As the B2B industry adapted to an almost fully virtual remote work model 16 months ago, a nasty rumor started to spread — direct mail was dead. At first glance, there seemed to be some truth to the rumors as people abandoned their offices for the refuge of their home. After all, if consumers were wiping down each individual grocery purchase with antibacterial solutions, how kindly would they take to unsolicited packages turning up at their homes? According to the data (and social media accounts), recipients loved the sweet surprise. As prospects’ desires for humanized marketing strategies and brand experiences continued to grow, direct mail campaigns offered a feeling of closenessin a world that was consumed by plexiglass dividers and social distancing guidelines. In this episode of DGR Dialogue, Host Klaudia Tirico sits down with Marne Reed, PFL’s Chief Evangelist of Brand Experiences, to dive into the role direct sending campaigns played throughout the pandemic, as well as the increased presence that’s expected for the hybrid world.

We get it, everyone’s inboxes are flooded with webinar and virtual event invitations. So how do you stand out from competitors in a way that wows audiences and generates the engagement you’d expect from a physical event? Tactile marketing is the key (and we know from personal experience!). For this year’s B2B Sales & Marketing Exchange online experience, Demand Gen Report partnered with PFL to send attendees swag boxes filled with goodies to get people excited for the event. We sent more than 1,200 personalized packages to their homes and saw an outstanding 70% attendance rate! Plus, our attendees raved about the kits, sharing pictures online and engaging with us. In this episode, our Editorial Director Andrew Gaffney sits down with Nick Runyon, CMO of PFL, to discuss the planning behind the box and how we brought it to life.

B2B marketers today are wrestling with the complexity of integration, according to Michael McLaren, Global CEO of the B2B Group at Merkle. Organizations are thinking beyond individual point solutions, and are looking at how technology, data and content can help develop more holistic experiences. That is why he believes merging with consultancy Digital Pi is a natural fit.

As Triblio’s Chief Customer Officer, Andrew Mahr has worked closely with customers to help them develop successful ABM plays for close to five years. So, who better to host a series of educational videos on the most pressing ABM topics challenging today’s practitioners than Andrew himself? The company recently launched its “Ask an ABM Expert” series and we had a chance to sit down with Andrew to chat about all things ABM and the series itself.

Terminus acquired Sigstr, bringing together two teams that are making great strides in the ABM marketplace. Tim Kopp, CEO of Terminus, and Bryan Wade, CEO of Sigstr, both agreed that the time to gain a 360-degree view of accounts and building meaningful relationships is… now!

Megan Heuer, former VP of Research at SiriusDecisions, was recently unveiled as the new VP of Marketing at Engagio, a company that has made notable strides in the ABM technology sector. Bringing her analyst background to the helm of the company’s marketing department, Heuer said that this is a prime opportunity for her to help the company reach “the promise of a genuine customer experience within B2B marketing.”

This week, B2B marketers will gather in Boston for Brightcove’s annual PLAY event, taking place May 14-16. Brightcove CMO Sara Larsen sat down with Demand Gen Report prior to the event to discuss the short- and long-term goals she’s been working towards since joining the company in September, what attendees can expect at the event, how video marketing strategies are changing and more. “[We can] use video in B2B to move beyond some of the rational components of what we’re trying to talk about and really tell the story of what an enterprise solution can do and what impact it can have,” said Larsen. “Video is really the best place to do that because you can bring all the senses together to tell that story in a much more emotional way … The brands that have figured out how to tell a good story can now tell a great story with video because you can really amp up the connection with the viewer.”

New research from the Altimeter Group shows that 55% of marketers plan to spend more on influencer marketing in 2019. But according to Principal Analyst Brian Solis, marketers must rethink their approach and strategies to influencer marketing in order to be successful. In a conversation with Demand Gen Report, Solis shared what he has named “Influence 2.0,” a new approach that includes building long-term influencer relationships and working with influencers to engage buyers at every touchpoint. “Trust in companies, brands and executives plummets every year, but trust in peers or people ‘like me’ is always at the top,” said Solis. “At the end of the day, that’s what [influencers are] about … I think it is an under-appreciated strategy in the marketing arsenal.”

Although GDPR went into effect last May, 16% of companies still don’t have a plan for GDPR compliance and 11% don’t know if they have a plan, according to new research from the CMO Council. In a conversation with Liz Miller, SVP of Marketing at the CMO Council, she digs into the data to uncover the main misconceptions that are confusing B2B companies on GDPR. Miller also shares some of the key traits and themes found in the research when comparing leading GDPR-compliant companies versus laggards.

In a conversation with Kevin Cunningham, CEO of MRP, he discusses the current state of pipeline measurement in the B2B marketplace. Cunningham also shares his thoughts on how B2B organizations can leverage emerging AI capabilities and predictive analytics to enhance their pipeline measurement initiatives, while also sharing examples of how progressive companies are leveraging these types of insights to understand their pipeline.

In a discussion, Scott Vaughan, CMO of Integrate, shared some of the main qualities that he has seen have a positive impact on the growth of the industry. Vaughan also discussed Integrate’s recent B2B Game Changers Revenue Marketers Spotlight Awards, in which they spotlighted 43 marketing professionals that are going above and beyond to orchestrate technology, data and processes in their own businesses

In a quick interview at INBOUND 2018, hosted by HubSpot earlier this September in Boston, Demand Gen Report’s Brian Anderson sat down with Scott Brinker, HubSpot’s VP of Platform Ecosystem. Brinker is also notoriously known for mapping out the martech landscape on the Chief Marketing Technologist blog. During the interview, Brinker shared how he has seen HubSpot’s partner ecosystem grow during his first year at HubSpot. He also discussed how the need for easily integrated solutions has grown evermore important over the past couple of years, as well as where he thinks partner ecosystems need to continue evolving to meet the needs of tech adopters in the space.

In an interview with Demand Gen Report’s Elise Schoening, Anne Gherini, VP of Marketing and Partnerships at Affinity, discusses the evolution of artificial intelligence. Gherini also breaks down common myths surrounding AI and explains how it can actually help marketers enhance and better manage customer relationships when used correctly.

During Uberflip’s Conex event, Demand Gen Report’s Klaudia Tirico sat down with Jay Baer, President of Convince & Convert, to chat all things content marketing. Baer dished on the top challenges for content marketers today, dived into the absurdity of not aligning sales and marketing under the same department and didn’t hold back when talking about the need for delivering relevant content experiences to buyers. “Every marketer in the world tells themselves the same lie: that our audience is just too busy. They’re too busy to read the blog, they’re too busy to tune into the webinar, they’re too busy to watch the video, they’re too busy to come to the conferences,” said Baer. “It’s not true. It’s not about time. When a prospect tells you that they are ‘too busy,’ what they really mean — but will not say — is that what you have offered them is not relevant enough.”

In an exclusive interview with Demand Gen Report’s Andrew Gaffney, Drift’s VP of Marketing, Dave Gerhardt, gave the publication an inside look at the company’s latest product announcements, including its new AI assistants for marketing and sales and a new ad-to-chat solution. Gerhardt also shared more details about their acquisition of SiftRock, an email reply management company, which positions Drift to help manage email replies at scale for B2B businesses and turn the email channel back into a two-way conversation.

In a quick-hitting conversation on the show floor at ConEx 2018, taking place in Toronto, Canada August 21-22, Demand Gen Report’s Klaudia Tirico and Randy Frisch, CMO of Uberflip, discuss the three key things that make up a true and effective content experience. They also discuss the challenges limiting marketers’ abilities to create great content experiences, as well as what the “infinite scroll” can do to further enhance how buyers experience a brand.

In a conversation on the show floor at #FlipMyFunnel in Boston last week, Demand Gen Report’s Brian Anderson sat down with Terminus CEO Eric Spett to discuss the latest updates to the company’s account-based platform and how aims to become a command center for end-to-end account-based strategies. Other topics covered include the current competitive landscape for account-based marketing and sales technologies as well as how the partner landscape will evolve with the current growth of account-based platforms.

In an exclusive podcast from the floor at Webinar World '18 Joe Hyland, CMO of ON24, and Mark Bornstein, the company's VP of Marketing, discuss new models for creating engaging buyer experiences to move away from the "drive-by marketing" of the past. They also shared: • Key takeaways from the event, • Models for talk-show style presentations, and • What the future looks like for webinars as a content format.