Elevate B2B Marketing News Weekly Roundup: B2B Content Value Study, Google’s New Gemini AI, & LinkedIn Expands Newsletters

How Do B2B SaaS Companies Determine Pricing? [Report]
43 percent of software as a service (SaaS) leaders have said that they use competitive analysis for pricing research, with 34 percent turning to feedback from existing customers, while 14 percent utilize previous market research, according to newly-published B2B survey data. MarketingCharts

What Makes Vendor Content ‘High Value’ for B2B Buyers? [Survey]
When it comes to finding content of value, B2B buyers have said that brand websites were the top choice, followed by professional communities, search engines, social media, and peer recommendations, while those in executive roles were 27 percent more likely than others to point to original research and data for increasing brand trust — two of several findings of interest to B2B marketers contained in recently-released survey findings. MarketingProfs

Google Gemini, Next Level AI, Comes To Bard & Coming To SGE
Search giant Google’s newest top-tier Gemini AI technology has begun being tested as part of the firm’s Search Generative Experience, with Gemini AI already playing a role in its Bard generative AI chatbot product, while plans include rolling the new AI technology out for traditional search within months, Google recently announced. Search Engine Roundtable

LinkedIn Rolls Out New Updates for Newsletters, Including Improved Creation and Customization Tools
Microsoft-owned LinkedIn has given users of its growing newsletter product the ability to easily duplicate previous editions as templates for new newsletters, along with updated previewing functionality, plus an array of new subscriber analytic data, LinkedIn recently announced. Social Media Today

Is Video Content Being Created for All Stages of the Buyer’s Journey? [Report]
48 percent of marketing video content has been dedicated to the brand awareness stage of buying, with 15 percent focused on the buying stage and the same percentage to the post-purchase stage, while 43 percent of B2B marketers pointed to creating human connections as the most important result sought through the use of video, according to newly-published survey data. MarketingCharts

Two hours of daily meetings is the limit, Slack survey shows
Over half of executives have said they have too many meetings, with more than two hours of daily meetings representing the tipping point for decreasing productivity, while 27 percent of non-executive workers noted having too many meetings, according to recently-released survey findings of interest to B2B marketers. Bloomberg

Shy AI: Over Half Of Marketers Are Reluctant To Admit They’re Using It
51 percent of marketers have said they are using AI often, with 29 percent noted applying AI sometimes, and 16 percent having said they always use AI, while 52 percent expressed having concerns about revealing any level of their AI usage to customers, according to new report results. MediaPost

Optimism for 2024 With 61% of Marketers Expecting Business to be Better [WARC Report]
2024 is set to see global marketing investments top the $1 trillion mark for the first time, with that investment growing by some 8.2 percent, while 61 percent of marketers expect business to improve during 2024, with 41 percent having said they believe marketing budgets will increase — some of the many findings included in recently-published WARC report data. Branding in Asia

“While marketers are concerned about the impact of an economic recession, there is also a sense of optimism regarding the business climate and marketing budgets for 2024.” — Isabel Cleaver of @WARCEditors
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Social stands out in Magna 2023 global adspend forecast
Social media advertising spending for 2023 was expected to hit $182 billion by the end of the year, up 15.2 percent from 2022, with 11.6 percent growth predicted for 2024, while keyword search was expected to remain as the most popular advertising format, according to newly-released forecast findings. The Media Leader

Publishers Disguising Gen AI Content Risk Commercial and Reputational Blowback
While trust and brand equity have long been staples among advertising, an increasing number of marketers are confronting a new form of reputation and commercial risk in the form of generative AI content and faux AI-created authors masquerading as human, and Adweek recently took a close look. Adweek

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE:

A lighthearted look at the “Many Hats of the CMO” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist

The people creating digital clones of themselves — BBC

Spotify Says Laid-Off Employees Can Keep Jobs if They Switch to No-Compensation-With-Ads Plan [Parody] — The Hard Times

TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• Donna Robinson / TopRank Marketing — Using LinkedIn to Elevate B2B Influencer Marketing — LinkedIn (client)
• TopRank Marketing — B2B Influencer Marketing Is on the Rise — MarketingCharts
• Lane R. Ellis / TopRank Marketing — This Week in Marketing: Feed Your Ambition — LinkedIn (client)
• Lee Odden / TopRank Marketing — Our Global Industry Advisory Council — Digital Marketing Institute
• Lee Odden / TopRank Marketing — Generative AI: What Keeps Me Up at Night — MarketingProfs
• TopRank Marketing — The 45 Best Marketing Blogs Any Marketer Should Follow — LinkedIn (client)

FRIDAY FIVE B2B MARKETING FAVORITES TO FOLLOW:

Jenn VandeZande @jennvzande
Tiffany Grinstead @tiffgrinstead
David Fortino @David__Fortino
A. Lee Judge @ALeeJudge
Nancy Harhut @nharhut

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Thank you for taking the time to be with us for this week’s Elevate B2B Marketing News, and please return again next Friday for another array 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/X for even more timely daily news.

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