Formant robotics B2B

Robots are coming to take your job — so become a robot commander

Accidentally running over a toddler, falling into a fountain, and getting kicked over by a drunk guy – Knightscope’s robots have experienced some tough days on the job. The incidents, all taking place in 2016, are some of the early growing pains of autonomous robots entering into more real-world environments. For decades, increasing autonomy has […]

Google Ads B2B

A guide to using Google Ads for B2B lead generation

With organic search traffic becoming increasingly difficult to count on due, in part, to the rise of zero-click search results, paid search ads are currently the best way that businesses can expect to receive targeted search traffic from Google. But creating an effective B2B pay-per-click campaign on Google can be challenging due to several factors […]

Accenture Marketing Disrupted

Accenture uses Marketing Disrupted podcast to share CMO-level conversations on digital challenges

Consulting firm Accenture this week will begin trying to reach chief marketing officers through their earbuds with a podcast series, called Marketing Disrupted, that explores the challenges they face in harnessing digital technologies. All seven episodes of the Marketing Disrupted podcast are already available and feature a range of marketing leaders beginning with former Kodak CMO […]

Salesforce Tableau acquisition

Salesforce buys Tableau: What analysts, partners and others are saying

Longtime observers of the marketing and sales technology space suggested acquisitions such as Salesforce’s $15.3 billion purchase of Tableau marks an increased emphasis on literally illustrating the actions brands need to take if they want to accomplish their objectives. San Francisco-based Salesforce announced on Monday it would acquire Tableau, best known as a provider of […]

Liquid Media Group Joshua Jackson

How Joshua Jackson’s acting career led him to launch Liquid Media, a B2B entertainment brand

For all the enterprise product announcements being made, Dell Technologies World holds little of the drama you’d find on Dawson’s Creek, The Affair or Fringe, but if a good story unfolds, Joshua Jackson is ready to provide the technology and services to bring it to life. The actor and co-founder/chairman of Liquid Media Group was […]

Amazon Business Google Avionos

Amazon Business and Google overtake supplier portals as B2B buyers’ starting point: Avionos

Thirty per cent of corporate customers now start their e-commerce purchases on sites owned by consumer giants Amazon and Google rather than the 22 per cent who turn first to independent supplier portals, according to research that will be released Wednesday by Avionos. The Chicago-based digital commerce marketing firm’s 2019 report, titled Positioning B2B Commerce […]

20-Min Term Sheet Romanow Clearbanc

Clearbanc’s Michele Romanow explains how her ’20-Min Term Sheet’ could finance 2,000 firms’ paid marketing efforts

Michele Romanow knew she had to do something to help entrepreneurs better market themselves — and keep control over the companies they create — when she first saw the wooden iPhone cases. As a judge on CBC’s Dragon’s Den — a sort of Canadian alternative to the U.S. hit show Shark Tank — Romanow regularly […]

Oribi

Oribi video ad portrays social media channels as uncontrollable, spandex bodysuit-wearing employees

B2B CMOs may occasionally have challenges wrangling the staff on their marketing teams, but that’s nothing compared to the way a firm called Oribi has portrayed the various social media channels used to communicate with customers. Based in San Francisco, Oribi offers a dashboard-like tool that is designed to track content from a company blog […]

Google Cloud NCAA

Google Cloud TV spot shows how student developers can make sense of March Madness

As basketball fans tune in for some intense competition during the 2019 NCAA Tournament, Google is using the commercial breaks to show how its Google Cloud infrastructure is running data analytics applications to help developers better understand the game and even predict what might happen. Produced by its creative agency Eleven Inc., the 30-second TV […]

CROs tech skills

What the democratization of learning means for Chief Revenue Officers and their teams

Chief revenue officers may have all the career experience they need to hire a sales manager, but judging the skills of a software developer may be a bit of a stretch. Of course, most CROs probably don’t oversee teams of programmers today, but the increasingly data-driven nature of sales means they could be pulled into […]

InsideSales AI B2B sales 2019

90% of B2B sellers tell InsideSales they expect AI to improve their performance in 2019

While the overwhelming majority of B2B sales professionals have high hopes for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to help them do their jobs, less than half have actually started to implement such tools, according to the results of a recent survey released by InsideSales. Based on a set of questions fielded to more […]

Unbounce landing page speed

Unbounce study urges marketers to prioritize landing page speed and AMP

While the vast majority of marketers realize that poor landing page speed could affect whether or not a customer purchases something, they are more focused on things like A/B testing content and refining ad targeting, according to a study from Unbounce released Tuesday. Based on a survey of close to 400 marketers who spanned industries […]

Smartsheet TV commercial

Smartsheet TV ad depicts a hellish existence for the few firms that don’t use its software

Most B2B TV commercials tend to focus on the amazing things customers are doing with the advertiser’s product, but a recent spot from Smartsheet puts the spotlight on the holdouts instead. In “Work Different,” the SaaS-based provider of project management and collaboration tools boasts that 96 per cent of the Fortune 500 use its product. […]

OpenText EP5

OpenText launches legal and HR tools alongside EP5 and partners with Google Cloud

OpenText on Wednesday will introduce an enhancement pack to version 16 of its enterprise information management system dubbed EP5, along with new applications for departments like HR and legal while also announcing a partnership to offer its technology as managed services through Google Cloud. Waterloo, Ont.-based OpenText said EP5 will bring richer user interfaces, deeper integration […]

Inbound 2018 HubSpot

5 big messages from Hubspot’s INBOUND 2018

HubSpot’s annual marketing conference wrapped up on Friday.  With over 23,000 attendees, 300 sessions and half a dozen keynote and spotlight addresses (from Deepak Chopra to Alex Rodriguez), this year’s INBOUND 2018 event was bigger than ever.  While Hubspot doesn’t name an official theme for each year’s event, it becomes clear over the course of […]

Avionos procurement research

Avionos research shows most procurement officers are bypassing supplier portals in favor of some consumer-friendly search options

Even though they work in B2B firms, 78 per cent of procurement managers begin looking for product searches on Amazon or Google rather than a vendor’s own site, and most are disappointed by what they find, according to a new report from Avionos. Avionos, a digital marketing firm based in Chicago, surveyed 160 U.S. B2B […]

Purpose-driven B2B marketing SAP Google

Purpose-driven B2B marketing is both possible and profitable, according to the CMOs of Google and SAP

When she joined software giant SAP as its marketing leader about nine months ago, Alicia Tillman did something she said most CMOs don’t often to: look backwards instead of forwards. Speaking at the company’s annual user conference, Sapphire Now, Tillman said she wanted to figure out her strategy by looking at the original purpose behind […]