B2B Marketing News: Targeting B2B Buyers Takes Long-Term Lens, Where CMOs Are Spending, ABM Use Rises In B2B, US Influencer Spending To Top $3B, & Media Price Inflation Concerns

US influencer spending to surpass $3 billion in 2021
An increase of over 33 percent in influencer marketing spending is expected for 2021 — reaching $3.69 billion — recently-released forecast data shows, with a 12.2 percent rise predicted for 2022 and 11.5% in 2023, climbing to $4.62 billion, according to the forecast. eMarketer

Ehrenberg-Bass: 95% of B2B buyers are not in the market for your products
As many as 95 percent of businesses aren’t presently in the market for most services and goods, however not in all sectors, according to newly-released data from client LinkedIn and its LinkedIn B2B Institute. Marketing Week examines the data, and interviews Jann Martin Schwarz, global head of the LinkedIn B2B Institute, on targeting long-term B2B marketing goals and more. Marketing Week

B2B Marketers’ Biggest Lead Gen Challenges
45 percent of B2B marketers find creating targeted and engaging content the most difficult challenge when it comes to lead generation, followed by difficulty gathering quality data at 43 percent, and managing and tracking leads at 38 percent, according to recently-released B2B marketing survey data of interest to digital marketers. MarketingProfs

Account-based marketing propelled forward by the pandemic
80 percent of B2B buyers plan to do more business online after the pandemic than they did during pre-covid times, while at the same time 77 percent say purchases have become more complex and challenging, with six to 10 people now comprising the median size of buying groups, newly-released survey data shows. MarTech

CMOs: Budgets, Resources Are Constrained, Digital Investments Most Popular
Digital commerce, marketing operations, brand strategy and marketing analytics are the top content marketing officer investments, according to Gartner’s latest CMO Spend Survey, which also showed that over 72 percent of total marketing budgets are now pure-play digital channels. MediaPost

Google Launches New Way to Optimize Videos For Search
Google has brought easier markup to video content hosted on brands’ own sites with the latest Google SeektoAction change, making non-YouTube video segmentation and chapters possible, the search giant recently announced, expanding the previous beta test of the feature to a wider audience. Search Engine Journal

Ad Market Grows 35.2% In June, Marks Fourth Consecutive Month Of Expansion
Strong year-over-year growth has continued for the U.S. advertising economy, with June’s 35.2 percent increase in ad spending representing the third month in a row of growth, according to newly-released advertising index data of interest to digital marketers. MediaPost

Instagram Stories Drafts are Now Available to All Users
Crafting more thoughtful and detailed content is likely to become easier with the return of Instagram’s option to save Instagram Story drafts — a feature that had previously been removed, the Facebook-owned platform recently announced. Social Media Today

YouTube Begins Adding Chapters to Videos Automatically
Optional artificial intelligence (AI) generated video chapter splitting has come to certain eligible videos on Google’s YouTube platform, with the option being turned on by default, in an effort to provide a more helpful user experience, YouTube recently announced. Search Engine Journal

What Makes a Brand Best-in-Class on Social Media
Marketers and consumers hold differing viewpoints on the qualities that comprise best-in-class experiences on social media, with 48 percent of marketers noting that they saw audience engagement as the most important factor, while 47 percent of consumers said that they viewed strong customer service as the most important element, according to newly-released social media survey data. MarketingProfs

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE:

A lighthearted look at the “back to the office” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist

Italian Museums Are Using AI Cameras to Determine if People Like the Art — PetaPixel

TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• TopRank Marketing — Influencer Marketing In A B2B World – Don’t Miss Out! — Crowd Media
• TopRank Marketing — Why Website Accessibility Is Critical To The Digital Experience — Dan Gingiss
• Lee Odden — Top 45 Twitter Accounts on Marketing You Should Follow — Signum.ai

Have you located your own key B2B marketing news item from the past week of industry news? Please drop us a line in the comments below.

Thank you for taking the time to join us for this week’s TopRank Marketing B2B marketing news, and we hope that you’ll return again next Friday for more of the week’s most relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news.

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