Elevate B2B Marketing News: B2B Pipeline Study, AI’s Rising Video Use, Google’s New Verification Tools, & What B2B Buyers Want

B2B buyers want purchasing to be more social and entertaining
62 percent of B2B buyers have said that they would like more entertaining online purchasing processes, with 60 percent noting that they plan to increase their use of digital purchasing channels, while over 40 percent will abort an online buying process if it takes more than three seconds — three of numerous findings of interest to B2B marketers contained in newly-published survey data. Digital Commerce 360

B2B Sellers Should Include Financial Data In Emails, Not Sound Robotic: Study
81 percent of B2B sellers said that an understanding of a client’s financial performance is important when it comes to engaging executives, while 72 percent reported greater success when such financial data was used, according to recently-released B2B seller survey data. MediaPost

Elon Musk and others urge AI pause, citing ‘risks to society’
A six month development pause on the most powerful new variants of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been urged by over 1,000 AI industry experts — including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak — in an open letter from the non-profit Future of Life Institute, as the rapid pace of AI evolution has caused increasing concern across industry boundaries. Reuters

Google Announces The Ads Transparency Center And 2022 Ads Safety Report
Search giant Google is launching new advertising transparency data and tools with the global rollout of a new Ads Transparency Center — combining ad data from its Google Search, Display, and YouTube platforms — along with new insights from its most recent Ads Safety Report, Google recently announced. Search Engine Journal

Remove Boredom and Frustration from Your Customer Journey
Marketers who are able to recognize and overcome customer challenges relating to frustration and boredom along the purchasing path stand to connect with customers on new emotional levels, and the Harvard Business Review takes a look at the power of making new things familiar and familiar things new. Harvard Business Review

Digital Not Immune From Current Ad Recession, Falls 2% YTD
Overall U.S. advertising spending fell by 6.9 percent during January and February 2023, however the digital segment recorded a decline of just two percent, as digital’s share of overall ad spending climbed to 59 percent, according to newly-published Standard Media Index data. MediaPost

Is AI the Future of Video Creation? We Asked Wistia’s Head of Production
AI has seen growing use within video creation, as content creators look to increase efficiency and tap into a new realm of creativity made possible by the nascent technology, and HubSpot recently explored how Wistia’s head of production has implemented an AI workflow in the video creation process. HubSpot

[bctt tweet=”“AI is opening the door to new ideas, new executions, and new visuals that I may not have come up with on my own. It’s expanding my creative palette, not just saving me time.” — Chris Lavigne @crlvideo” username=”toprank”]

Five new ways to verify info with Google Search
Google has published new details about its updated “About this result” and other digital information verification tools, as the search giant seeks to bolster its digital fact-checking features and to help pinpoint contextual information gaps and increase information literacy, Google recently announced. Google

Zoom is adding new features to compete with Slack, Calendly, Google and Microsoft
Zoom has begun rolling out an array of new and updated features, including meeting summaries fueled by AI, whiteboard generation, and Zoom IQ for Sales which offers video call sales data, among other new functionality, Zoom announced recently. TechCrunch

To Boost Conversion Rates, B2B Marketers Look to Better Understand Their Pipelines
43 percent of U.S. B2B marketers have said that improving the quality of the leads they gather and the nurturing they perform is a top priority when it comes to increasing conversion rates, with 39 percent pointing to improved pipeline analysis, and 34 percent who pinpointed better having a better understanding of which leads convert in their organization’s pipeline — some of the findings included in newly-published survey data of interest to B2B marketers. MarketingCharts

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE:

A lighthearted look at “AI Written, AI Read” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist

Two Hearted IPA’s new campaign celebrates its utter disdain for what’s trending — Ad Age

TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• Lane R. Ellis — This Week in Marketing: Spring Cleaning for Marketing Strategies — LinkedIn (client)
• TopRank Marketing — Manufacturing Best Practices for Influencer Marketing — Industry Today

FRIDAY FIVE B2B MARKETING FAVORITES TO FOLLOW:

Jenn Herman @jenns_trends
Allen Weiss @allenweiss
Ashley Faus @ashleyfaus
John Jantsch @ducttape
Pam Didner @PamDidner

Learn more about TopRank Marketing‘s mission to help elevate the B2B marketing industry.

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Thank you for taking the time to join us for the Elevate B2B Marketing News, and we hope that you will come back again next Friday for another selection of the most up-to-date and relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us on our LinkedIn page, or at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news.

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