This blog post is written by Kathy Floam-Greenspan and appears on the Forbes Agency Council. You can read the full post here.

Almost one-third of Americans say they are online “almost constantly,” scrolling through social media feeds, scanning headlines and responding to Slack messages.

Even a decade ago, when the web was much less widespread and smartphones were just achieving mass market appeal, the average American consumed more than 100,000 words daily between print and web content. That’s almost a quarter of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, a famously verbose text. Today, this total is undoubtedly higher.

People are awash in text, swimming in an ocean of words, while trying to achieve the proverbial equivalent of drinking from a firehose with a straw. Unsurprisingly, online audiences have become skimmers, overwhelmed with the volume of online information flooding their screens. As a result, finding potent strategies for capturing audiences’ attention has become paramount. This is especially true for B2B organizations looking to optimize their brand messaging for a word-saturated ecosystem.

Cue the video, including live-action, screen-recorded and animated productions, as valued assets to augment or replace written content online. In 2023 and beyond, video isn’t a nice-to-have B2B marketing asset. It’s a critical pillar of any effective B2B marketing program.

Why Video Is Essential In Your B2B Marketing Strategy

While everyone has their own unique content preferences, data shows that video content is quickly becoming people’s preferred medium. According to one study, 83% of consumers prefer video over text for informational or educational content. Wyzowl’s 2023 State of Video Marketing report found that businesses are responding to audience preferences, with 91% leveraging video as a marketing tool this year, an all-time high.

Notably, 96% of marketers reported that video is an “important part” of their marketing strategy, as 92% said that video provides a positive ROI, driving sales, understanding of products or services, and brand awareness.

Consumers share this sentiment. Ninety-one percent of people said they want to see more videos from brands this year.

In total, 88% of consumers have made a purchase after watching a company’s video, underscoring video’s capacity to propel purchasing decisions.

Even the nonbelievers are starting to take notice. Seventy percent of “non-video marketers” plan to implement video marketing this year.

5 Steps To Implement A Successful Video Marketing Strategy

Implementing video into your business and brand strategy efforts can feel overwhelming. After all, nobody wants their new brand initiatives to fall flat.

Here are five steps you can take to begin implementing video marketing into your business…

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This blog post is written by Kathy Floam-Greenspan and appears on the Forbes Agency Council. You can read the full post here.

Economic uncertainty, like the laws of physics, is an inevitable part of a company’s life cycle. What goes up will, at some point, come back down.

For many business leaders, economic uncertainty seems to be coming around a lot more often than it did before.

They may be on to something.

According to the Harvard Business Review, researchers have documented an uptick in economic uncertainty, identifying five modern crises amplifying uncertainty across various sectors. When coupled with the fact that 75% of CEOs expect declining growth in the year ahead and 40% think their company “will no longer be economically viable a decade from now,” it’s no wonder that people feel uncertain about their company’s future.

Often, a leader’s first response to uncertainty is to slash advertising and marketing budgets. For example, one 2022 survey found that 75% of respondents said that “signals of economic downturn” impact their media budget decisions, and 30% plan to cut their budgets in 2023.

However, leaders should be careful not to react too quickly. Nielsen notes that, historically, 75% of recessions last less than a year, and 30% last just two quarters. Economic uncertainty is cyclical, and every down cycle brings challenges and opportunities that will determine a brand’s potential moving forward.

Why does marketing during times of uncertainty matter?

Marketing through uncertainty requires a disciplined, data-driven resolve to maximize the most important outcomes.

For starters, leaders must leverage historical insights to determine potential impact. During the Great Recession, 63% of brands that increased their marketing investment saw positive ROI from their efforts.

What’s more, as Nielsen reports, “Considering most brands are already under-spending—depressing their ROIs by a median of 50%—any additional cutting of media expenses could only serve to reduce ROI further, at a time when brands need to maximize profits most.”

Meanwhile, when brands prioritize marketing spending, they continue to work toward critical outcomes, including:

• Maintaining brand visibility and staying top-of-mind.
• Building and strengthening customer relationships.
• Capitalizing on competitors’ reduced marketing efforts.
• Adapting to changing consumer behavior and preferences.

Economic uncertainty doesn’t necessarily indicate an imminent downturn, but even when times get tough, companies can still thrive, and the right marketing strategies can help make that possible…

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This blog post is written by Kathy Floam-Greenspan and appears on the Forbes Agency Council. You can read the full post here.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) can be a significant business opportunity, but they can also be corrosive to company culture, causing people to leave when expertise and stability matter most.

Before the recent pandemic and the accompanying “great resignation,” an EY report found that nearly half of a company’s key employees depart within a year of a merger or acquisition, and 75% leave within three years of a transaction. This reality is even more prevalent today as employees are increasingly willing to quit their jobs in search of better opportunities.

Since M&As can create significant organizational anxiety and swift cultural change, it’s unsurprising that turnover often accompanies the process. While employees change jobs for many reasons, company culture is often one of the most common reasons.

That’s why businesses need a “we first” mindset when combining teams post-merger and acquisition. Here are four ways leaders can begin creating that dynamic now:

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This blog post is written by Kathy Floam-Greenspan and appears on the Forbes Agency Council. You can read the full post here.

A company’s brand is its most valuable and important asset. Regardless of sector, product offering or customer base, this intangible resource separates successful businesses from the competition. In the B2B sector, which requires prolonged sales cycles for enterprises to become recurring customers, long-standing brand value is especially critical.

It may not be reflected on its balance sheet, but a company’s brand brings immense value to a merger or acquisition (M&A). As a recent Deloitte report succinctly explains, “The value of a strong brand cannot be underestimated in today’s fast-moving commercial environments, where customer loyalty is notoriously difficult to acquire and sustain.”

Consequently, B2B brand consolidation is a critical—if often overlooked—component of an effective merger or acquisition.

With M&As accelerating in today’s disruptive, high-stakes B2B landscape, companies must maximize value and opportunity from the process, requiring a strategic brand consolidation plan that produces needed results.

Here are three ways companies can implement a strategic brand consolidation plan from day one:

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This blog post is written by Kathy Floam-Greenspan and appears on the Forbes Agency Council. You can read the full post here.

In 2022, effective marketing and content creation are inextricably linked. It’s one of the best ways to regularly connect with your audience while boosting your reputation and credibility.

The Content Marketing Institute helpfully defines content marketing as “a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

In today’s digital-first consumer ecosystem, it’s increasingly important to generate content for potential and recurring buyers. Consider that 54% of B2B decision-makers report spending more than one hour reviewing thought leadership content each week. Meanwhile, nearly half of buyers view three to five pieces of content before initiating a sales process, and 96% of B2B buyers review thought leadership before making a purchase. Overall, nearly 50% of companies plan to grow their content teams this year, with recruitment for content creators, content marketing managers and content strategies leading the way.

Of course, more content is being generated than ever before, making it more difficult for brands to break through the noise and reach their target audience. Here are five factors that can help companies reach their audience with greater frequency and effectiveness.

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