade show held in San Francisco March 21-22 had dozens of highlights from a substantial collection of marketing technology vendors. We have selected four items that are of importance to Business-to-Business (B2B) marketers:
- Account-Based Marketing (ABM) was prominent at the show. It is a methodology that not only increases sales but also provides a much-needed bridge between sales and marketing organizations. Among vendors whose products/services enhance ABM are DemandBase, Terminus, and YesPath.
- IBM and InsideView provide solutions for Data Quality Management and other vendors have some features related to this important issue. SiriusDecisions estimates that 10-25% of customer and prospect records in corporate databases contain significant errors.
- Content Marketing was so prevalent that listing all the vendors with this focus would not be useful. An important innovation is responsive content, not in the sense of tools that respond to a device’s characteristics, but in the sense of the content responding to the actions of the person consuming that content. Some of the vendors providing these capabilities have services similar to the best education tools.
- An upcoming area of marketing automation is influencer marketing. B2B marketers have long recognized the importance of importance of catering to consultants, journalists, and professors whose recommendations have a major impact on corporate buying decisions. Now vendors including gShift and Ion Interactive are automating influencer marketing.
Keeping up with innovations in marketing technologies can be time-consuming. Contact RightWave for assistance in identifying the advances that result in business results and distinguishing these from fads.